Panic Movement
Three days of non-stop rains created havoc in Kashmir. It was déjà vu moment for people living near river banks in Srinagar and elsewhere. It has been six months since September, 2014 floods devastated lives, properties and everything else that came into its way, but the ruins are still there to testify for its intensity and ferocity. The waters might have receded after 20 days or so, but scares and the destruction that it caused, is still visible. Entire neighbourhoods got uprooted. All that is left of some of the post addresses is wreck and debris. Everything else was washed away by the unkind water. Life might have bounced back to normal in some of the affected areas, but people are still accessing their losses. And on top of all this, a corrupt and heartless system of governance is always there to suck whatever energy, capacity or sanity a person might have managed to save despite this calamity. There are people who are still waiting for compensation checks. There are people who literally survived under open sky during harsh winters. And there are people who had to pay bribes to those government officials who themselves were trapped in the floods, and had vowed not to do anything wrong if saved. But even before Jhelum receded, these government officers forgot their miseries and vows, and started sucking the blood of ordinary people. It is interestingly ironic that these government officials did not save even those people who put their lives in harm’s way during floods to save lives of others, including the lives of these officials who were caught sleeping in cozy beds when the water entered their houses.
Least they could have done in return for these flood heroes was to give them a little bit of respect if not help. But instead what they did was just shameful. They began leeching the same people who had lost everything.
Even in the worst of worse societies, where people with real hearts are seldom found, calamities like September floods are sure eye-openers and would have shaken conscience of almost everybody. But Kashmir is not an ordinary place. Neither are Kashmiris ordinary people.
We did vow to be good human beings when the water level was rising and the fear of death was visible. But as soon as we got assured that we will manage to live and it will not be as life threatening as it seemed a few days ago, we were back to our old selves.
Else how could one justify black-marketing and fleecing during floods by none other than people!
But a couple of days of rainfall recently almost brought back memories of those days when people had almost decided to be good. But then rains stopped and clouds vanished and so did our deeds. Hope we wake up without getting shaken every time.
