On the Bangla calendar, this is early Autumn with the first of the two months -Bhadra and Aswin -heralding the season of clear blue sky dotted with patches of white clouds, dew-awash sheuli and kansh (saccharum spontaneum) flowers. Strangely, right at this moment it looks more like the monsoon with intermittent rains. In fact, in Shraban, the month before, for a few days the sky presented quite a picturesque Autumn. Also, there was a brief spell of sweltering heat made worse by oppressive humidity what in this part of the world is known as 'tal-paka garom' (palm-ripening heat).
Does this mean that the seasonal cycle has started behaving capriciously? At a time when heat spells are taking a heavy toll from Tokyo to Paris to California, the drizzles and accompanying cool weather now prevailing in this country including the capital city should be considered a real blessing. The Death Valley National Park in California recorded the highest ever temperature on the planet Earth at 54.4 degree C. In Tokyo alone 162 people died from heat stroke from July to August 8. Paris also witnessed record high temperature of 42.6 C. Similarly Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom were smarting under record high temperatures ranging up to 41.8 C. Earlier, in the second week of February this year, Antarctica logged temperature of 20.75 C, also a record high.
Clearly, global warming is on the rampage. On that count, the subcontinent has been mostly spared of such punishing heat. This could be welcomed as a natural gift but for the delay in recession of flood waters and the perennial water-logging in the capital city and the port city. Sufferings of flood-affected people know no bounds. Inadequate or no relief pushes them to subsistence living. In cities, stagnated knee-deep waters on several busy roads and road crossings -let alone in low-lying suburban areas - have been giving a nightmarish time to their inhabitants, particularly the daily wage earners. They have to get out notwithstanding the inclement weather and toil, braving the odds. With the risk from coronavirus, they now face the risk of accidents on account of hidden open manholes or severely damaged or dug up roads and streets.
In Chattogram's Khatunganj, it is a stupendous problem of different order also on account of water-logging. Responsible for the problem, as in the capital city, is not elements of Nature. If 50-90 millimetre rains a day lead to knee-deep or waist deep submersion -and that too in the largest wholesale market in the country -it is the faulty plan of development that is squarely to blame. Pictures shown on TV channels are pathetic indeed. Traders have no place to take away their piled-up stocks of commodities. Huge quantities will rot now that those have soaked rain waters. Their problem is further compounded by water from the ocean rising during high tide and flooding the area. If the wholesalers of the largest market in the country have to incur such unwarranted losses because they have been rendered vulnerable by city planners, its negative impact on the country's economy needs not be overemphasised.
However, this is not the only travail traders and other people visiting the area suffer, Agrabad and a hospital for mothers and babies are also worst hit. With water submerging the ground floor, patients, nurses and physicians have to negotiate the foul water before reaching their beds or rooms. Is the condition fit for medical treatment of expectant mothers and babies? But during this pandemic, many patients have hardly any other place to turn to.
Had there been no looming threat from coronavirus and economic downturn, this weather would have been highly enjoyable. Whether weather pattern is undergoing a transformation or not is for climatologists to come up with the final say. But this Bhadra makes one nostalgic enough of a time 40 or 50 years ago when such spells of rains accompanied with gusty wind were common. This was followed with bright sunshine and azure sky with scattered sheets of cotton-like clouds at time stationary or at other times rushing from south to north. The ordeals hopefully will come to an end, ushering in bright and sunny days. Nature nurtures living beings but there is no guarantee it will not turn hostile at times, particularly when man becomes overambitious to outmanoeuvre it.
