Last Friday evening while you were reading my column here in Mysore, I was at Bangalore trying to attend a wedding in the family. I used the word “trying” because that is exactly what I was doing and I was one among the many who tried and the few who succeeded in reaching the venue with none reaching there on time including the groom himself and his family. It was later announced that on that day Bangalore received 106mm of rain in about three hours, the highest rainfall recorded in a single day over the past ten years.

While this may be a record of sorts for our capital, it is nothing very great for our State as 106mm of rain translates to just about four inches of rain which many places in the State receive on any given monsoon day. But these four inches of rain were enough and more to paralyse the city for more than four hours as nothing else could. Thankfully, on that day there was not much loss of life as there was no gale to uproot trees or to topple electric poles as it often happens.

There was so much water everywhere that even though Bangalore is nowhere near the source of such a possibility, it gave the impression that a large dam somewhere close to the city had suddenly breached. Although I gave the rain a full three hours to peter out before finally venturing to drive down to the wedding venue which was just five kilometers away from where I started, I found that there was simply no way of avoiding waterlogged roads whatsoever as there simply were no roads that were not plagued by this problem.

While I have been in Bangalore during the rainy season many times before during my childhood I had not seen this problem anywhere as Bangalore was until then certainly one of our most well - planned cities. Last Friday was the first time in recent years that I had an occasion to experience what Bangaloreans now regularly experience during the rains. Although water logging in a few ill - planned and low - lying older areas is common and even expected during the rains in many cities, the scenario in Bangalore is completely different. Even in the best laid out newer areas of the city; the widest roads with adequate storm water drains on either side were like the canals of Venice, full of rain water. Yes, the analogy seems perfect as rescue workers in many areas had to use boats and inflatable dinghies like the gondolas of Venice to evacuate trapped people.

Everywhere I could see dozens of stalled vehicles holding up hundreds of even those that could move on only if given some space to do so. Railway under - bridges and low-lying underpasses, on which Bangalore depends heavily these days to relieve traffic congestion, were simply “unpassable”. With traffic lights blinking helplessly and with no traffic Policemen to regulate or direct them, motorists were compounding their own misery by trying every conceivable trick like impatient players at a desperate game of chess in the dark.

Even ambulances with their sirens muted and their preference over other vehicles helplessly forgotten had to just wait for their turn to crawl out of the chaos. At every place where this pileup could be seen it was not until the rain stopped fully and the Policemen in raincoats arrived on the scene that the tangles of helpless vehicles could be undone slowly to let their owners go home in a daze. Many people simply had no other option than to abandon their stranded vehicles and walk home wading through the waters.

The next morning when everything seemed so deceptively calm and serene I drove along the same stretch of roads I had struggled through the previous night just to see why the rainwater had so determinedly decided to stay on the roads away form the storm water drains through which it should have flowed out harmlessly. Almost everywhere I found that the inflow openings of storm water drains were either clogged by leaves or plastic waste while in many places they had paradoxically been placed at a level much higher than the surface of the road itself.

In many areas there simply was no provision for the rain water to flow away from the road whatsoever. All these defects speak either of bad and unscientific planning or of sheer neglect in the maintenance of what has been planned well. The biggest defect in planning that I found was in ignoring the cancer - like growth of the city centre which could have been contained within manageable limits by planned overall development of peripheral areas and satellite townships.

If the officials responsible for regulating the hectic construction activity had done their jobs honestly and efficiently without compounding their own corruption with the “Akrama – Sakrama” mantra that was designed to conceal it, the city would have seen some sanity today.

Mysore during the rains used to paint an unusually pretty and appealing picture until very recently. This picture - postcard image is slowly fading away as we find that many areas of our city too suffer prolonged inundation during the rains. The sufferings of Bangaloreans, both in rain and shine, should be an eye - opener for us here in Mysore to appeal for an end to the unchecked growth of our city. Otherwise of what use will our civilised life be if we are reduced by our progress to live like cavemen sans a little dignity and the basic amenities of life?