Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Rains, Rivers & Fools!

“The river teaches us many things, but its most important teaching is this: Whatever is happening around you, you keep flowing to your own destination following your own way!” … Mehmet Murat ildan.

Mehmet Murat I’ldan, a Turkish author & playwright with interestingly career as an economist, so no wonder even with poetry he hasn’t lost his logical touch about describing river! As what our so called developed State has experienced last fifteen days with rivers, the part in Mehmet’s quote is true the river keeps flowing at her destination & if you try to obstruct her way now you know what can be the consequences! Well there may few still who are ignorant or lucky about the havoc our rivers caused, especially in the Western Parts of this State & I don’t blame them as all the innocent people(most of them) who are victims of disaster caused by rains & rivers they too were ignorant or lucky till very present! I am sorry if I have touched sentiments of masses but let me put very clear I am heartfelt sorry for every damage the rains & rivers have caused & will be doing my bit for the same but then we can’t just let this disaster pass as nature’s act, do we? Indeed media is full of head-lines as well experts (read environmentalist also) are busy as usual blaming everybody in the system which as usual includes govt (read officers of various depts. i.e. Irrigation to UD to Local Bodies), elected members (read elected municipal members, MLAs & Ministers) & how we can forget the villain No 1 i.e. the Builders, well as per media & all concerned, all above categories are supposedly projected as the main cause of floods & the damage it has made to common man!

And the reasons given for the disastrous floods is, actions of all above three categories which encroached rivers(read natural water channels) for their profits or greed whatever you call it thus causing contraction or reduction of water carrying capacity of the rivers & then it has rained maximum in this century (100 years) so outcome is the rainfall which gets converted in run off (i.e. excess water which doesn’t get percolated in ground & flows on surface) started flowing in every direction where it can get way out, causing the floods.

In nutshell the present disaster due to rains & rivers can be described in above mentioned simple words but then has this happened over night or even in some months or in a year? No sir, encroachment on natural water bodies has been happening over the decades in every town & city of this so called developed State of ours! And it’s usually under the name of; need of homes or anyways there is no water in rivers or there are no heavy rainfalls now days or to make infrastructure for the city (Metro route from river) or beautification of the city & lastly to make Smart City; in actual we have raped nature in every possible way under above tags! I am extremely sorry to use such slang in my sharing as I have never used it but this is the only word I can use to define our acts regarding rivers as well natural water channels! And here many may call me hypocrite as I myself being civil engg & builder to, thus making me also party to the crime. Indeed I am what I am by profession but then no one has ever said, don’t build homes for the needy ones or don’t beautify the rivers or don’t create infrastructure for the cities or don’t make Smart Cities, yes we are free to develop the cities or towns but, (this but is very important) without touching nature & rivers too are very much part of the nature! Or else nature (read rivers) is also free to behave or say react to our acts of freedom towards it & we all have experienced it time & again!

That way we the humans (especially of this State) are real fools because consider ourselves very smart & only a fool thinks he is smart while every our action proves we are utter fools! Look at the reactions or response when every such nature’s disaster has hit us in past as well the present ones. Apart from smiling selfies by celebrity’s rescue teams, all we do is forming committees & sub committees which consist of same old faces which have been cause to such disasters or were unable to predict ones such or failed to stop it. These same old faces in the committee, generates same old reports of what to do & what not to type documentations which in present case is marking Blue Lines & Red Lines of river floods or controlling discharge from Dams or creating rain water harvesting awareness. Few days gets pass on & all the age old fools forgets the disaster & the age old committee’s reports gets dumped in some record room to collect dust on it & encroachments in rivers beds continues, rain water harvesting remains for just awareness as all our rulers (read elected members of local bodies & their bosses) keeps concreting every sq inch of the surfaces & the system (read officers) which is supposedly to look after dams & water discharge control get back to please their ministers & bosses by obeying their priorities which we all know what they are! Even media also forgets this aspect & goes on to search for new head-lines for their readership & all fools lives happily to welcome new disaster! I don’t say all the system (govt) is bad & all the faces are fool, indeed there are people in this system which keeps fighting their lone wars & try to things wisely but their numbers are less & the system soon throws them out on some desk job is a fact!

If I am sarcastic of frustrated, well indeed I am as all we know to deal with a disaster like flooding of rivers is blame each other & ignore the basic cause of the disaster is a bitter fact. Take simple example of Smart Pune & its rivers, as who has stopped concerned govt agencies i.e. Irrigation & PMC to mark red line which indicates flood level in 100 years & blue line which indicates flood level in last 25 years on site throughout the city limits, on both banks of Mula & Mutha! And ban any construction within blue line & only controlled construction activities should be allowed within blue & red lines, is simple norm to ensure the river bed i.e. water carrying channel remains clear! Definitely no single builder or builder’s organization has such power to stop govt from marking blue or red line, as had they be so then we won’t have kept even river bed free, isn’t it? I am not justifying builders as they too are interested party (few of them) in building on every such piece of land which was part of some river someday yet isn’t the system (read govt) more at fault which bends like the river path, as per these few builders says! And then the ignorance about such disaster of floods starts not just from river bed protection but right from rampant de-forestization happening in the catchment areas of the dams which we have failed to understand or ignored to understand! Because if you read the figures on forest front, indeed tigers have increased but the habitat(read forest cover) has decreased significantly in the State & this we are talking about regular wild forest as who has time to look what’s happening on non protected forests which makes large part of catchment areas of dams or rivers! As tree cover is reducing for last many years the run off towards the dams & rivers is increasing, making our age old calculations of water discharge related to rainfall fail miserably & we blame nature! So the mistake (or crime) starts right from not being able to maintain tree cover all around & not just in some tiger projects & whose responsibility is it, builders? Well, yes, as it’s everyone’s responsibility to make as much tree cover we can as that’s one sure way to catch the rain water not being converted in to the flood!

