Barrett's Laws of Driving

1. You can get ANYWHERE in ten minutes if you go fast enough.
   
2. Speed bumps are of negligible effect when the vehicle exceeds triple the desired restraining speed.
   
3. The vehicle in front of you is traveling slower than you are.
   
4. This lane ends in 500 feet.
   

Rain rain come again
Chennai wants some water to drink
Dont Go away for another time
Rain rain come again

ok... I know it is not rhyming, but it is in reference to what I am going to tell now.

I am in this situation today (actually for three days) after reading this article which appeared in the Hindu on Sunday the 30th which describes the grave water storage situation in Chennai. This picture tells it all.



This year, apparently has the lowest storage among all the years yet. And there is no use of pinning all our hope on Rain in the month of December. It would take more than a miracle to to quench our thirst. Lets face it, Chennai is slowly becoming a desert.
As it is, the rainfall is scanty in the following months. We may have to end up begging for water at the feet of other states. This is indeed, a very sad sitiation.
Right now, at home, we are getting drinking water in our taps.. But apparently that is going to last for a month. And after that, I would have to be a person standing in a queue for the water that comes in the proverbial tanker, arguing with other ladies why they should not take this water for washing and bathing purposes (I hate such arguments). My apartment is lucky in one sense, our borewell goes quite deep and we get that water throughout the summer. Others are not so lucky.
Water scarcity will have another direct effect on me. Our university usually suffers from acute water shortage as the water table there is very low (inspite of all the greenery) And even now, we are heavily dependent on water tankers (Early morning and late nite visitors can easily see long rows of tankers near the entrance waiting to fill the pumping station) And during dry seasons, we have a sort of compressed sem, where we work 6 days a week instead of the regular 5. And I am sure that the next two sems in our college would have to work all 7 days a week to avoid the acute scarcity period.

I can already visualise non - bathers rejoicing

The Municipal Corporation, PWD and Metro water should do something - a long term action.. like say a desalination plant or something.. but as soon as possible. Otherwise Chennai can't survive another dry summer.

As I told Shobha before, I dont want to end up as a dry withered man.

That, I hope, will be the dream of every Chennaiite...