Water, water, everywhere....

It has been pouring non-stop for the past couple of days. But even I was taken aback when this photo jumped out at me from the front page of the newspaper today. Hosur road flooded with water, and these people are moving about in coracles. Coracles! On the roads of the Software City's IT hub!!

Everything else apart, the first question that popped into my head was - Where did they get these coracles?

Bangalore does not have any rivers in its immediate vicinity, other than Vrishabhavati [1], (in which no one in their right mind would willingly go riding on coracles), and I don't think any coracles go about on Bangalore's lakes either. Then, where did these coracles come from?

Did some enterprising businessman start transporting coracles to these IT offices the moment it started raining? Or wonder of wonders, have companies started storing coracles?

Maybe companies have included this in their disaster management plans, something like - 20 coracles should be stored in the basement to ferry employees when the roads get flooded during the monsoons.

Who knows?

On another note, two nights ago, after attending to the Little One when she woke up for her night feed, I felt hungry and popped in at the kitchen for a drink of warm milk. As I sat sipping the comforting liquid, I watched the rain. I saw gallons and gallons of rain water flowing down the road. Some of it will seep underground and groundwater will be replenished. Yes. But how about the other water? So much water going down the drain - literally. How much opportunity there is for rainwater harvesting!

Fact: Bangalore receives about 970 mm of rainfall every year. The number of rainy days is close to 60 (over a period of eight months). 54 percent of the rainfall is due to the south-west monsoon. Rainfall in Bangalore can be expected to arrive on time, and without fail. Due to these extremely favourable conditions, rainwater harvesting is a viable solution to the city's rainwater harvesting problems. In fact, it has been estimated that over 40 percent of Bangalore's water requirements can be fulfilled by Rainwater Harvesting.

Fact: A 100 square meter rooftop can yield upto 90,000 liters of water annually.

Fact: Bangalore is the first city (in India) to include rainwater harvesting in its byelaws. The law says that “ every building with a plinth area of exceeding 100 sq mtrs and built on a site measuring not less than 200 sq mtrs shall have one or more Rain Water Harvesting structures having a minimum total capacity as detailed in Schedule”. This specification also means that adapting rainwater harvesting costs less than one percent of the total cost of the construction.

A lot of information can be got from the Rainwater Club.

[1] Vrishabhavati was a beautiful river, which is now the sewage and effluent canal for the city.