The Ostrich Syndrome

SEPTEMBER 2004 - Either we are praying for rainfall or we are hosing down our homes, shops and cars with millions of gallons of good water. Moderation in Pakistan is akin to sin. There are no middle grounds to wander around in and enjoy the good things life offers. Instead, it is this end of the slope or that. Slithering, sliding and never really quite sure where we are. This week as we supplicate ourselves before the Maker, begging, pleading and moaning for rain to save our dying crops, we are enacting the ritual. That’s about it. As for environment, it is a subject best left to newspaper press releases and the occasional seminar where everyone pontificates and no one listens. Every now and then, some fat cat in some labyrinth of the government finds his way into the sunlight and issues a noble-sounding statement that once more stresses on how we need to protect the environment. That accomplished, there is silence. Till the next time. Well, no silence either because even noise pollution has crossed all imaginable barriers of tolerance.

While the eternal strive between the provinces over water sharing goes on and on like a bad serial without an end – episode number 76 and debate over building or not building the dams thrives much like Mr. Shaukat Aziz’s Jamali-shaped cabinet, the country faces another year of crisis with the heavens refusing to oblige. It does make you wonder if the Maker has finally written off Pakistan because while we do all the ritualistic things, how can we expect any divine intervention when in our hearts, we truly don’t give a rat’s ass about our responsibilities? The prayers last week, said with great fervour, produced exactly six drops of water that fell on the road and soon became the muck that we all wallow about in. I recall meeting a couple in England in the very beginning of the 1980s and delighted to find out that they were coming out to Pakistan that very fall to build a dam at a place called Kalabagh, a name I always associated with the Nawab’s flourishing moustache. They came, they were here for over two years and then they went back. There was a huge project office on Main Boulevard, undoubtedly now another shopping plaza, that hummed with brisk activity. Rolls and rolls of drawings littered every room and the office had an air of urgency and speed that meant only one thing. Work. Eventually it all came to a standstill, consigned to the collective dustbin of our missed opportunities. We fought over all the wrong things, accused one another of deceit and duplicity and in the end, twenty years and more later, are not even where we were when the bickering began. Perhaps silly oafs like me cannot even begin to fathom the deep and intensely complex scenarios that entail the building of dams, the distribution policies of water and the hard to understand matters of royalties and fees and revenues. Perhaps one province is out to shaft another and who knows what role the federal government is playing and perhaps this is a wicked conspiracy to bring the republic down. All people like us do know is that we don’t have enough water, we don’t have enough power and we don’t have any dams other than we built by mistake. The dam subject has generated so much controversy that if you ask the person in the street what’s all the fuss about, the most intelligent response you are likely to get from him is a shake of the head and a bewildered look. If these are indeed matters of high policy, subjects of ethereal dimensions, then yes only a few can comprehend the great truth behind this national stumbling block. Other than my driver, everyone else I know has issued a statement on the dams led at one end by the President and at the other by a horde of blokes who one cannot recall. I know that the Lal Haveli scion has issued any number of statements on this matter but what have these all led to is more debate, more inaction, more resolve and more nothing. If Mr. Sharifuddin Pirzada can create a problem where none exists and provide a new solution each time something illegal has to be made kosher, why can’t he give us a solution to whatever ails the national psyche? At least we will have one less reason to dislike him. If he can take the uniform and iron it out without a crease showing, why not the damning dam question?

But whether we build dams or not, when is this country going to start taking the first steps in cutting down on the flagrant waste of water that all of us are involved in daily? Each one of us wastes water – gallons of it, without ever stopping to think for a second what we are doing. Pakistan may be an IT wonder nation but if an engineer has designed a WC that uses less water than the few trillion gallons that we all use – those of us who have water to use anyway – lucky devils, I have not heard about it or seen it at any of the shops that sell you Italian tiles and German fittings. Any number of Pakistani firms are building sanitary fittings and WCs and wash basins and what have you – even Jacuzzis, but has there been a water-saving invention from these outfits? Instead, people drop a tissue into a WC and think nothing of flushing it down. That’s when the day starts for those who have bathrooms, taps and WCs to luxuriate in. The rest? Well where are they and who are they? They don’t have drinking water? Well, isn’t that a shame? Conscience at ease, flush the thought away. Many, many people leave taps running while they rummage for toothbrushes, toothpastes or soaps. The same with overflowing buckets and showers that start before you start and remain so after you have finished till you remember to turn them off.

Most homes and offices boast of leaky taps and leaky WCs but for years and years there is no urge to fix them. Consequently thousands of gallons of good quality water simply falls into nothingness. Incessant washing of dishes and now widespread use of water-guzzling washing machines takes its toll on water reserves. Every home, 5 marla or 5 acres is constantly being bathed. The floors, the terraces, the verandas, the porches, the drives – all are generously washed and scrubbed, washed and scrubbed. In summers, twice a day. Gardeners water lawns incessantly. With my own sinful eyes, I have seen servants hosing down long drives with a monsoon downpour in full swing. And then there are the bicycles, the scooters, the rickshaws, the cars, the vans, the buses and all the other contraptions that move. There is an unspoken, unwritten code that binds everyone to enact this ritual every day, sometimes twice a day. Throughout the year, cars are soaped and washed as if there was a religious injunction making it an obligatory task. Where one bucket can do the job – if cars must be washed daily, gallons of good water are liberally consumed. Rubber mats are soaped and washed till they are worn out. Most cars in Pakistan can boast of rusting doors and windows because they are doused with so much water. No one wants to put a check on this. Is it because there is so much dust here? If so, it’s a paradoxical situation. The gleaming, washed car is dusty in less than 20 minutes after it leaves home, so what’s the big deal?

The water tables are sinking. The rivers run dry. The dams are empty. Most people still have no potable water. A country, which survives on how much snow will melt on the high slopes, has the same chance as a snowball in hell.