Ebb and Flow

The place where we had the picnic earlier last week is now under water. There is no land visible, only water. Along with the ploughed furrows. Now rippling waters. What value is the 3 laks per acre land when it is underwater. Land has value only so long it it visible. Such is the nautre of the ebb and flow. Transience. "Its a gamble" says Pratap, who owns this fleeting land, with a smile. he has seen this too long and too often. Maybe that is why there is the basic life he leads along with his family in Jagatpur. Buffoloes for milk, land for fodder, and his own field's grain for food. Complete and independant, almost. Some would say nostalgic and anti-technology. However, this is where the debate starts. What is needed for human life, what we desire and finally what we live off. And then there is that strange phenomenon called 'death!' The beginning of all mystery, of religion, of the search for the elixir of life. Man, nature, live, death, the presence and absence of expereince.

Ofcourse it gets complicated. There should be no doubt. Jagatpur itself is divided into communities of Muslims, Valmiks, Gujjars, all even in this small space have neatly divided boundaries, probably with differing land holdings and number of buffaloes they own. The local economy is propably deeply divided along community lines and power structures. Any afternoon the women can be seen fetching and cutting fodder, cooking, transporting grain on their heads, while men play cards. They have already had a long day in the fields they would argue. Difficult to say wherein lies the truth. How does one then value the Rs 3 lakhs per acre value for land?

Look at the labour in the flower instead. Maybe see their sustainablity of the economy of flowers at 10 rupees a kilo. Scale seems to change many things.

Prewritten script?

Let us not, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expect, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people, who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroys the forest to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centre and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so that were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry of their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy season….Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage of all other creatures on being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.

Nikolai Bukharin

News now!

Politicians have already expressed alarm over the snail-paced preparations for the 1.15-billion-dollar showcase which features former British colonies.

The government plans to build new flyovers to relieve crowded roads, renovate the airport, construct new stadia as well as the Games village that will be converted into a residential complex after the event.

The Urban Development Ministry has said that it has got an environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) for building a Commonwealth Games Village near the Yamuna.The Games village, off NH-24, near Akshardham flyover, will be developed on 63.5 hectares and will house about 7,500 sportspersons and officials. UD ministry officials said they would consider making parking lots, media lounges etc temporary structures.

Environmentalists explain that construction on the river bed is inadvisable as the soil is sandy and has low carrying-capacity, a fault line runs through the area on a north-south axis and the area is prone to periodic floods. Further, covering the banks with impermeable concrete would threaten Delhi's largest groundwater recharge zone, they say. Construction would also lead to the channelling of the river, whereby its meandering course will be restricted by steep embankments. While channelling will make more space available for development and construction of the river banks, it will not do much for the river. "Channelling ensures that the amount of water allowed into the river shall never be increased. Any increase will result in the river flooding its embankments." A major reason why the Yamuna is so polluted is that there is not enough water flowing in the river through the Delhi stretch. Construction on the banks would make the river's rejuvenation close to impossible.

At Okhla, Jan 15th

The river has been fenced! All along the bank at Okhla, the site for two years of taking pictures of junk and junkmen, or cobblers and tailors, of fish and fishermen. Now fenced, while on the other side is 'project tiling' happening. In a few months, this has changed. In another few more will change, and then the pictures will have been of 'another time' though they are only months old. Land and its relationship with people on it is changing. Commercial values rule the roost. Where will all the flowers go?

Change is imminent. Of course. But on what terms? And at this pace? Unanchored self. Floating landscape.

The Flower Mandi at Fatehpuri, Jan 15th

Fathepuri even at 8 am is a flurry of activity. The day is already two hours old for the flower sellers, as they lay out their perishable wares in bundles of 10 kg each. 'From the river bank' they say of the Zafris I saw growing yesterday on the waters. The 'Gaindas' come later in April they confirm. "What you see here are not from Delhi but from UP." By 10 am they will be all gone, several tonnes of glorious sunlight yellow flowers, all without stalks and all used for making garlands, for decoration and for some type of auspicious festivity. I wonder how long back is that association, and how flowers came to be part of such events, especially these flowers. I promised myself that I would delve deeper into that question!

The Flower Fields, Jan 14th

Driving from Jagatpur to Palla, enroute are fields and fields of flowers. Looking like marigolds, and called 'Zafri' locally, they are not 'Gaindas' I was told. Gaindas only grow after April. But the flower fields mat the ground with vivid mustard and yellow. Each plant gives a new crop of flowers every ten days, when they are plucked and sold at ten rupees a kilo. Many people had queued up to buy sack fulls of flowers even as the women plucked them off the filed. I talked to them. Some would make garlands and sell them on roadside crossings. A common sight in Delhi. Bus and truck drivers buy them to adorn the bonnets and dashboards of their beasts of livelihood. Others sell them to temple go-wers, the garland with the largest flowers fetching upto five rupees each. Many came here each day to buy fresh flowers. What did not sell at the spot was sold at the Delhi 'mandi' at Fatehpuri.

However the women workers were worried. There was word going arond that the land would soon the aquired by the Govt. For what they asked? This is so beautiful and in any case it floods in the monsoon. Little did they guess that there was this land craze everywhere. Maybe the commonwealth games? I told them to enjoy and live off the land while they can, who knew about tomorrow these days? They were silent. I brought a couple of kilos of these glorious gifts of the river, and returned home, wondering about the future and the changing landscape. Sadly.