Environmental Awareness
For the enlightened Dilliwalah environmental awareness is not a choice – it’s a seasonal subscription. Come winter, the city proudly serves its signature cocktail of a dense, smoky blend that makes cigarette warnings look like polite suggestions (okay, let’s be class agnostic – so it’s ‘cigarette or biddis’). Lungs here don’t just breathe – they negotiate survival. Anyway, right now it’s time for monsoon, that great annual suspense thriller. If it rains, the roads transform into ambitious water bodies, auditioning for Venice. If it doesn’t, the capital looks wistfully toward Haryana like a neighbour asking to borrow a cup of water except the cup in this case is half a river.
Add to this our government’s relationship with water that can only be described as creatively negligent, and you have a full-blown crisis. Meanwhile, the ever-resourceful Delhi Jal Board (Mr Good-looking Turncoat used to be Vice Chairman of DJB once!) occasionally spices things up by blending sewage with drinking water. Now that’s truly a shitty problem.
Ever since our man AK took the CM’s chair, there has been no dearth of earnest talk around restoring mythical water bodies that are supposed to recharge Delhi’s equally mythical groundwater table. At one point, the city proudly claimed 1,367 officially recorded water bodies. Today, a modest 674 can actually be found on the ground, the rest presumably evaporated. Mercifully, no one has yet found a way to pin the disappearance of the missing 693 lakes and ponds on Nehru.
In a burst of administrative optimism, the Lt. Governor has directed DDA officials to work against pre-set deadlines to restore 77 water bodies, while the government has set its sights on reviving at least 250. This flurry of intent has somewhat reassured Dilliwalahs, who are learning to celebrate announcements almost as much as outcomes. The renewed confidence in the newly appointed LG is particularly heartening despite him being congratulated by that rather eccentric resident of the White House on his appointment as the LG (and just like that, there goes this Blogger’s already fragile chance of renewing the US visa).
Another evergreen concern is Delhi’s green cover – ironically discussed most when it is being actively reduced. The previous occupant of Raj Niwas had, rather memorably, mis-stepped in his submission to the courts on tree felling, inviting a sharp and not-so-subtle reprimand from the Supreme Court of India. In what can only be described as a judicially supervised act of repentance, the DDA was directed to collaborate with the forest department to identify substitute land for tree plantation. https://stateofdelhi.in/our-man-ak-karma-and-theatre/
Eighteen parcels across the city were duly earmarked for large-scale compensatory plantation. And look at what the current Delhi Government did. These parks were presented to Dilliwalahs on World Environment Day as a drive aimed at enhancing environmental awareness and promoting urban greenery in the capital. Christened as ‘NaMo Oxygen Parks’ (one could take Shakespeare out of his grave and stab him for that quote of his!) these are a part of a court-directed restoration effort as a penalty for the illegal chopping of trees. Dilliwalahs were appalled when the CM, Mrs G, and her government subtly positioned this restoration effort as a fresh, voluntary environmental project. As some Dilliwalahs say: We may be emotional, sentimental and naïve but we aren’t morons (they used the Ch…word actually!) and our environmental awareness is not low.
StateOfDelhi Suggests: No, Dilliwalahs, no. Stop waiting for Melody for it isn’t coming your way. In this punishing Delhi heat, survival demands something far more reliable such as the gloriously local Sharbat-e-Mohabbat. Found in the bustling lanes of Daryaganj and around Jama Masjid, this drink is where hydration politely shakes hands with indulgence. A charming concoction of milk, watermelon, rose syrup, and soaked basil seeds, it does what most policy announcements cannot – it delivers instant relief.
Of course, this is Delhi, a city that romanticizes everything, including its beverages – hence the grand, slightly filmi name. One suspects that if diplomacy ever needed softening, this would make for an excellent state dinner offering for one Ms Giorgia Meloni on her visit at the PMO!