ChinmayC Blog

     Isn't our Sun getting increasingly autocratic nowadays? During the hot humid days He disperses all dark-looking clouds that are apparently willing to satiate the scorched souls and the parched lands, and rules supreme! When He's done for the day in our part of Earth only then the clouds are allowed to pour if they so desire! But nope! The clouds seem to whisper "He pissed us off!" and blow away! But of course, they vent their accumulated frustration at the slightest opportunity! Poor us! 

It’d be wrong if I say I’ll never be able to forget about that particular near-dawn while nestled inside a crammed flat in a congested locality of Kolkata, which was once, in my opinion, given the euphoric title of ‘City of Joy’. Instead, I should say I’ll always remember that particular near-dawn which is essentially to keep myself somewhat prepared for more similar or worse experiences in the near future. Yes, it’s about the IMD-described ‘one of the longest and deadliest summers in India’ of which Kolkata is a very significant part. Now to what happened in that near-dawn which is, in fact, is only a day before .   I woke up suddenly in the dead of the night and immediately felt the oppressiveness which was apparently the cause of waking up. The ceiling fan was whirring above us, my wife and I; but its gusts of air were no longer airy—it only seemed to have lost itself into the relentless clutch of that oppressiveness. I was sweating profusely and the heat rashes all over my bo...

When we returned to Kolkata by the third week of January 2023 we hoped we still had a chance of catching the winter that we miss most often due to our compulsory visits to Maharashtra. As per our own experience in previous years in the city of joy the month of February could still be cold or even chilly if you're lucky! We had the stock of the woollens ready to welcome us in. However, to our utter disappointment the temperatures kept on climbing making the use of all my sweaters, jackets, blazers and so on an wasted thought. The summer looked to be around very early this time. In fact, in several regions of the country there were heat waves! February heat waves, imagine!  Early March we came to Assam as another integral part of our compulsive itinerary. The first few days were almost the same in terms of heat, except that the nights were much cooler, but still not enough to justify the use of sweaters one of which I carried in my bag as a reasonable discretion. From the 15th of tha...

Climate change and global warming are by now household words, and more frighteningly, the impact of these terms have been cruelly discernible in the daily lives of the citizens in many parts of India and the world. The world leaders must understand the deadly reality of our only habitat getting hotter and hotter by the day, and if this is not checked immediately by whatever possible means in our command this planet is set to be uninhabitable very soon, sooner than we think. The South West Monsoon, still the mainstay of agriculture in India, has been uneven this year in the extremes—some traditionally dry regions getting excess rains to a huge extent, some regions getting their full quota delivered in a matter of days and some traditionally wet regions still not having a monsoon with its usual flow and downpours. Therefore, in all such cases the monsoon is not helping the farmers at all, and on the other hand, people in many areas with scarce rainfall are suffering from continuous heat ...