Time has come to think about it…

I was following closely the developments happening in the directions of scrapping ULCRA. For the uninitiated ones, it’s Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act. Now what’s this? It’s the act/law which stops people who have excessive quantity of land to sale it for development.

As over last one and half year, the rates of real estate have crossed all the limits in Pune, the middle class is bearing the brunt of the situation. The so called growth is so obscene that every piece of $hit apartment had started costing at least twice that its worth.

Then came the news that Chief Minister of Maharashtra is going to put the resolution in current assembly session to scrap this act. Now don’t think that its b’coz that he cares for the people or something, but that’s the directive/condition by Central Govt. to release some kinda aid for the state. But whatever may be the reason, it might had provided some respite to the so-called aam aadmi.

But then came the news that some political party had urged the CM on the behest of, u know who, to postpone the scrapping. Also they told him that lets talk about this in next session of assembly and not now. The reason was, many builders and developers (not poor us, but the other kindred) has invested lot of money in land and the real estate. If this law is scrapped now, then they will suffer heavy losses. This was really astonishing to mere mortal like me and I was just loss of words to explain my anger about such a move. Also this makes it very clear that where the loyalties of those, whoever is talking about public welfare, actually lie.

Now the people of urban Maharashtra have to wait for 3 more months to get this happen, and hopefully at least then it shall happen.

Is it coming back to normal…

I spent last weekend in Delhi for a wedding of my very close IITD pal. The wedding was lovely, beautiful and great fun.

It was great fun to catch up with the old pals… but saying this was just a metaphor as we never missed the touch with each other… we are very densely connected to each other… but still meeting in person still has its charm.

Delhi/Gurgaon were simmering at 40 degrees those two days and I was literally getting dehydrated. But I know that’s temporary as I will be headed back to ‘comparatively’ cooler Pune, which I call my home now…

As my flight was preparing to land in Pune…the pilot announced that the day is bright and sunny in Pune with temperature 40 degrees. I was taken aback, its 4pm in afternoon and I was expecting some relief from heat, especially if I am coming back from NCR…

Got down, got Auto-Rickshaw for myself and I headed back to home, and then it happened… I got caught in the thunderstorm, not that I m complaining, it was great fun and whole atmosphere was dark, cloudy, moist, wet, and chilled…

I instantly remembered my old days in Pune which I spent as undergrad student. Then also, Pune used to sizzle in summers, but only till certain extent and then the un-timely thunderstorm with heavy rain will come and make the whole city drenched and chilled at least for next few weeks…and then again the temperatures will start rising to reach some level and again the thunderstorm… this used to continue almost whole summer…

But this has stopped for last few years, when the growth of the city started, number of vehicles increased on the road, increasing the heat generated, tree cut down to widen the road and build the concrete jungle where so-called working professionals (like us) can live, etc etc. Due to all this Pune started getting hotter and hotter.

So now I was wondering, if the olden phenomenon of thunderstorms has returned to Pune for good, or it’s just another effect of widely acclaimed adversary ‘Global Warming’…