Just like the perpetual saga of demons and fairies and angels which almost everyone in the childhood has to listen to, the flood in North Bihar is also never-ceasing. Be it the year of drought or the year of deluge, the villages and villagers in the North Bihar have to suffer the days of problems and havoc, without any doubt whatsoever! All the promises of water management and flood relief schemes are only meant to be implemented once the flood has hit and people have suffered. And this has been the situation since long – even before my birth and now more than 26 years on my back and God only knows how back before my birth the situations were like this. There is no shame admitting that India needs to learn water management from the countries like Japan which can manage even the disasters like Tsunami!
I visited my sister on Sunday and fortunately left on the next morning. When she called me on Tuesday just to tell me that luckily I escaped the overnight flood, I was gathering my breaths… Is Nepal the only culprit? The case is deeper than it seems – rains, Nepal, wrath of nature and all those usual excuses are fine on their places, but, we do need to find the real causes and our lack of skills and infrastructure. Before we burst into the usual rant what Modi government is doing, we must remember no one did anything for flood management in the country and not only Bihar, but the entire nation goes through this almost every year. Delhi floods on the road; Mumbai flood on the roads; Patna city and its manholes; Gujarat and its rivery display; Assam and the swimming patriotism… this makes me ask a question, are we the nation which claims to win over Mars? Are we the nation which launched more than a hundred satellites together? Is India the nation which cannot manage the drains?
New India is a holy vision; New India is surely the future of our dreams; but have you ever thought what was the roles of those people in the New India who just lost their lives due to the flood? New India cannot be minus the people in the villages and we have to take care of that. The overnight fame is very good when we see it in the usual Bollywood movies but it’s surely not so good when people wake up and see the houses turning into dirty swimming pools by the night! It’s horrible for those kids who are tired of the day which demands around 10 miles of cycling to reach the high school and then get back home.
India has to learn water management before it can become new India; otherwise, the dream is just an eye-exercise! Lives matter in the cities and so they do in the villages.
