Kumartuli or Kumortuli is located in the northern part of the city of Kolkata . The locality is a traditional habitat of the potters for nearly three hundred years. The potters or the artisans or the artists settled here during the restructuring of the Kolkata colonial region by the British East India Company . Earning a livelihood by making earthen pots and utensils first they gradually shifted to the making of the idols of Gods and Goddesses for various festivals round the year. With increasing demand and quality of their creations over time the artisans became famous and Kumartuli came to be known as the hub of idol makers supplying thousands of idols, particularly of Goddess Durga , to whole of the state of West Bengal and to NRIs of around 90 countries across the globe. At least three months before Durga Puja , the biggest festival of West Bengal and one of the biggest across Eastern India, more than five hundred workshops come alive with hyper activity day and night. Fir...
The traditional date of arrival of the South West Monsoon in Mumbai is 10thJune. This year the monsoon officially hit Mumbai on 16-17th June, 2012. But there have been no rains thus far. As I was writing out this post a heavy downpour started and looked set to continue. Alas! It dried up very fast as if not at all in a mood.
For the coming days the met office has no optimistic forecast. But the met office is hardly taken seriously around this part of the world. Whenever it forecasts heavy to very heavy downpour in the next twenty four hours people think they can leave their umbrellas safely at home! The greatest deluge in recent times and many other major rain disasters caught the met office totally unawares.
Apart from causing uncertainty for the Maharashtra farmers the no-rain situation worries the city as the authorities have declared that the city has a water reserve to last only 19 days more. After that water scarcity looms large, if monsoon does not still get into a mood.
Meanwhile the north eastern state of Assam has been reeling under flood with many areas in almost all parts getting inundated, streets and houses submerged. Due to incessant rains for the last three days flood waters have invaded roads and lanes and have sneaked into numerous houses in the city of Guwahati too. Our ancestral house where we enjoyed the beginning of the rains only recently has two-inch of water inside!
And then the absurd! Flood waters in a wetland in the city have swept in a currency note bonanza. Local inhabitants while coping with rising water levels noticed currency notes of high denomination floating around!
For two days now, they have been busy collecting the notes. The local authorities have done nothing so far despite people continuously searching for the windfall and demonstrating and drying up their find and one youth dying tragically in the mad rush. Maybe somebody’s treasure house of black money got devastated by the flash floods or maybe somebody took up the ‘natural’ opportunity to ‘legalize’ their black money! The police and the local authorities could be trying to hide somebody’s identity, perhaps! Nature cannot tell!
Meantime the rains pounced down again…and dried up again!
Conditions here in the Philippines is similar, sometimes it rains too hard and sometimes there is no rain at all!
ReplyDeletethat's a good thing for those who needs money but sad if those came from good hard earned people.
ReplyDeleteclimate nowadays are very unpredictable.
ReplyDeletethat was interesting, a blessing despite the disaster.
ReplyDeleteBlessing indeed during these hard times.
ReplyDeletei don't know if that was a blessing in disguise...what is a black money by the way?
ReplyDeleteWhoa! blessing indeed due to the times that you experience flood money comes! That is really a good thing here in the Philippines we never experience those things yet. I do pray that these will not happen though.
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