The weather is changing.. and it is signaling very openly to those who are smart enough to understand, that there is more drastic change to come...
it is changing at a pace that for most of the world seemingly unnoticed but for those who have been watching nature so far, it is VERY Evident.

Few examples I can share... point 1 - the flowers which are referred to in Hindi as 'Tesu' which - I am not so sure but - as the link shows, is related to the Flame of the Forest or the Gulmohar flower.
These flowers at least till 2005 didn't bloom by January. They usually bloomed just a few days before Holi which is usually in March.
This year, these flowers are in full bloom, in the last week of Jan. I happened to see these blooms along the NH3 in M.P. on 25th Jan.
Since they are in full bloom then it means they began blooming a few weeks before, that is much into the first week of Jan.

Point 2 - The Indian cuckoo, or the Koel, usually comes out of its hibernation in the beginning of April, if not a week or so earlier.
This year, I heard the cuckoo off and on through the fall season, around Oct-Dec and then again last week.
Way back in the 80s, the arrival of summer and mangoes was signaled by this bird.

So in 2009, is the cuckoo getting the blues of the weather? or is it telling us all something that we might want to hear and take notice immediately?

Is it telling us that the weather is getting warmer as the cuckoo would expect it to be early April... though it is still end of Jan when we are known to have temperatures as low as 6-7 deg through the Day, and not just in the night???

point 3 - Snow in London. No reason for an alarm as London does experience this kind of weather once in a long time, but in th last 3 years, it is the second time.
So does it need to be noticed and thought about?

point 4 - snowstorm in the northeast US and Ice storm in the lower southern US. Normal phenomenon? ask the weather men!!!

bottom line... the signs are here in India, the world and in the arctics where the glaciers are breaking off...
People in India - the man on the street - understands some of it, but does not bother as we are not a 'scientific' society, we do not think logically and we do not think cause and effect though our culture did bring up the whole concept of Vedanta which is basically cause and effect theory...
But we hardly put it to practice and never relate it to things around us...

So we will be panicking when the effect comes up in a drastic form, and all we shall see will be politicians blaming someone and the rest of us blaming the politicians...

We shall hopefully try and rest in peace at least - in large masses...

Indore as a city has evolved like the other cities of the nation, albeit in a different way. The city earlier was not so well known for it's education prowess, but it was since 1995 that some inroads began into the city for the education industry. This was esp. possible because the city began to have a better connectivity to the North and West by rail and road.

It was a fact since a long time that Indore produced some very talented people in the media industry. Some very familiar names are Lata Mangeshkar & Kishore Kumar(who studied in Indore, though he came from Khandwa) from the music industry, Vijayendra Ghatge from the acting field, Salim Khan, the script writer of Salim-Javed duo who wrote for Sholay (dad to the most popular Khan - Salman) and in the last decade names in the National News presenters - Akash Soni and Siddharth Sharma.

So the city has created an image for itself of being a city of opportunities. Indeed the opportunities have emerged and along with it, have people. Pouring in from the smaller cities, the city has seen exponential population growth though infrastructure has been slow to catch up, as usual.

The changes that the city has seen have put pressures on several aspects. One is safety and security.
- of vehicular traffic drivers
- of Senior citizens
- for children being ferried to/from schools
- of houses from burglaries

Pressure is there on infrastructure development at the cost of losing the green cover.
Impacted by the loss of green cover is the increasing levels of air pollution, heat levels, decreasing water content and impacts on the psyche to develop related diseases.

So also with increasing number of people from the nerby cities, when they come to the mini metro, they come with a set mindset that the big city will give them all the freedom to live and exist the way they want to - away from the pressure of family control.
It is this attitude that needs a huge change.

Unfortunately, it has been seen that the mindset of the people who come from the rural areas is initially very much self oriented. They do not understand the complexities of living in a city life compared to the small rural life they had. As a result of this notional belief, very often the city life is very disillusioning. This kind of an attitude leads to inflated ego levels.
People think they have a right on everything and anything.

Indore suffers from this attitudinal inflation in a huge way. Most often you will find that people want to show off themselves in a lot of ways. They get into fights in the smallest of incidents, they try to ensure that they are in the center of the limelight by adopting shortcuts in life.

It is this that makes people very vulnerable and also very dangerous.
The need of the hour in the city and in the state is sensitization.
Sensitization towards all the above problems and their associated side-effects and how individuals need to have a broader perspective when they live in a city.


Unfortunately, in this age of rapid fire progress, people can't stop for a minute. People are in a rush to live and make it better than they were. In the process they lose more than they gain. But they do not stop to think.

It is the importance of this Pause that is very much needed to be 'taught' to the people in a variety of ways. the media is one such agent. But the media itself in such cities needs to first grow up and over their smaller interests that they had earlier.

The media and the law of the land have to be the first participants in this change by being abreast of all impacts of change and ways to handle this impact.
They should then become guides to people who are experiencing and causing the changes in their individual and collective city lifestyles.

Not sure if people in these times still understand the tradition and concept of 'city elders' but it is the city elders who have to change for the better, First.
The movie 'Happy Feet' depicts beautifully, what I am alluding to;
Maybe something of a change can come in slowly in the outlook of this city from such media.