But then the system which can’t protect the river bed itself, to expect protection of catchment area is a distant dream (read foolishness). I think most important aspect of entire flood control system is land use defining & controlling what has been defined. For hundreds of years the rivers as well streams & such natural water ways are in existence but except making some maps on paper we have never bothered to protect them in actual.

At the same time repeatedly people (read experts) were screaming on the top of their head for keeping some earth cover exposed in the city (Pune especially) so as the rain water could seep in the ground, reducing runoff as well increasing ground water table but the govt (read public bodies’) which gives news paper ads’ as for rain water harvesting & offers rebate in property tax bills to the citizens for the same, is busy in concretizing every possible open land making rain water impossible to percolate in ground, which is main reason of floods in the cities & towns! But who cares as concrete roads & paver block contracts are more important than floods, isn’t it? And then nobody question govt as can we question God ever? Then comes the responsibility factor of floods & damage it causes as when any disaster (read accident) happens at the site of some private builder or industrialist then immediately police complaints are lodged & the concerned persons (including even labor contractor) are sent behind the bars & even the Hon. Courts’ declines even the bail considering that person (mostly builder) as killing innocent people for his greed, isn’t it? Well, I am not justifying or comparing but now when floods which are caused by man made mistakes only or say ignorance, & hundreds of human lives & thousands of innocent animals lives are lost as well millions rupees worth properties got lost; why not a single person is arrested or booked for this crime, is the question I want to ask, not as a builder or civil engineer but as a common man!

Because not a single govt dept comes forward to take responsibility of the floods (read disaster) or cause of it which is encroachment in natural water channels but every dept or organization is busy in showing how they have been effective in disaster management which is a post action, what about disaster stopping management instead? I think most important lesson if we need to learn from the floods is define the clear responsibilities in flood stopping controls as neither irrigation dept which otherwise is so efficient in cutting the water supply of the cities nor the “mai bapp” PMC (read local body) has shown any enthusiasm in accepting the responsibility for the floods which otherwise they keep on showing down each other! So, if at all the govt (read big bosses in Mantralay) is serious towards the lives of common man & is keen to protect the same then whose responsibility is it must be fixed so at least to save the skin (if not face) that dept will see that the natural water channels are marked & are protected the way they are marked. Same is with forest dept which is mostly busy in promoting their “Save Tiger” agenda should take responsibility of protecting every tree under their jurisdiction as well increase the numbers of trees, mainly in catchment areas of rivers as basins respectively! Lastly the Police force also must take responsibility of protecting or say giving protection to the departments which are supposed to protect rivers as most of the time the illegal encroachments in all these natural water ways dares to do so because they know “kanoon ke haat lambe to hai par takatwar nahi hai” , sorry couldn’t help to take support of Bollywood, it means “hands of the law (read police) here may be long to get hold of illegal elements but isn’t strong enough to break their neck or even hold their neck”! At the same time with due respect the rivers needs protection from judicially also as for years the law suits (even by the environmentalists) against illegal structures or encroachments in the rivers remains lingering which in a way boon for all such illegal elements only! And that’s why all the illegal elements (here every one is party to the crime) dares not to make the law or to break the law & encroach on rivers (I refrained myself again using the R word) as they know nothing will happen!

But then we forget another popular Bollywood dialogue, “Uski aankhe sub dekhti hai aur uski laathi jub chalti hai tub aawaj nahi hota, aagaj hota hai” well, for non Bollywood guys it means, “God ignores nothing & he delivers justice even if the men fails to do it & when he does then he do it silently but effectively!” I believed in this philosophy once again & keeping all sorry feelings for the flood victims, what we experienced in the recent floods was in a way nature’s justice! Only unfortunate fact is the victims of god’s justices are not necessarily the criminals always, as the nature god (read as river here) doesn’t discriminate humans by their post or religion or caste, she is blind in true sense punishing everybody which comes in her path & yet keep flowing to her destination leaving behind signs of her verdict against entire mankind which is fool enough not to learn this lesson even after such harsh punishment!

Silver line in the disaster of these floods was, news of one Dy Collector Surekha Mane donating her prize money for flood relief & then there was a dog which kept waiting for his lost owner for nearly a week at same spot, showing heart touching display of loyalty, as well there are thousands of hands coming ahead in every possible way to help the flood victims; all such stories makes us believe that despite our foolishness, all is not lost yet!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..

https://youtu.be/g3lx1Nq7pBs

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http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2018/08/pune-city-no-1.html