Bangalore has received a lot of bad press for the recent spate of rains. Infrastructure, apathy etc.

We have a neighboring layout, Ferns Paradise, which is a little higher than our layout - Doddanekkundi has a lot of gentle mounds - our gate is the lowest lying point between the neighboring layouts and apartments. They have been lax in managing their excess storm water and just let everything out into the street. All our requests to manage it within their premises have fallen on deaf ears. Naturally all water collects at our gate. We have ensured we properly treat sewage and also connect to Rajakaluve as per norms. But when there is a cloud burst like what we have had since two days, there is just too much water and the Rajakaluve is unable to drain it away fast enough. The night of last year's Diwali, when we had a similar outpouring, water had come up to our compound wall. But not further. Yesterday, thanks to two days' worth of onslaught, we were seeing water come up to our gate. This has never happened before.

There are also a lot of new homes in our layout which have connected their entire storm water profile to the sewage. Despite repeated requests, this problem largely still remains unattended to. As a result, the sewage chambers outside our home overflow when there is heavy rain since they just cannot hold all that storm water. Normally, the sewage water drains into the storm water drains but yesterday it just had no place to go since the drains were already overflowing.

Thanks to us, as a layout, being strict with keeping storm water drains clear at all times, our usual experience is that once this heavy downpour lets up even a little bit, water drains away nicely.  We were unsure yesterday how much longer the onslaught of rain would last so as a precaution, we moved our cars to the upper part of our street and also sealed shut our water sump with packaging material.

Luckily neither precaution needed to kick in. The Rajakaluve did it's usual magic and once the downpour let up a bit, water drained away as usual and this morning, when I ran on the layout streets, my shoes didn't even get wet.

The takeaway from this - a little less civic apathy as communities and as individuals, goes a long way. Unfortunately, this is not to be. We continue to see people push back when asked to follow rules. So, the saga repeats.

But I do have great faith in Bangalore's citizen activism. Within our community, we have been able to use the threat of stopping work to keep our storm water drains free from construction debris, for example. Hopefully, we can continue to exert pressure on the neighboring layout to manage their excess storm water without just letting it out onto the street. At a city level, we have solved many problems despite the government inefficiencies, hopefully, over time, we will take care of this too!