Dear Mithi, we’re sorry

Dear MithiWe hope you are well Firstly a big lsquoThank yoursquo for bearing with the gross insensitivity of your home city We must admit that the scenes coming from Delhi and its adjoining areas that wersquove witnessed on the television made us take this step to reach out to you You would have also heard about the devastation it caused right But we felt it better to give you an abridged version of the impact and share a few other concerns with you Excuse our lack of expert knowledge as we humbly attempt to spell out matters and our thoughtsWhat we saw and learnt with disbelief was that the original path of the Yamuna River has been disturbed since god knows how long thanks to the mindless planning and a host of unrelated decisions over time by previous lawmakers and administrators These people have knowingly or otherwise we cannot prove altered the flow of this river and in the process interfered with its existing path causing immense damage in recent times without paying heed to the consequences of rain related scenarios In fact this point was accurately driven home when a historian friend of ours shared prints dating back to several centuries before that showed the original floodplains of the Yamuna and placed it beside the construction thatrsquos been done exactly on top of it Can you imagine how it has affected the water table and all other geographically sensitive parameters that one needs to factor in since this is a mighty river we are talking about and not just some small pond thatrsquos been filled overWe also saw how the river flooded areas that have never witnessed it in the past Posh localities were affected including a neighbourhood that was within touching distance of the Chief Ministerrsquos home But more unfortunately it was the lessprivileged the lower middle class and the poor who were worst affected by the Yamunarsquos overflowing Scenes of floating dead or helpless cattle being swept away property and garbage moving along made for very disturbing viewingWe were stunned as we witnessed it touching the boundaries of the glorious Red Fort Gandhijirsquos Samadhi as well as several other important landmarks in the National Capital We donrsquot recall hearing of or seeing such sights in our very very long lifetimes Ignorance of climate change as a real eventuality mindless development and selfish needs seem to have been the collective and lethal combination that led to this scenario according to our trusted friends in DelhiWhich brings us to the second part of our lettermdashwill we see a similar scenario here We hope not After visuals of your swollen avatar that some of our wellwishers have been sharing since this yearrsquos monsoons have hit the city it made us take this step ndash to reach out to you We know wersquove messed up All over again Clearly lessons havenrsquot been learnt at all On the contrary many of these wellwishers swear that theyrsquove witnessed unchecked dumping of debris along various areas where you flow It must be terrible for you to experience this we can only imagine And after all how much can you tolerate and patiently watch without feeling violated and stifledNewspapers like this one in which our letter will be published have time and again called out perpetrators and villains in this longplaying act environmentalists have cried themselves hoarse and yet administrators and lawmakers seem to look the other side including holding on to their powerful chairs Already this yearrsquos rainfall has smashed records in terms of intensity and volume We fear that the nightmare of July 26 2005 seems to have been forgotten Yes you were upset and despite your several warnings we as a city let you down then Now nearly two decades later we donrsquot seem to care about your health Instead of learning from those mistakes infrastructural gurus and the wise men in high places appear to seem that the deluge that brought Mumbai to its knees was a oneoff episode Lives were lost at the time and we continue to witness new buildings springing up with rapidity on what was originally the path of your flow right from your origins in Borivalirsquos forests all the way to where you meet the sea at Mahim This year has been particularly bad for the cityrsquos health and wellbeing with little or no accountability at sight on several factors and we fear your riverbed too will have many sordid tales to tellWersquore guiltymdashbecause wersquove continued to treat you like a bottomless drain This letter is an earnest request to give us some time to rectify your plight and enable you to return to some of your past glory Grant us some leeway to right the wrongs Alas in the absence of ecofriendly lawmakers we must fight the good fight along with citizen groups and other wellmeaning voices and somehow reverse the colossal damage that wersquove already inflicted on you Please donrsquot unleash your fury like the Yamuna has done over all of DelhiWe promise to do our best as proactive cityloving folk and put the people in power to task We will work hard to enable you to breathe again Yours sincerelyLady Flora and Sir PMmiddayrsquos Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the cityrsquos sights sounds smells and stoneswherever the ink and the inclination takes her She tweetsbombayanaSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom