The September floods have left Kashmiris grappling with soggy soil, damp buildings and an economy so wrecked that it will be years before the environmental damage can be stemmed
By Aasha Khosa
THE luscious red and maroon cherry from Kashmir was absent from Indian markets this summer. And the beautiful pink blooms of the cherry tree, which grows in abundance in north Kashmir, withered in the frequent and untimely rains that have been lashing Kashmir Valley since the devastating September floods.
On any given day, an overcast sky, a swollen Jhelum and drizzle are enough to make any Kashmiri restless. Even the sight of an odd cloud sends shivers down the spine, for the freak weather conditions this summer have prolonged the trauma of the people.
“Parts of Srinagar resemble a ghost city,’’ says Javed, a Srinagar-based photographer, who is trying to capture the aftermath of the September devastation through his camera. “The mud and slush on the roads are lesser than in winter, but parts of the city once considered posh, look like ghost townships.,” he adds.
Many affluent people from Rajbagh, Wazir Bagh and Jawahar Nagar, which were totally submerged in the flood waters, have quietly shifted out of the Valley. Javed, who had a list of assignments to photograph lavish weddings in Srinagar before the floods, lost all of them.
“People have generally put off the weddings or have shifted the venues outside Kashmir,” he says.
RISING PRICES
The ordinary Kashmiri continues to bear the brunt of the floods even today and is struggling to cope with exorbitant prices of essential commodities and vegetables. Ever since the flood waters receded, haakh, a leafy vegetable, belonging to the mustard family and a staple dish in Kashmir, has become highly prized at `80 a kilo.
Haakh is just not a vegetable, but a symbol of frugality and simplicity of life in Kashmir, akin to coconuts for Malayalees and lentils for North Indians. No meal is considered complete without it.
“I wonder why I should buy haakh at such an exorbitant price when I can get 250 gm of mutton for a little more,’’ wonders Sajida, a Srinagar home-maker. She says that haakh prices have never touched above `15-20 a kilo before.
Green beans, at `100 a kilo, and nadru (lotus stems) grown in Dal Lake and marshes around it, have also become unaffordable. Tomato, mostly procured from Punjab, is also priced exorbitantly.
INFERTILE SOIL
The September rains turned the soil soggy and nearly infertile. Ashiq Ahmad, who used to cultivate lotus stems in around 10 kanals of marsh land and assorted veggies on six kanals, has lost his business. Each year, he would invest about `30,000 in his farms and earn `3 lakh from them.
“My fields resemble marsh land and the floating gardens are drowned in lake waters,’’ Ahmed says. “The soil is taking a lot of time to drain out the flood water.” Meanwhile, he rows a shikara in
Dal Lake to earn a living by ferrying tourists and locals.
Kashmir, perhaps, is the only place in India where vegetables are cultivated in water. The floating gardens of Dal Lake are famous for a Kashmiri farmer’s ingenuity, al-though the phenomenon is spelling a death-knell for the lake as it has shrunk to one-thirds its original size in the last 100 years. On an average, these floating gardens would produce nearly 30 tons of vegetables daily, making the Valley self-sufficient. It was only for a brief period of harsh winter that the Valley would depend on vegetables from outside. However, now the production may have fallen to one-fourth after the flood, says Ahmed.
The condition in the villages affected is none too good either. Traditionally, each family cultivates its own vegetables. Rarely do they come from Srinagar or outside the state. But life has changed post-floods.
MAN-MADE CALAMITY
Environmentalists have termed the Septem-ber floods as a man-made disaster. Over the decades, the Valley’s flood drainage system has been choked by encroachments on the banks of the Jhelum that runs through Srinagar; construction boom has swallowed up wetlands and paddy fields.
“The drainage system is clogged and natural sponges for absorbing heavy rains non-existent. Kashmir will continue to face water-logging for a very long time,’’ warns Dr MRD Kundan-ghar, a scientist who headed the Dal lake restoration project.
He says that besides the high prices of vegetables, locally grown rice varieties too are proving costly.
Saleem Beg, member, National Monuments Commission of India, warns that scarcity of food could worsen if this year’s rice production does not come up to the mark. “Kashmir’s agro-economy has suffered hugely due to the floods,’’ he says.
CHILDREN AFFECTED
With July being monsoon time, schoolchildren too face hardship. “After a prolonged vacation, children have gone back to flood-affected, damp school buildings. One wonders how much it would affect their health,’’ says Jameel Andrabi, a former politician.
For businessmen, the loss has been irreparable. Ashok Bhat, who used to supply carpets to retailers in the Valley, says he lost a huge sum of money that retailers owed him. “Business runs on trust—we supply the stuff and they make the payment afterwards.”
“I lost nearly `one crore in the floods as almost every creditor claimed he had lost carpets in the floods.”he said. Knowing well that no insurance or relief would cover his losses, Bhat has shut down the Kashmir part of his business.
Photographer Javed, who lives uptown, says: “Going to Lal Chowk (the business centre) is depressing and on top of it, there is the traffic mess.” While he avoids going there, he wonders how long he can do it.
In the meantime, people look up at the sky for traces of ominous clouds. For that would spell doom.