Dance Of The Meteorological Department


It is rather dishearteningly funny how the most sought-after department operates during monsoon. The Indian Meteorological Department and its near useless weather alerts have been ruining my commute plans since I began commuting here in Mumbai. It is assumed that people who work there know what they are doing . You might not have noticed it, but yes they are clever enough to do what they best do: dance!

English: Rain in navi mumbai (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Few years back before The Times of Navi Mumbai newspaper started pulling IMD’s leg, it was customary to include ‘the weather conditions will be normal in the next twenty-four hours’ in each of their news articles. Circa 1998, nobody cared about the service because the weather was kinder to us and we knew it (well, as we sow, so shall we reap). Enter 21st century and they start publicizing their reports, which unfortunately would be false. They would predict normality & the streets of Mumbai would inundate, they would report heavy rainfalls & intense photosynthesis would take place. Such was the practice, that people started slamming the department. I never actually paid heed (but I read them) to those reports because my school stood just around the corner. Damn!

I loved reading the daily comic strips in newspapers about how the Indian Meteorological Department fell prey to sarcasm. Those were the days in 2005 & later of constant & similar articles in the second or third pages of the same disastrously biased newspapers which ran the comic strips, continuously stating the opposite of reality. But then, 2013 occurred and a new dance step came into existence.

‘Although the local Met office has not predicted heavy rainfalls for the city in the next two days, officials cautioned that climatic conditions are prone to sudden change (sic),’ was what the Times of India had to say on Tuesday, July 23 2013. Now, this dance step is diplomatic as it is vague. First, they have not predicted what’s what & second, they blame it on the weather what come may. The ingenious Windows 8 weather app on my notebook is better than this sham. And to talk about reality, it is still raining cats & dogs, paralyzing public transit system and giving people a credible alibi to skip work as of Wednesday afternoon. As a matter of fact, if I hadn’t skipped college, this dance show analysis would’ve not come to our attention.

At least the Met office dances way better than some of our Bollywood newcomers & FYI, I saw Ramaiya Vastavaiya last week & it had a newcomer….

Related articles
Heavy rains in Mumbai, BMC asks people to step out only if necessary (ibnlive.in.com)


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *