Apres le deluge

Apres le deluge
Letha Jose

It was as if the heavens had opened rather belatedly to the collectiveprayers of a whole state reeling under a severe water crisis. Andironically, when the heavens did oblige, it was hell that broke loose. Itwill be a long time before Amdavadis forget this Thursday the 13th whenseveral drowned, many became homeless and losses ran into hundreds ofcrores. As the surging waters gushed into slums, bungalows, shops, officesand factories alike, they could only look on helplessly.

It is on days like this that a sort of camaraderie develops between perfectstrangers. A walk if wading through waist-deep water can be called thatrevealed how the residents of a city hit by an unprecedented calamity roseto the occasion. Shopkeepers were found guiding worried parents rushing toschools towards approaches where the water level was low though their ownshops were under siege from gushing waters. Male passersby were seen helpingout mothers by carrying children on their shoulders to shallower sites andstrangers were seen consoling sobbing children whose parents had not yetreached the school to get them. At several places, men were standing guardnear open manholes, braving the downpour, drenched to the bone, guidingpeople away from these hidden death traps.

Trucks were ferrying marooned people and good Samaritans were spottedeverywhere, eager to help push a stranded car or lift a scooter to drain outwater from the exhaust pipe.

But these were just the silver linings on the dark clouds that hung over thecity. For many, it will be a long time before things return to normal. Forsome, they never will. You may be able to pick up the threads of a businesswashed away in the floods, but what about the lives washed out? Even as youwonder how helpless man appears in front of nature, you cannot but feel thatthis could have been avoided if man had not meddled with nature. If only manhad learned to respect nature and her ways.

Urban planners have been playing Cassandra for long in Ahmedabad. Theirwarnings that indiscriminate filling of talavadis (ponds) and farmlands inthe city for constructing high-rises would be disastrous were met withcontempt. These ponds and farmlands used to ensure that the city did not getdeluged during the rains. What was conveniently ignored was that the cityhas a natural slope towards the south-west and with the disappearance of theponds and low-lying farmlands there, where water used to drain and collectduring the rains, it would be left defenceless against Nature's vagaries.

Experts say both the drought and deluge Gujarat faced in this millenniumyear could have been avoided. According to them, if man had not callouslydumped the time-tested local water harvesting techniques adopted by hisforefathers in favour of ground-water intensive irrigation projects withoutmaking efforts to ensure that the ground water was recharged, there wouldhave been no drought. While Drought 2000 awakened people to the importanceof micro-structures like small tanks, check dams and traditional water rainharvesting systems, the lessons of Deluge 2000 are yet to be learnt.

Disasters like this may not be totally avoidable. But they definitely demandthat we pause and ponder. And the frightening point is that what happened inAhmedabad can happen anywhere if man fails to respect the rules of MotherNature and ignore the topography of an area while building his cities.

Litterateur Mahadevi Verma once said that it is not possible for any man totake a step forward without putting one foot firmly on earth. That'sprobably the lesson the rains and the flood have brought. But it's a pitythey had to travel on black clouds and come to us with such sound and fury.