Nature seems to take revenge. This year, the temperature has hit the lowest mark of (-) 7.8 0C. This change isn’t specific to Kashmir alone. Around the world, climate change has started to reflect the humanity’s failure to protect its home, earth, from its greed.
In Kashmir, ponds, lakes, water tanks, irrigation pipes et al. is freezing like never before. The current generation is experiencing it for the first time ever. Authorities have suggested elderly and children not to come out from the homes before 10:00 am in the morning and after 5:00 pm in the evening. The blood pressure problems have risen enormously, so does the respiratory and cold diseases.
On the top of it all, electricity, as usual, is a mess. Nothing seems to be improved. Every now and then newspapers are filled with the news of protests against authorities regarding electricity matters.
This all suggests that we haven’t adjusted to the changes taking place across the globe in general and Kashmir in particular. On the contrary, we have started a war against nature, the war that no species has ever won. Take the example of our architecture. Walls seem to whoosh the western disturbances through while window panes look like icicles in the morning.
We used to have rectangular houses with proportionate windows, like those in the European countries, which would keep warm in the winter and cold in the summers. Now, we are making square-shaped houses with larger windows, which need too much energy to stay warm in winter and cosy in summers.
Equally, asphalt road construction has no slope at all; the drainage system is similarly deficient. Life is freezing, so does the productivity of the manpower we have. The thinking needs to be done to stop this war from eating everything up.
Maybe, and more likely, the future is harsher. We need to ask ourselves, are we prepared to face that. If the answer is negative, then what needs to be done? The choice is ours, the results too.
