Pawan
Mishra is an award-winning author, producer, director, and a leader in finance
and technology industries. In Jan 2017 Huffington Post listed his novel
"Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy" as one of the best independently
published fiction books of year 2016. He is one of the leading Indian names on
the International horizon of writer’s & no wonder his above words which are
linked with age old Hindu Philosophy which as usual has been applauded by the
world ( I doubt) but has been turned a blind eye on, by none other than his own
fellow countrymen, i.e. India! Because disaster after disasters keeps hitting
us & now we are so used to reading, watching & even suffering all the
disasters that every day seems like a miracle. I started writing about
Uttaranchal land slide or flood whatever you call it disaster (I mean latest
one) a place, which is thousands of kilometres away from us & before I
could finish it one more disaster happened right under the nose i.e. in our
Smart City i.e. Pune & its fire at Fashion Street market, consuming nearly
600 plus shops making thousands of families beggar (once again) by the losses
it causes, the only solace was as the fire happened at night there wasn’t human
life loss! Couldn’t imagine what it would have been had such fire hit the
fashion street on Saturday evening when it’s in full bloom & with Covid
scene around!
Déjà Vu Disaster 1
Well
already a lot is being written about Kedarnath i.e. Uttaranchal land slide
& the flood it got along or vice versa & as usual there were allegations by everyone
against everyone! The govt blames it
on nature (best thing, isn’t it), the environmentalists blames it on govt &
industries (thankfully no builders up there), the native people around says
they have been warning the authorities about such incidence might happen but authorities
ignored it (as it is) as well the authorities accuses the natives also for wood
cutting & illegal hill cutting to flatten the land for farming & the
blame game goes on like “Maza mamamcha patra harawala” (please don’t ask me to
translate it, it’s a childhood game)! And the best part is the nature doesn’t blames
anybody but it just reacts & it reacts against everyone which comes in its
way, may it be humans, cattle or even power plant, washing all of them downstream,
together! Again as usual there were news efficient of rescue operation, there
was picture of a dog which was waiting for its missing owner at entrance of a
flood blocked tunnel & there was news of Hon Supreme Court has taken cognizance
of this disaster & ordered a through inquiry for the reasons & till
then any river digging in Uttaranchal is banned i.e. for the purposes like sand
exploration etc!
Keeping
full respect for the men & women who bravely were involved in rescue
operations, all I will comment, good, very good, keep on doing all the rituals which
now are part of this disaster management! But just like in
Bollywood movies the Police always use to come at the end fighting of the
movie, the disaster management actions always ends just as post-mortem of the
disaster instead preventing the next one, which happens soon & makes us
forget earlier disaster!
Déjà Vu Disaster 2
Some three years back
there was an article in news-papers about how less equipped & understaffed
our Smart City’s fire department is & I really admire the courage (some
call it foolishness) of our firemen to fight with not just fire but with floods
& many such things with just one stick & hose pipes which seldom
carries water! No fireproof outfits, no masks, no well equipped rescue
machinery, no instruments like foam cylinders or gas guns nothing & yet
there hasn’t been a real disaster (read as life taking) in this city. No wonder
the country which runs only behind those who make most publicity of their
actions, the fire dept rarely in news despite their herculean work & nobody
cares for their infrastructure only when the Déjà Vu disaster happens &
which happened in the blaze at Fashion Street! If anyone has visited the place
then a person with some common sense can see that it’s a living time bomb, with
nearly six hundred stalls cramped in the space which is just enough for one
hundred stall & all card board to temporary partitions between the stall
which are highly combustible & every sort of goods stuffed in these stalls,
all it was needed is just one spark & boom! That happened on last Saturday
night (does date matters!) only fortune of the city & citizens & the
fire dept was it happened in late night so the market was empty yet the damage
will wreck thousands of families backbone by taking away everything they has!
Problem is not just of the system or some fire dept but problem is of the city,
the people which goes at such places to shop & the traders too, as agreed
govt doesn’t cares for your safety but can’t we our own also don’t care for our
lives, is the question always haunts me! And
the answer is “No”, we the citizens only don’t care for our lives so why blame
govt or some fire dept as the city where helmets are to make compulsory to
protect citizen’s heads, how can we even dare to think that the very same
citizen will care for safety from the disasters like fire! Some years back
there was fire in up market of South Mumbai in a posh restaurant & thirty
plus lives lost, all from elite class. Immediately I remember every ward office
in every city came in action conducting surveys of such establishments &
gave notices for conducting fire audit & that’s all! Here at Fashion Street
also fire dept has issues notices, warned concerned authorities for fire audits
& take safety measure, now whom you will hold responsible & gave stop
work, I will love to see that!
Déjà Vu 3; what else
but Covid!
This
is latest in displaying our attitude towards disaster management as first wave receded
& after facing lock down for nearly eight months, we thought we won &
Corona is gone & instead being prepared for second wave or any such another
pandemic we closed down all the medical facilities, winded up Covid units &
started celebrating! And now again the same scene which we faced a year back is
looming on our head i.e. head count of patients increasing (faster than first
wave) & again we are playing the same tune & people are facing the same
fate! No hospital bed equipped with oxygen type infra, no trained staff, no
vaccine, no masks, no social distancing, hand wash is out of question as we can’t
see what one is doing after going back home & all we know is have another
lockdown! What better example of Déjà Vu could have been there than our useless,
foolish, ignorant, careless attitude towards disaster management & when I
say “our attitude”, it’s not just the govt but every one of us is included! As
neither the govt made any preparations on medical facilities front nor the
public learnt any self discipline to face the next wave of pandemic, so who
should be blaming whom now!
By the Déjà Vu means
a feeling of having already experienced the present situation & this is why
I used the term for sharing the disasters we are experiencing! May it be nature or
man made a disaster is never an accident, its outcome of our attitude (read as
ignorance or arrogance) towards our past actually! There always is
first time, may it be flood or fire or pandemic but what we learn while we face
the first disaster & what we act from what we have learn decides what we are
& going by the way we are doing at present, no wonder the Déjà Vu of the
disasters will be our best friend as that's what we the people deserve
actually! And then the country of one thirty plus crore people which believes (or lives) on miracles, is in itself a miracle, so get amazed &
be thankful to the god for every new day we wake up to live again, to experience
the Déjà Vu magic!
--
Sanjay
Deshpande
Sanjeevani
Dev.
Please view my sharing about real
estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s
Please do visit my
blog links below to read about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2021/01/post-lock-down-real-estate-home-buying.html
http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way(Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
Take your issues to
Hon PM at link below..
Think
Green, Think Life
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Sanjay