Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Sky Pouring, City Flooding !!

“The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless”… Nicolas Chamfort

Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, known in his adult life as Nicolas Chamfort and as Sébastien Nicolas de Chamfort, was a French writer, best known for his witty epigrams and aphorisms. And its personalities like Nicolas which has made Europe as not just rich in science & technology but understanding nature also! And his above quote about the flood, well, it seems the God he was referring to may has restricted himself to Europe as looking at the scene in our Smart City Pune, the God seems unstoppable when sending floods here! As this is what we the Smart Citizens are experiencing this monsoon & who could have believed that Pune will match rather overtake Mumbai on this front! Surely not something of pride to be especially when we have witnessed Mumbai’s failure year after year to face the rains from so close distance! By now so much has been written on the rains, environment, human(read builders) impact on natural water-ways, rampant tree cutting, concertizing, faulty rain water gutters, use of plastic causing chock-ups of drainages & many such with the only possible outcome is flood & damage its causing! I am living in Pune for more than thirty years & indeed I have witnessed some real heavy rains but what’s unique is the disaster this times rains are causing. As usual we are blaming rains itself but this is nature & nobody can stop nature, indeed we can cause disturbance in nature’s cycle & we are witnessing just that, isn’t it? Well, this is not one more blaming piece of write-up for the floods as there are enough to do that job but what I want to put forward is not just logical analysis of the scenario floods are making & solutions for the same! And do mind every one of us is the reason behind these floods if not rains, let’s see how & what to do from here…

To start with let’s focus on the problem or inconvenience or say the damage rain induced floods are causing for the city & citizens. First is damaged retaining/compound walls of societies & flooding the parking’s thus damaging the vehicles! Then the flood water entering in homes adjoining to nallahs (which once were streams) or even roads (which now has become nallahs), causing these homes collapse especially the illegal homes made of tin roofs & brick walls of poor quality (needless to say), causing life loss also along with wealth of the occupants. Even the legal homes i.e. bungalows made of good quality are not spared by the floods causing wealth loss if not life. Then on roads thousands of vehicles got stuck in flood water & little unluckier got swept away causing heavy damage to the vehicles along with loss of life too. Many trees have fallen down due to force of the water & even in many cases small bridges or culverts also got swept away. At many levels electricity appliances i.e. meters as well transformers & power cables got damaged. And there is another damage which is just immeasurable & that is loss of the man hours of those who are getting stuck on the roads or their offices due to road blocks the flood water has caused as well that of thousands of people involved in rescue or post flood works! Oh yes, one more thing, the terror or panic which now even the slightest rains create among the society, is also a part of damage as once considered as peaceful & happy city, can we say that now as here everybody look up in the sky while starting back from the office in the evening & the worried faces which are darker than the clouds tells the story of the damage the floods has caused!

This is the scene at present & now my question is, who is responsible for the floods if not rains, God? I don’t think we are that fool to answer that yes, the God only is responsible for the rains & the floods too! So, if we are not fools, then who is responsible for the floods & damage it has caused & then second question is, agreed we can’t control rains but then can’t we control floods & if answer is yes then again the first question whose responsibility is that? Well, answer to all the questions is yes, we can control the floods & its responsibility of each of us to stop the floods or else we all are responsible for the damage of the floods! The joke is when we say all are responsible for any bad thing happened to the city (read floods for example) then it’s just a finger pointing game which probably should be declared as our National Game, as we all are best at it! So the need is even if all are responsible yet everyone’s role in the flood control has to be defined & exactly that’s what we are not doing because each of us has failed because we have neglected our responsibility conveniently & now we are pointing the finger to each other for our negligence! As right now PMC (read as staff & elected members), Irrigation Dept, Revenue, Police, Judicially, NGO’s, Architects, Town Planning, Urban Dev, Media & oh yes Builders (how can I forget them) all are respectively responsible for the floods & none of these will accept it! And then even the common man (read citizens) is also equally responsible for the floods as if all above names are doing their bit in causing the flood then the common man is part of the every ploy of the above names doing. As maximum damage has been done to the slums as well illegal homes but nobody is asking the person living in illegal homes why he went to stay in such home which doesn’t provide any security from such disaster which is outcome of negligence of the entire system! On this logic I know many people will hit at me saying, “As he can’t afford a legal home so he opted to stay in an illegal home, is that his fault?” No it isn’t, I agree but with this logic any skilled or educated unemployed man can rob a bank & will say “as I couldn’t get a job or start a business of my own, so I robbed the bank”, will the courts accept this reply & let the man go free? No, is the answer but in this case as we failed to punish the man, nature’s justice has punished, keeping full sympathy to the victims I am saying this as I don’t know about humans’ but god’s justice is blind as he has punished the wrong person for sure but then that how the Nature God behaves. For him crime is by some human so humans are punished that’s it, it’s, us, as we differentiates the roles & doesn’t perform as per our own differentiation as we know somebody else is going to be punished for our crime & flood is the classic example of this crime!

