Save this for posterity

SAVE DAL LAKE

FOR GOD's GREEN EARTH DON’T LET THE DAL LAKE BE ONLY ON THE POSTCARD SOON,

I don’t know how it is with the youth of my age in the rest of the World. I think it is a universal phenomenon

that when you start growing up, looking at something all the time, it becomes a part of that process of growth. Then at one stage you start identifying yourself with it as if it were a part of your existence. It could be tulips in Holland( and now in botanical garden), the freezing winters in Russia, The night life in Las Vegas, The Chimes of Big Ben, The Statute of Liberty, the Taj Mahal, the Times Square in Manhattan or the Pyramids.

It could be anything anywhere. A child around suddenly recognizes the smiling face of his mother, becomes aware of his surroundings, his tender feet start enjoying the tickling sensation of green grass, the warmth of mother earth and then the joy of walking and running. It is the time to explore and see Nature and try to blend with it. One no more needs his mother to hold him back on the bank of a river or his dad nervously telling him not to climb a tree. His legs take him everywhere and everywhere and his mind starts registering nature.

I still remember how fearful I was when I first jumped into the bosom of Dal Lake. Will I get drowned? Will the weeds entangle me and someone will find my body floating next day. There were all kinds of apprehensions and thoughts, but Dal turned out to be like a mother. Cool and loving. Always offering something to please me and never asking for anything in return. It became a ritual. Whenever I would come home for a vacation, I would hire a boat and peddle upto Char Chinari. Buy cucumbers, radish or Pambacch (the lotus seeds in season) or take a bite of raw crisp nadroo. It was the time when people had started complaining that Dal was being vandalized and that it was gradually dying because of the greed of the people and apathy of the Government.

I returned to Srinagar in 1996. I was warned not to go for swimming alone. Everything was weird. Everything smelt of corpuses and gunpowder. Occasionally people would fish dead bodies from the lake, but nothing deterred me from not visiting Dal, not swimming and not riding a boat but when I came home, there was a sense of pain and anguish, dismay and anger. Dal was choked. Greenish-blue water had turned murky, weeds had taken over and encroachments and unplanned construction activity had ruined the entire coastline. Why is the Government so callous? Why isn’t someone doing something to save it. Why aren’t the people raising their voices against this slow death inflicted on this water body? Too many questions, but no answers.

We are repeatedly told that the water body has shrunken from 21 square KM to just 11 Sq. Kilometers. The State takes pride that it has already spent several hundred crores since the Dal Project was envisaged in the 70s. What has this enormous sum been spent on? Well, on dismembering all the limbs and arteries of the Lake. No body asks why did they have to construct the foreshore Road and further decrease the lake area by several kilometers. Was it to please the land Mafia who bought the entire land overnight outside the foreshore demarcated area with the hope that someday they will be allowed to turn it into another boulevard. They would construct more hotels, more guest houses and tall structures and get richer. Nobody talks of the original lay out where no building was to hinder the view of the Shankar Acharaya Hill. My father used to tell me that the autocratic Maharaja is on record having instructed his planners that the moment you turn towards the Boulevard, one should get an uninterrupted view right upto Chashma Shahi. Our democratic rulers plunder ecology and environment with impunity. Bureaucratic vultures do the rest. Convention Complex, Centaur Hotel, commercialization of Boulevard are all instances of a deliberate destruction process of the lake. Hundreds of new house boats were allowed to be constructed despite a ban on. They claim to have spent enormous sums on saving the lake but how much has really gone into the development or preservation of the lake nobody knows. The main sources of pollution are the HouseBoats within the lake body. During the past 28 years, nobody has come up with a solution about dealing with this menace. Multi storey buildings and hotels are another nuisance. Nobody dare raise a finger against their clout. The norm should have been that you pay for the damage you are causing to the lake. Boat owners have a strong lobby but the majority of people living in the lake is dumb and meek. It is a pathetic situation and neither our so-called Human Rights activists nor the champions of environment have shown any concern for them..

We have committed sacrilege of nature by destroying the entire catchment area, I am told the entire sewage and sewerage of the Centaur and the SKICC flows into the Lake body because the treatment plant constructed at a cost of several crores is not functional for want of funds. The siltation continues un-abated and so does the inflow of harmful nutrients and chemicals. My father as chairman of the house committee for Dal Lake used to shout from the mountaintops about the impending disaster. Nobody was prepared to listen. Deafness is total.

I hope all my apprehension are proved wrong and I’m told that I’m not updated about the present status of Dal Lake otherwise why would a team come all the way from Rajastan to emulate our conservation plan? Our fore fathers gifted Kashmir to us in pristine condition, would it not be selfish of us not to pass it along so future generations can have their chance to enjoy it as well? If we don't make hard decisions now, the answer is very obvious that we are not interested. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the present dispensation but If you want to see what Dal is all about find a Postcard printed by our own Department of Tourism in the 70s and see my point! But for god green earth don’t let The Dal Lake be only on the postcard soon.