Anit Singh
There is something intrinsically vulnerable about the sparrows. It’s in their fragile frames, their little hearts beating furiously, their diminutive appearance that makes you pray for their safety. I saw one in my garden after a very long time. I couldn’t ask it where it had gone for such a long time, but then, I had a good idea.
That Jammu city is no longer fit to host sparrows is not a surprise. The city that I had known from my childhood is slowly morphing, with malls and factories and multi storied flats turning it into something ‘modern’ ;with all the terms and conditions attached. I remember looking at the wide swathe of hills covering Channi, Narwal and thinking that one day the lights would reach to the top and now I can see that they very nearly have.
What does the new city want to become? Do we want industries in the city? Should there be a ban on the number of vehicles? Should the upper ceiling for land be removed? These are not a question that you ask to 10th grader, unsure of his stream, but questions that beacons all of the residents to think deeply.
The land prices have been going up over the past few years. The relatively opaque land market is dominated by players who have been able to speculate the prices upwards. Registry and other taxes are suitably avoided by investing black money into it. Result of all this is that the labourers and other poor who had so far been living on the leased empty plots, would not be able to afford a shelter. That means that transport would need to be developed .
Jammu is lucky to have relatively greater number of people use the public transport facilities, by which I mean the trademark matadors. The diesel drinking, smoke spewing beasts are the ‘holy cows’ of our state. No one wants to cull them and they’re just as slow on roads. But, it is their very inefficiency that is making people shift to private transport, with a result that several roads are perennially congested. Roads cannot be widened beyond a point and more vehicles cannot be accommodated beyond a point, something has to give in the fight for space.
‘Land development’ happens quickest for the most vulnerable lands. The wetlands, the flood plains, the gardens have been sold. Water can’t percolate in the land and when it rains, the municipality ‘nullah’ near my house bursts open. Sometime ago, Kashmir was flooded, or rather people realised that they were in the floodplains. Chennai realised that it had choked all the drains that allowed water to flow. I wonder when our time of realisation would come.
My house is also fighting a battle for space. In the morning hours, when I look from atop my ‘mounty’ ( water tank on top of my house), I can see the revered Trikuta peaks. Soon, there’d be mobile towers built all around my house, so I
try to take in the view before that happens.
I can also see thin lisps of smoke emanating from some factories in the opposite direction. By evening, I can’t make out the Trikuta peaks. I wonder if that is because of the smoke, or the cold weather. At least I can see the mobile towers all day long.
Jammu had had an agriculture based economy. The sparrows took refuge in the farms and later the gardens. Concrete is not so kind to them, neither are the diesel fumes, the pollution, the mobile towers. If not for anything else, I feel that for the sake of these sparrows, we have to think about the future that we want for our city.
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