river in tears

i may be going to the narmada valley very soon.

the valley is the ultimate pilgrimage for every bleeding-heart on the subcontinent – perhaps of as much significance as that of a haj or a mansarovar yatra for the religiously devout. although i’m too young (ha!) and not-yet-there to claim any moment of truth, if I had to lay such claims, i’d say it’s the day i heard the story of the valley. the narrative of the narmada scarred my psyche deep enough to turn me from a potential recruit in the capitalist army into a jhola-toting, khadi-wearing babbler of conspiracy theories.

my theories are still amorphous. i haven’t managed to plot - let alone connect - all the dots. i’d probably be a wicked old hag before i finish reading all the right books and have the facts at the tip of my forked tongue that i could spit out with joy at the non-believers. yet, the data for my theories presents itself everyday at the traffic lights selling substandard tissues, meagerly-strung mogras, and garish balloons. then there’s the other evidence, ensconced in the air-conditioned cocoon of his steel beauty, fixing the next deal on his phone that probably costs as much as the annual living expenses of the family that has its hearth on the pavement next to the traffic light.

how can one encounter this and not cringe at the incredible unfairness of the inequity? i don’t know how things have come to such a pass. meanwhile this little guy’s giving me a sales pitch of his three-day old empty gut with the matching look of emptiness in his eyes. i can’t afford to buy each pitch that comes my way. but neither can i afford to look away each time, every time.

to me the narmada story gave, for the first time, a face to the force that sweeps countless lives into the cities under an innocuous term of rural-urban migration. it’s not just the dams, submergence and displacement. it’s the entire conception of progress and its mathematics of costs and benefits, that decides that the lives of some animals are more dispensable than those of others. (am i sounding as rabid as ms. roy? forgive me… what was it that kaavya said? internalization… ya, that’s it).

the narmada story also made me see that this vicious force had actually bypassed my little corner of the earth for most of history until this moment. hallelujah! and now, i, nemo, the great yellow hope of the age of aquarius, actually have a few years to stop the cycle of destruction and devastation. so this autumn, i am off to do an m.a. in development studies. and between the unlikely sojourns of b.arch. and m.a.d.s. flows the waters of narmada.

p.s. at these times, i really hate myself for being unable to nonchalantly throw in the relevant facts and figures that make an argument bulletproof. and i also hate chomsky for making it look as casual as throwing eggs into a pan for a scramble.

p.p.s. the trip has been postponed due to some unforeseen circumstances. hmmph..