Tale of two Cities (Or is it?)

Man competes with nature, at least for news coverage. Its an outright victory for man in the digital media, and a slightly less comprehensive one on the print media. On two opposite coasts of the Indian peninsula, two cities have had their normal routines disrupted. One by man and another by nature.

Chennai lies flooded, while Bombay is beseiged by militants.
As I sit at my home typing this piece of self adulating attention seeking piece of crap on a working day, inside office hours, I am secure in the knowledge that I am not alone in contributing to a fall, even if infinitesimal, decline in India’s GDP (I know, I know, you are probably going to say that even when I DO go to my workplace, my contribution is similarly negligible, but you don’t know that for a fact, so clam up. Anyway, back to the crap). There are others too, in my city (the ‘my’ here is merely illustrative, I have absolutely no claims to having founded, helped grow, contributed to the rise, or having made a home in, this city) and in another across the country’s land mass. People who have been asked to stay home, people who have decided to stay home, and people who can not step out of home.
In my city (refer above paragraph for clarity on usage of the word), it has been the hand of God, or the fury of Mother nature (your choice, depending on which gender you believe is superior) that has contributed to the decline in office, and school goers. The city is under water, ankle deep, knee deep, or waist deep, depending on where you ankle stands with respect to the ground, and where you stand with respect to the water, too (my advice, though, is to stand well away from the water, most preferably in the (hopefully) dry and comfortable safety of your home). Roads have turned into drainage channels (I am not sure if that was the original intention of the civic authorities, though, to create the roads as alternate storm drains, which would be a brilliant, or exceedingly sadistic town planning ideology), carrying along with the flow of water tons of garbage (oh! so this IS an incredibly brilliant town planning thing! In one go, you clear away the water, the garbage, and you also have a well washed road!!!), the frequent washed along footwear and various other assorted items.
People generally tackle this in two ways.
One is the defiant, resistance fighter approach, where the chap folds his trouser legs, puts on a rain coat, takes an umbrella, scans the road (or the emergency storm drain cum garbage disposal channel, depends on how you look at it, which, again, depends on whether or not you are a member of the city’s municipal corporation) for the spot with the least inundation, plants his feet there, maintains the precarious balance, and scans again for the next least inundated spot in his desired direction of travel, at the same time keeping a wary lookout for the wave generating vehicles that plough by, sending a deluge of water with the intent of drowning the resistance fighter.
The other way of dealing with it is the cowboy approach, which is rather crass, or practical and fun filled, depending on which way you look at it (which again depends on whether or not it is you who washes and hangs out to dry the stinky and dirty clothes that walk into your home draped over the cowboy). Here, the chap puts all the water destroyable possessions into a polythene carry bag, and, bare feet, commits himself to the mercies of Mother Nature (or the civic authorities, depending on who you think is responsible for creating the current predicament). Such people are generally seen drenched, not bothering whether they are putting their feet in one, or two, or even five feet of water, as long as the head remains above. And I have noticed that these same people are also seen with smiles on their faces rather than the scowl that accompanies the resistance fighters.
Then there is the other city where there are still more people sitting at home when they should be rightfully out in offices, pretending to be hard at work (I assume that people pretend to work because that is what I see, and therefore believe happens everywhere), and this time not because of Mother Nature. They have stayed back because a small bunch of determined people decided to give a larger bunch of markedly less determined people the shock of their life. Why, who and how are questions that are best answered by others, but then the fact is that people were detained against their wishes.
Here again, as I understand, there were two ways of dealing with it.
The resistance fighters, determined to live today and fight again another day (wow, that rhymed!), sat back in their homes, switched on the news channels (but hopefully not India TV), and waited for the day to pass, asking themselves the million dollar question of whether to go to office tomorrow or not (ok, considering India’s Per Capita Income, it may be only a few dollar question to them, but looking at a macro level, for my country, it does work out to be a million dollar question) .
Then there are the cowboys, who walked out to the current media hotspots, mobbing the TV crews while trying to get some TV footage for themselves, shouting comments against Pakistan, getting in the way of the rescue services, praising the NSG, and interfering with the services some more. Again, it was seen that the cowboys carried a smile (on all occasions except when they were being fired at and when they were being pushed out of the TV camera’s range by other cowboys) that almost offset the collective scowls present on the resistance fighters.
Well, the roads will revert to the peacetime job of carrying vehicles and people and acting as an infinite garbage dump and open lavatory, the other city will calm down, the News reporters will move on to other articles of interest, but someday, someone (other than me, of course) will read this and wonder whether the two cities really do have a common tale to talk about.