Stunned by the overwhelming beauty of Kashmir, Aurora Leigh had written the following lines: 

  ‘Hills, vales, woods netted in a silver mist
   Farms, granges, doubled up among the hills
  And cattle grazing in the watered vales,
  And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods,
  And cottage gardens smelling everywhere
  Confused with smell of orchards’

              It is indeed a matter of joy for Srinagar to be rated as the fourth dirtiest city in India. Worry not; there is more in the store. Just wait and watch, do nothing to get the first spot in the world let alone India. After all, the beauty lies in making a name irrespective of the type of fame so accomplished. Here we are moving from the most beautiful to the dirtiest. We take credit for its beauty which is natural and not our own, yet we fail to take the responsibility for the dirt truly our own. Hats off to Srinagarites, rather all of us, who have made us proud by chasing Pilbit and Lakhanpur at a speed. We simply can’t sustain ourselves to be in the good books. Here you have Shah Faisal making a name. There you go with the well woven shame.

  The Venice of the East as it is called doesn’t hold weight anymore. Instead of beautifying, we are destroying the same. Instead of sustaining the title, we are simply bent on making it the “Pilbit of Kashmir”. Rather than taking it as the wake up call, we are indulging in the rhetoric. It would have been O.K for Delhi or Bombay to be dirty owing to the huge industrial setup. They have factories, Industries and they do have jobs. We have none of these and yet we have loads of dirt and filth. These Metropolitans imitate the West and in turn we imitate them with a blind eye. What is worth imitating takes a back seat and what is to be unseen drives the mimesis. The result is before all of us: We the dirtiest, we the menial, we the filthy. Apples, grapes, tulips, springs rare even in heaven used to be common here. Alas! Mosquitoes, flies, worms, Canines which are rare even in hell are now in plenty. Kashmir used to be the chief source of dry fruits and handicrafts. Common salt was the only imported item. How about importing everything and exporting Malaria, Cholera and plague. A new slogan is on cards:”we the self sufficient in dirt and filth”

   Here is the question. What makes us so dirty? Our geography bestowed with the picaresque landscapes and serenity may be the first reason. The climate which others envy the most would be the second. Colonel Harvey, who visited Srinagar during the epidemic of Cholera in 1892 wrote:

“It is not too much to say that the inhabitants eat filth, drink filth, breath filth, sleep on it, and are steeped on it and surrounded on it by every side”. Walter Lawrence may be quite relevant today as he was then. Here is an interesting observation:

 “They are extremely dirty in their habits and person, and wash about once in ten days and this coupled with the fact that their clothes are equally dirty, makes them unpleasant companions in the warm weather. The Musalmans of the city are very similar in character to the Kashmiris of the villages, but the city man is more effeminate, more lazy and more helpless. He will not work or try to improve his condition, for experience tells him that this is superfluous. It is ,in his opinion the duty of the state to feed him and to provide fuel cheap, but he himself is unfettered by any duties. When labor is wanted for carriage it must be obtained from the villages, as the city man is too delicate to work. He objects to any innovations, and when sanitary reforms are suggested, the city howls with indignation. They soon forget the horrors of cholera and they ridicule drainage and streets as wild ideas of another world”. (Valley of Kashmir, chapter X, p.280). Well none of us would buy the argument in today’s date. We can’t be dirty. If so, we can’t be extremely dirty. But the truth is we are the 4th dirtiest. If you still call it a hoax, just visit (read inspect) the washroom opposite to Radio Kashmir facing the beautiful fountain and rate yourself.

   While our PHEs, SMCs and LAWDAs are engaged in blame game, let us do our bit. The first step would be to take the ownership. Although ridiculous, but let’s own it. Let’s own what is our own-the dirt. We may disown it calling it the imported dirt, the Bihari, the Bengali or may be the Yatri’s dirt. However that won’t help us anyway. Mending our habits should be the focus. To treat the city, the town, the road, the lane as our own.  Let the opportunistic officials be not given another chance to accumulate more wealth by nominating more projects, by spending more money and by recommending more committees. Let’s not celebrate the picnics the way we used to: Eat, eat, eat and throw. Schools have been of a considerable help in cleaning Ganga. Let all the Convents, Histas, Radiants, Burn Halls, Biscoes, Memorials and others show the way to unprivileged, uneducated class. If not Chandigarh, Let’s make it Kashmir. If the Govt. is too proud to call it an issue of National Security, let’s call it so by taking to action rather than the talking. Otherwise Aurora Leigh may be back to modify the prologue:

  ‘Hills, vales, woods woven in black dust
  Farms, granges, doubled up among the filth
  And cattle/people grazing in the filthy vales, (don’t forget the dogs)
   And cottage chimneys smoking from the woods (and everywhere),
  And cottage gardens stinking everywhere
   Confused with foul of orchards’

(Javid H Khan, a resident of Mantipora, Islamabad is an IGNOU student  of English Literature)

Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
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