July 2008 Edition
Umesh Anand
I was introduced to the wetlands of east Kolkata when I chanced upon Dhrubajyoti Ghosh at the offices of the state planning board on Camac Street in 1983. As a rookie journalist, I was in search of stories. I had lots of time on my hands because The Telegraph, the paper I worked for, had been shut down, along with the rest of the Ananda Bazaar Group, by striking leftist unions.
During the 51 days of that strike I had several opportunities to visit the wetlands and the garbage gardens in the eastern fringes of the city. I had grown up in Kolkata but knew nothing of this remarkable resource recycling system through which waste came back as food to the city. I found sewage being cleansed through natural processes and used to cultivate fish. The nutrient-rich water was also used to irrigate paddy fields. Vegetables were grown on garbage.
It was a decades-old system created and kept alive by the innovative spirit of local people. With Dhruba as guide, I scaled garbage hills and explored the sewage-fed fisheries. I was always impressed by his willingness to get his knees dirty. He was clearly no ordinary government engineer. I did a whole lot of stories on the wetlands to celebrate the first flush of my discovery as a hack. Over the years my understanding of the system has grown. Of course there have been many more visits, the most recent being some months ago with Dhruba now grey, diabetic, breathless and all of 61. But my respect for east Kolkata’s traditional recycling systems has also come out of the modern search for sustainable, low-cost solutions.
I realise now how much ahead of the rest of the world Dhruba was in being able to recognise the science in the traditional management of the sewagefed fisheries and assess the true worth of the system to Kolkata, a city falling apart then as it is today. East Kolkata is now known across the world. It is most certainly better understood internationally than it is here in India. Someone I met at the World Bank’s office in Delhi the other day told me that a professor at Berkeley had told him about east Kolkata and suggested that he take a look.
The professor had been Dhruba’s PhD guide. The World Bank, by the way, much maligned for its propagation of dams and so on, has been doling out money for the creation of low-cost tank networks in south India to solve water problems. Imagine the mighty Bank and humble tanks! We have chosen to do a cover story on east Kolkata, Dhruba and so on with much reluctance because it is horrible to have to look back and revisit stories of opportunities missed. But the fact is east Kolkata is a good example of how we need to be innovative to find solutions to pollution and poverty. We felt we should do out bit to bring it to the attention of contemporary policy makers.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
 |
Newsvine |  |
del.icio.us |
|
Disclaimer
The views expressed here are strictly personal and civilsocietyonline.com does not necessarily subscribe to them. We shall endeavour to upload/publish as many of the comments that are submitted as possible within a reasonable span of time, but we do not guarantee that all comments that are submitted will be uploaded/published. Messages that harass, abuse or threaten other members; have obscene, unlawful, defamatory, libellous, hateful, or otherwise objectionable content; or have spam, commercial or advertising content or links are liable to be removed by the editors. We also reserve the right to edit the comments that do get published. Please do not post any private information unless you want it to be available publicly.
Your feedback on this story...
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About Us | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | ©2007 Civil Society
.
........................................Webmaster Vishwanathan ( vishu4@rediffmail.com )
