“Ae Dil hai mushkil jeena yahan, Jara hatke, jara bachke, ye hai Bombay meri jaan!”  This song from the 1956 hit movie C.I.D has become most Mumbaikars’ anthem since the monsoon has started—replace the words “kahin building, kahin trame” with open manholes and falling trees. Residents have seen mayhem and mishaps due to lashing rains in the city. Within the first six days of July, the Colaba and Santacruz observatories have recorded 823.4 mm and 898.4 mm of rainfall, respectively. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had initially issued an orange alert on July 3, which was changed to a red alert…

There was a time when Harrington Road was exactly what it was meant to be: a quiet, tree-lined residential avenue, one of Chennai’s older and more established neighbourhood corridors. Families chose to live here because it offered something increasingly rare — space, calm, and a sense of community. Today, that same road tells a very different story. Along an approximately 800-metre stretch now stand eight schools, where there used to be three — three hospitals, three auditoriums, eateries and commercial outlets. Individually, each serves an important purpose. Collectively, however, they have created a level of activity that the road and…