The Crack in the Wall and the Landslide’s Yaaddasht

Santa is tracing a thin, jagged crack in the wall of his relatively new concrete house with a worried finger. “Banta, I am cursed!”

“I used the best steel, the strongest cement … I even paid the Pundit for an extra-long Puja!”

“So why is my strong, modern house developing these Jhurriyan like an old man‘s face?”

Banta inspects the crack in the wall and then looks at the ground around the house.

The house is built on a terrace that, for generations, was only used for growing potatoes.

“Santa,” Banta says thoughtfully, “the problem might not be with your cement or your Puja.”

“The problem might be with the Yaaddasht of the very ground your house is standing on.”

“Yaaddasht of the ground?”

“Banta, have you been reading too many poetry books?” Santa asks impatiently.

“Not poetry, Santa, Geology,” Banta replies.

“Our ancestors were wise.”

“They farmed on this terrace, but they built their homes higher up on the solid ridge.”

“Why?”

“Because they knew this land was born from an ancient landslide.”

“And landslide debris has a long Yaaddasht and a peculiar Aadat“

“An Aadat?”

“Yes, an Aadat of settling,” Banta explains.

“For centuries, when this was just a field, rainwater would seep into this loose, jumbled ground.”

“As it travelled downwards, it would pick up and carry away the finest of particles – the clay and silt – from between the larger stones.”

“A process called piping of fines.”

“This would cause the ground to settle, a tiny, almost invisible bit, year after year.”

“For growing potatoes, this tiny annual settling didn’t really matter.”

“And may be nobody observed it at that time.”

He looks at Santa’s house.

“But now, you’ve gone and built a heavy, rigid concrete house on this very ground that still has this Aadat of slowly washing its fines away from underneath.”

“And worse, with all the extra water seeping into the ground from our changed lifestyles, this piping process, this hollowing out from below, is likely happening faster than before.”

Santa turns pale.

“You mean the ground under my foundation is being slowly washed away, leaving empty spaces, and that’s why my house is cracking?”

“It is a very strong possibility, Santa,” Banta affirms.

“The ground is subsiding, settling unevenly, and your rigid concrete house, unlike a flexible wooden one, cannot accommodate this movement.”

“So, it cracks.”

“This is the great challenge we face now.”

“We have moved our homes onto lands that our ancestors reserved only for farming, without fully understanding the Yaaddasht and Aadat of that land.”

“We are experiencing the consequences of building heavy, inflexible structures on this dynamic and continuously evolving ground.”

Santa touches the crack again, this time with understanding instead of just fear.

“So, the land is still living its own life, settling as it always has, but now my house is caught in the middle of its slow, geological sigh.”

“The Joshimath cracks… it’s the same story, isn’t it, Banta?”

“A whole town feeling the ground‘s old Aadat.”

Banta nods gravely.

“It is the same story, Santa, on a much larger, more tragic scale.”

“It’s a wake-up call for all of us in the mountains.”

“We must learn to listen to the land‘s Yaaddasht, understand its Aadat, and build in a way that respects them, before our modern dreams turn into concrete cracks.”

संता – बंता की इस जुगलबन्दी से आज हमने क्या सीखा:-  

• परम्परागत रूप से खेती-बाड़ी के लिये उपयोग में लाये जाने वाले स्थानों पर उचित तकनीकी परामर्श के बिना भारी-भरकम संरचनाओं का निर्माण करने से क्षेत्र पर आसन्न संकटो का जोखिम बढ़ सकता हैं।
• अतः न ही ऐसा करे और न ही  किसी और को ऐसा करने दें – उन्हे समझाये कि ऐसा करना सुरक्षा कि दृष्टि से उचित नही हैं और सुरक्षा के  साथ किया गया यह समझौता पूरे समुदाय को खतरे में डाल सकता हैं।     
• उपयुक्त जल निस्तारण व्यवस्थाओं के अभाव में जमीन के अन्दर प्रवेश करने वाले पानी के द्वारा निरन्तरता में किये जाने वाले क्षरण से क्षेत्र में भू-धंसाव की समस्या उत्पन्न हो सकती है।
• अतः क्षेत्र से सुरक्षित जल निस्तारण हेतु पर्याप्त व्यवस्थायें अवश्य करें।
• भू-धंसाव के कारण क्षेत्र में निर्मित अवसंरचनाओं की सुरक्षा पर प्रश्न चिन्ह लग जाने की स्थिति में, बिना उचित तकनीकी परामर्श के क्षतिग्रस्त भवनों की मरम्मत ना करें, और न ही क्षेत्र में कोई नया निर्माण ही करें।
• भू-वैज्ञानिक संरचना के साथ ही जल विज्ञान के विभिन्न पक्षों के जटिल संयोजन तथा अनियोजित विकास ने उत्तराखण्ड  के चमोली जनपद में जोशीमठ में भू-धंसाव की समस्या को जन्म दिया, और यह पूरे के पूरे हिमालयी क्षेत्र के लिये खतरे की घंटी हैं। 

संता – बंता की यह जुगलबन्दी आपको कैसी लगी, कृपया हमें जरुर बताये

तथा  

इस जुगलबन्दी को बेहतर बनाने के लिये अपने सुझाव अवश्य दें।

हमें हमेशा की तरह आपके सुझावों, प्रतिक्रियाओं व कटाक्षो का बेसब्री से इंतजार रहता हैं और सच मानिये इसी के आधार पर हम अपने आप में, अपनी सोच व रचनात्मकता में सुधार करने को प्रेरित होते हैं।

सो अच्छा – बुरा जैसा आपको महसूस हुवा हो, कमेंट जरुर करते रहें।