Some days back, I was having a casual conversation with my father. He was telling me about our village Sogam and how it looked like some twenty or thirty years ago. Sogam is one of the largest villages in the Lolab valley of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district. My father told me that there was a freshwater stream in front of our house. Its water was so pure and clean that it was used for drinking purpose, and was so crystal clear that it looked like glass.
For me, this sounds as something imaginary, as the same stream has now turned into a concrete (dry) drain which flows a few times in the year (as result of drain water). Our habitation has no access to clean drinking water today. Today we feel like we are living in a desert.
Seeing such a state of things, a few questions come to my mind: What has happened in the last twenty years in this village? Is this the same Sogam that our parents and grandparents knew of? Are the summers and winters the same here? Do we produce as much food, milk and fruits and other agricultural products as was produced a few years before? The answer (to all these questions) is a big NO.
Over the years, in this small place of ours, environmental degradation has become visible all around. It is what has changed in just one village. If we imagine how much change has occurred at the larger level — like at tehsil level, district level, country level, and the global level – it will both boggle and distress the mind.
Our smallest actions have started to impact us; they have resulted in changes both at the individual as well as at the collective level.
We have done a lot of damage to the natural ecosystem: forests have been destroyed; trees are not planted anymore (as was done previously); rivers and streams have been encroached on and polluted; soil and landscape has been spoiled and destroyed by using chemical fertilisers and pesticides and by excavations – all this has affected our lives directly. It is we (humans) who are responsible for the damage to ourselves and to our environment.
There are many villages in the Lolab valley where no parent prefers to get their daughter(s) married, because these areas face drinking water scarcity.
Our actions have consequences. Our quality of life is not improving although people are well off. New diseases are killing us. People are dying at a young age. We have seen so many young people dying in our village also. When nature is not there to comfort us, the stress will kill us.
No one thinks over these issues seriously. People generally think in materialistic terms without having any vision or far-sightedness. Many of us think that if this village does not suit us, we will shift/migrate to another village or some other place. Those who are more well off prefer to shift to the city or to the peripheries of the city, and thus their “life” goes on, because for them “migration is the solution”.
But such people don’t give any consideration to the fact that they may migrate from one village to another or to the main city, but at the end we have only one planet – our mother Earth. Where shall we go if we keep destroying this planet (the only life-giving planet of this universe)?
The fact is that there is no place to go. We will have to take responsibility of our planet and start from the smallest level. When throwing trash, when using tap water for irrigating kitchen gardens or vegetable gardens (which is otherwise meant for drinking purpose); when cutting trees (unjustly); when burning dry leaves; when doing any kind of activity which ultimately results in a negative effect on our environment. We must remind ourselves that these small things are destroying our environment and our planet.
It is now the responsibility of the youngsters to think about these issues seriously and take necessary measures to safeguard our environment and make our planet earth a place worth living. Our goals should be small but achievable. My dream is to see the stream outside our home flowing again the way it used to; I want the sparrows back; I want snowfall during winter and cool and fresh breeze during summers. I want everyone to have enough food to eat and have a stress-free sleep to end the day with. I want this village to flourish and this planet to flourish. All this is possible only if we recognise that it is not our parents’ generation but our generation that will have to step out and show the way. Let’s think over it and let’s act before it is too late.

The writer is a BA 6th semester student at Govt Degree College Sogam (Lolab) Kupwara

Rehana Imtiyaz Wani