will we ever change?
Something happened two days back because of which I have created this blog account. This something was the great rainfall of Mumbai, which as per record is highest ever in recorded history in India. I was never very much keen on having a blog account because of the simple reason that I never considered myself to be consistent enough to write blog. But there are times when you want to be heard and there is no one to listen. I think that’s where blog comes into the picture.
So the question which was in my mind since last two days that will we ever change? Here “we” includes administrative system of India, which on a larger scale includes a common man too, and its mentality/attitude towards natural/man-made calamities. Learning from the past failure is the natural tendency, and we too have learnt a lot from past calamities, but only on the paper or at debate level. Implementation is always missing. Everyone here seems to be too much enthusiastic to comment and suggest but don’t care to or dare to bring their ideas into reality. In this particular case, I feel that Mumbai has accepted that in every monsoon two or three days will be there when city will be stopped because of heavy rainfall and everybody seems to take it as a normal annual routine. Routinely every year municipal officers declare that we are ready for monsoon and routinely two or three rain forced Bandh are there. Again as tradition newspapers, radio, TV make hulla-gulla and in the end learning is practically zero. I see the same situation in every scenario, be it natural calamity like earthquake, flood, cyclone or manmade calamity like communal riots. We don’t seem to change. Willingly or unwillingly we accept as the wish of god and go back to our normal routine sooner then we ourselves expect on the day of disaster. I don’t know how to change it, or will it ever change.
I am having a strange feeling to start my blog with such kind of feeling. But I can’t help it. As I already said sometimes you want to tell and there is nobody to listen.
So the question which was in my mind since last two days that will we ever change? Here “we” includes administrative system of India, which on a larger scale includes a common man too, and its mentality/attitude towards natural/man-made calamities. Learning from the past failure is the natural tendency, and we too have learnt a lot from past calamities, but only on the paper or at debate level. Implementation is always missing. Everyone here seems to be too much enthusiastic to comment and suggest but don’t care to or dare to bring their ideas into reality. In this particular case, I feel that Mumbai has accepted that in every monsoon two or three days will be there when city will be stopped because of heavy rainfall and everybody seems to take it as a normal annual routine. Routinely every year municipal officers declare that we are ready for monsoon and routinely two or three rain forced Bandh are there. Again as tradition newspapers, radio, TV make hulla-gulla and in the end learning is practically zero. I see the same situation in every scenario, be it natural calamity like earthquake, flood, cyclone or manmade calamity like communal riots. We don’t seem to change. Willingly or unwillingly we accept as the wish of god and go back to our normal routine sooner then we ourselves expect on the day of disaster. I don’t know how to change it, or will it ever change.
I am having a strange feeling to start my blog with such kind of feeling. But I can’t help it. As I already said sometimes you want to tell and there is nobody to listen.
posted by Ashish @ 7/28/2005 04:04:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Hi Sapre,
The rains are making a havoc in Pune too.
What were these ideas that went till paper stage and didn't get implemented?
Jeet.
to jeet: nice to hear that u r back... :) r u?... or reading news on the net?
lot of policies are there which are on the paper. in this case our disaster management plan. rain showed that how ill prepared we are. 37 in. rainfall was for entire day but most of the system collapsed within first 8-10 hrs of the rain.
to sandeep: Thanx... :)
I thought more about it. I would go back to insti times when we were designing storm sewers and dams etc. As far as I remember we never designed for more than 25/50 yr high rainfalls. I would tend to think that Mumbai was more or less ready with 25/50 yr data in mind but handling a all time high can only be done by overdesigning everything.. what do you think?
sapres seth u r doing the right thing at right time..Disaster management..lage raho..India ko jaldi hi yesh sab chaiye hoga..
sattu
i agree jeet, that nobody thought about this kind of situation. but my point is how prepared we are for even the kind of rain we receive every year?/ i doubt that mumbai is ready for 25/50 year return period rainfall. Think it this way: every year we expect certain amount of max. rain, on a single day, hit the city which may cause water logging. And this is known since last so many years. So we should be prepared that if rain of such intensity hits the town everything should work normally without delaying a single local train or BEST bus. But every year we see at least 2-3 days when trains are cancelled because of water logging. thats's why I say we don't learn from past. All are ready to suffer for those 4-5 days rather then putting some additional efforts during entire year. These kind of situations can't be taken care on the day we face them, if we are not already prepared we can't help it.
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