Flooding of large areas of agricultural lands with standing crops and plantations in Malnad regions of Karnataka, particularly Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru and Hassan, inundating of urban as well as rural living spaces in several States across the country, including North-Eastern region, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha and Karnataka causing extensive losses worth God-knows-how-many crores of rupees, displacement of millions of people rendering them shelterless to battle hardship that cannot be expressed in words, a calamitous year 2019 that people of other unaffected parts of the country are blissfully unaware, but for the graphic reports carried by dailies and telecast on the small screen. Typical of urban residents, Mysuru’s citizens are tirelessly writing in the columns of widely read dailies, including this tabloid, about potholes of crater dimensions, piled up garbage emanating foul odour, overflowing drains bringing sewage on to the streets, neglected parks, dilapidated condition of public buildings and what have you.
The few civic-minded residents of Mysuru, taking trouble to come out of their homes, noticing the city’s environment in utter disarray, majority of them being senior citizens and writing in dailies bring to our memory the days of Dewans of Mysore known for their keeping hawk’s eyes on the city’s upkeep.
