We too are responsible

After an intense heat spread over many days we had a downpour. It brought the temperatures down, giving relief to people. But at the same time it threw life completely out of gear. The pictures that appeared in the newspapers were enough to capture the tough times people faced because of water logging. It is true that a sudden downpour is bound to affect the movement of traffic, and also adversely impact pedestrian movement. It happens even in some well organised cities. But the way it hampers movement here, is peculiar to our city. Our drainage system, we have been crying for years now, is so ineffective, that even a slight shower is not managed properly. Apart form the looming flood threat, this problem is menacingly coming in the way of the smooth movement of traffic. Not just that, this faulty drainage system makes life of the people in different areas difficult for days together. An hour of rain is enough to flood some of our sprawling colonies for weeks. And this is not a problem that erupts suddenly and catches the administration off guard. We know that it is there, but we prefer to look the other way. The most people here do is to somehow raise the level of their own houses, and may be the compounds. This individual, and atomised approach to face a problem that is collective and far spread out, is now a hallmark of life in Kashmir. People do cry for help in extreme situations, but once there is some relief, they tend to forget the problem. Leave aside the government, and the bureaucracy, the way we recklessly use the drains, is bound to choke them. If, on one hand, we censure the administration for being lax and inefficient, our attitude is nothing less than criminal. We even don’t desist from throwing solid waste on the roadsides that finally finds its way into drainage channels. Our regular household waste is an example of how we invite problems ourselves. We even don’t take the trouble of segregating it. If we do that most of the waste can be managed inside our compounds. Similarly if we are little careful with public infrastructure we can save much of the agony that we ultimately ask the government to deal with. If the rains are a reminder for the administration that it has been inefficient in many respects, it send a similar message to people; message of a criminal negligence.