May be that’s why & this is how the floods have punished the wrong humans because so called right humans (who are unaffected due to floods) have failed to take responsibility of their respective roles in flood control. Now coming to the responsibility aspect of it, first & foremost is define very clear duty or role or responsibility or the work scope whatever you may call it with every above mentioned entity i.e. govt depts’ & publish it as gazette because in this country unless something is put on record, nobody cares a damn about it, is a bitter fact! And clarify very clearly what is whose responsibility & punish them for it doesn’t happen in a specified time, for e.g. the encroachments on the natural water channels must be removed by which dept & in what time limit. And before that first demarcate all such natural water channels, may it be nallahs, stream or rivers. Then comes the issue of rain water or storm water lines & its maintenance as insufficient & faulty as well choked up rain water gutters was main reason of floods making rain water flow on roads instead flowing through them. Define who will be responsible for functioning of all rain water draining systems & its maintenance. One main reason of damage to life & traffic was trees falling, so let’s do a survey of all the trees along roads which can be next victim of our concretization as instead naming concrete it’s important to undo the damage it has done to the trees. Open up areas around such trees to allow the water seep in as well tree roots to grow deep. As its observed most trees which has been fallen are rain trees, gulmohor or subabhul, so identify such trees & work on their strengthening as well cutting down over sized branches of such trees which gets wet due to heavy rains & the tree fall down due to this added weight! Also high time after this destruction to think about our hard paving planning strategy & think of making more open spaces giving way to rain water seep in ground. We need to have a city planning authority in place which will provide such plans of city especially the water logging areas. Then make a record of all water logging as well flood hit areas & work out local solutions to make way to rain water at such spots, so need is form teams with specific time limit for the execution of this task.

As well the judicially & police dept must support the actions of above respective responsible depts’ as or else to take stay & get stop work seems to be the Modus-Opredy of all the encroachment entities & the cases keeps lingering for years giving a tool to push the responsibility under the tag, “Matter is in Court”! Most important role is of police, as this country’s citizens (at least till now) are surely afraid of the Khakis’ if not respect it! And may it be irrigation or pmc or forest, all these dept cant remove illegal structure without proper protection of police which time & again police dept has failed to provide as they themselves are understaffed for their routine things is also a fact. So give police dept enough man-power & infrastructure to help other depts. for flood control action, is also a responsibility only for the rulers! As well judicially must take fast action against any obstruction i.e. dispute regarding flood control, is a request I can make, as who can order to the judicially itself! And yes don’t spare politicians (read as elected members) if they come in between such action plan & suspend their elected posts or banish them for contesting next election, is the only way!

While I was writing this piece, last night a big piple tree fall down of the PMPML service van, well why the indigenous tree like piple also fall down, reasons can be worked on but sad part is the drive of this service van was trapped between the bus interiors & the tree & for two hours he was trying to escape & no help came eventually the driver surrendered to the death! In Smart City’s center a man gets in to accident & we can’t rescue him for two hours; still shamelessly we call ourselves Smart City, just great! High time the responsibility must be fixed for the post flood things also. Indeed all such responsibilities may be there but it’s not happening is time & again has been proved, that’s why once again I tried to make the readers aware, is all I can say!

This is regarding the govt dept’s but the private sector i.e. media & builders & the common man as we may not be controlled by any duty but we are bound by something far more than paid duty & it’s our moral duty towards not just nature but the safety of entire city, high time to remind this to ourselves for private sector! Media should not get up just post flood & use the damage showing images as news value but must keep a keen eye year long on all above depts’ & their output & keep making people aware about the failures by the system! Well, then comes the builder & when I say builders I mean every that person who is associated with such buildings or structure which is illegal in eyes of nature & not just some development plan! Many won’t agree with me on this aspect that does it mean the so called DP is useless, well are we going to still just by some maps drawn by sitting in office which has caused such havoc or are we really concerned about human lives, is what I will counter ask! The builders, the architects, the structural consultants, site engineers & the plumbing as well electrical consultants, don’t just think of fsi, cost savings & salable area but plan the building keeping in mind human life! And as a home buyer one must look for all such features right from the electric meter positions to drain out arrangement for rain water in the basement instead just going for fancy amenities which are worthless in disasters like the floods! Here I remember a story from jatak katha where a Pandit (read as learned man) is crossing a river to some village by a boat rowed by a local man. On the journey the learned man asks to the boatman, have you read Vedas (holy books), on this sheepishly the boatman replies no sir, hearing that the Pandit says your half life is wasted, you know! After some distance the Pandit again asks to the boat man, have you read Upanishadas (books of philosophy & ancient knowledge), again the boatman replies no, he hasn’t & the Pandit comments your three fourth life, has been wasted. The boat travels ahead & suddenly a storm starts & the boat starts swaying. The boatman now asks the Pandit, Sir have you learnt swimming, on the frightened Pandit says no I don’t know swimming, hearing this the boatman comments, oh o, your whole life is wasted, you know!

Well, the Smart Citizens, I am sure the story of Jatak Katha may be thousands of years old yet the Pandits & boatmen are still around, issue is what we want to become, a Pandit or a boatman, is what will get decided in the next floods whether we have wasted our life or earned it! Till then enjoy the rains!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

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

https://youtu.be/al0NZ-7Zhq0

Please do visit my blogs to know about our philosophy at Sanjeevani ! (Click the links below)

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