Note: Longest post of mine till date. Please read it in your free time
Did any one candidate/party in entire india talk about developing water resources in their constituency? If not about increasing the water resource, did any one talk about maintaining the current resource?
Now after the power cuts (which would have great effect in coming elections in TN), people are talking about energy reserves and increasing energy levels of the country. Hey, what about water man ! No body thinks about it.
Everybody is thinking about development. What the heck is this development? Drying a lake and building houses for thousands of peoples and trying to get water from neighbouring district and state and when the total water resource start reducing, go to a fight with them. This is what happened/happening in Bangalore/Chennai. Dumping everybody/everything in a same place and making the entire city as plastic dust bin and made the ground water to zero.
The reason for writing this is i had recently travelled from trichy to kumbakonam via kallanai along the bank of river cauvery. I have seen the construction happening for drinking water scheme to Ramanathapuram district (which is about 200 kms from trichy). They have made the plans to suck the water of cauvery and ground water of trichy district area (which is the one of the delta district) and pass it on to ramanathapuram. If it is for temporary it is fine, that is till ramnad bec omes self sufficient in water but will that happen !!! Never ! Why the hell then they are doing this? I am not against people of ramanathapuram getting water but do you think is this the right way? Kings of ramanathapuram once upon a time had built so many lakes, which is left unmaintained got dried up and ramnad had lost the water source. Now instead of increasing the water resources (by cleaning the lakes, building the new lakes etc) they are getting water from somewhere else.
Most of the trees in trichy has been cut for road expansion. No saplings are planted. Enna koduma sir ithu? 
My mother, father uncle told that there are more than 50 – 60 lakes and 2 rivers in chennai once upon a time. Now only 4 lakes are there and just for the namesake two rivers are there which is unusable. My neighbour in bangalore told once there are 100 lakes in bangalore and now only 10 are left. City has grown vertically now, with every single house is having 3 – 4 floors and earning 12k per floor and policitians have ‘grown’ the city (and grown themselves) with flyovers everywhere making the entire city to look as 2 level one. Now tell me, will you call all these are called as development? Trichy is slowly getting developed and joining this so called developed cities of india
Today i am in chennai and i had travelld in the so called IT corridor and east coast road. True, they are one of the best roads and governmet had pushed the development of that area up. But why did they stop there?
Why no body has taken care of the lakes near by. Why no body (not even the people working in those areas, NGOs, NGOs started by software engineers etc) has taken intiative of cleaning the lakes nearby and maintaining them??? why not they save the rainwater there? Why not planting trees in the ECR and OMR? Why not companies and builders or software engineers working there plant trees in the name of them and maintain them? It is the place where they work daily. Guess villages or locals have been driven out. Now these are the people who are the localities, so why not locals maintain their own area.
I will really salute and will say thanks and will help to those souls if i got to know some one who is doing/willing to do similar activities anywhere especially in Trichy and OMR/ECR (i am happy that bangalore is blessed with some tree activists already, i am equally happy to plant trees here).
Same applies to villages, if some fertile land is seen or semi fertile land is there, they will try to do agriculture and cut the trees over there. Deforestation is happening every nook and corner of india, be it a city or town or village. Only way to counter is to grow trees in front of your house.
Please chennaities/trichians (and people of hyderabad too…guess bangaloreans are ok in this as i come across many here), please start some kind of work like this.
Somebody (i dont know if i can do this, if some one has similar idea, we can) form a committee or organisation and discuss about how to involve the people (yes, we are the people there), how to spend time for this, form a project plan, make ideas so that it wont take much time for people to maintain those trees etc, give employment to some one who can do cleaning the lakes, how to protect them from wicked realestate guys and policitians, instead get the support from them, above all how to save the personal life of the people working on this project (as some one said, first is personal and family life, next only is social but some social activities should be there)
Next is plastic usage. None of the politicians seem to talk about it. Exception is the state of kerala. I salute those communist guys who implemented this by force (as communism itself is born by force and against democracy). Somethings have to be done by force, otherwise no body listens.
Though kerala state government implemented this law, you cant call the state plastic free as some of the tourist sites like sabarimala, munnar and other beautiful forest sight seeing areas are dumped again with plastic, reason those who enters the state is not clean. sigh !
When i travelled to kumbakonam from trichy via kallanai, all the small villages are living with the nature, absolutely zero plastic usage in those village areas, if a little big village is there, then plastic is seen. Nobody is educated about it. Ten years before, everybody took bags while shopping vegetables, fruits, daily items etc etc. Today nothing. Why? Please remember to take bags and you can save plastic in huge amount.
Through isha foundation’s one of the intiative, called as project green hands, one of my friend tried to conduct a seminar in a village near thuraiyur, a town of tiruchirappalli district, TN. Guess they brought some high profile professor from anna university to talk about importance of trees in the village. Only three people were attended it seems. The people whoever attending there are asking for thekku maram (teak wood) etc instead of thoongamoonji maram (which saves ground water and gives more oxygen, dont know the english term).
On the other hand, people of gobichettipalayam, erode had grown 1000 trees and there too some ill elements had stolen the metal fence which was cemented around the saplings. Hearing all this, all i can say is people get what they deserve. No wonder annual rainfall of Trichy going down and that of gobi is maintained. Please guys, please realise. Thirunthagayya !
May be in another ten years, growing trees, saving water would be the top point in party/candidate manifesto. I will vote for such candidates only.
Will they do it? Hoping but not in recent times i guessMutta pasanga. Kan ketta piragu suriya namaskaram.
Hmmm god only has to help.
“Trees! Oh my god, it is against our culture . It will shed leaves and this needs to be cleaned everyday. Who will do it?. The overhead wires will disturb our house. blah blah..”
this is what happened in our colony. 25 years back, we planted hundred trees. Over the years, many people felt it is not good to have a tree in frot of the house,’.. they all made multi storied houses, where trees are sacrificed.
Now hardly ten remains. I hold on to my tree ,Gulmohar, with a zeal and have neighbours , who will cut it down, but for my scowls.
But people around the lane look for shade and park their cars in front of my house all the time. I seek the neighbours and tell them, why dont you plant trees. They look at me as if I am nuts.
Now you know, it is against urban culture to have trees!
As for water, oh ” we can buy water ” you know. Who cares?
Jayalakshmi,
Welcome to my blog.
Yes thats the sad state which is there right now? Can you provide some suggestion to change this scenario?
Well said. This is the earth that we would be passing on to our children ,and that scares me