Jyothy Sreedhar

Mullapperiyar- all that we wish to say!

A thought about the Mullapperiyar Dam suffocates me. There is a weird picture in my scary dreams, of a frozen waterbody that is spread in the heart of Kerala across the districts. The hopeless corpses float here and there and the vision gets repeated with every turn of view. Disaster! Disaster! Disaster! All that can be happened in just a wink of an eye. After that fraction of second we will be homeless, Kerala will lose its heart, and we cannot even point to some place and say, "There stood my home!" Within a few days the scary dream began to become one of the most expected reality. It is not an imagination. It is a calculated result based on present situations, real facts and expert studies. The people are running with fear. [caption id="attachment_462" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Kerala- before and after the disaster- an imaginative one- pic from Facebook."][/caption] The internet and the networks yell with their deep fear. They ask and ask and ask... The authorities think and think and think... Everyday, towards the end of the nights, I realize it was a big zero that happened today too... It was just another day. Why there is no one to hear the cries! It is not a matter of tens or hundreds or thousands, not even a village. The expected disaster is much big as to change the map of Kerala to two distorted sections. Every time with the news bits, there is a visual of an expert committee walking through the dam corridors, touching the walls and speaking about how weak it is. Yes, we know it is weak. We don't want to know how much! Idukki is an earthquake prone region and a 4-5 richter scale quake can errupt the dam. That is all we want as a report. After that, please don't give us calculations and details about what you don't have for a remedy. Do something with what you have. We just want urgent actions. People are scared enough to click on whatever links that appear in the network sites with the title refering to Mullapperiyar. They give petitions, they get ready to gather, they share the pictures and write wherever they have a column. Hearts are beating faster and the scene is getting worse. [caption id="attachment_465" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A picture from Facebook"][/caption] But then too the silence from the authorities are frozen...frozen like the death that is awaiting us. It is their habit to do something after some problem happens. Atleast not this time, I pray! After the disaster happens, there is no need for an action as the dam itself will get faded away along with a million cries! If you want to do something, the time is now! Not a minute later! Do or get damned! And remember, the expected moment can be next minute as well! Before we float in a historical death that you donate to us, becoming one in those lakhs, we are registering our words in history! These cries will echo with every roar of a sea beyond eras! The Mullapperiyar campaign is so strong in network sites evidently, but within two days, some things got upside down. The question raised by us was that of human lives and the people from Tamil Nadu made it as issue of their water availability. They stand strong against the proposal of a new dam. The Keralites are surprised! The honourable chief minister of Tamil Nadu stated that the dam is intact, too safe and secure and that the Keralites are doing a wrong campaign. Some politician also said that the supreme court has told the same. Hence, with that, the Tamil people are moving to the other side, against the campaign, laughing at the little tries of us before death. That itself is another disaster. Once it happens, they will get 'shocked' and nothing more. [caption id="attachment_466" align="alignright" width="230" caption="Dear Tamil people, please understand us!"][/caption] But then, after the disaster happens, whom will you regret to? We all will be wiped off from where you drink our water! Take our water to satisfy your needs and support us in our war against death. If this was your situation, we would have done the same- please know that! The lands, the people, the human blood- that's same for us anywhere anytime. We expect your kindness to us- your brothers and sisters, who have fed you these long years with water. It is not out of ego or something that we stood against raising the water level in the dam, it is just because the dam cannot stand it. The dam is too old and the limestones that made it have been much dissolved as time passed by, the cracks have grown bigger with every small earthquake. The dam is already leaking. One earthquake will answer your wrong assumptions, and kindly not wait for that! [caption id="attachment_467" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="We want support from other people, brotherhood from the Tamil, and action from the authorities!"][/caption] The shiver is spreading all across the malayalis in the world... It is not a wrong campaign. The first and basic right of human is his right to live. And that right is questioned, hindered and the further actions are getting blocked. The hinderence is made firstly by our own lazy politicians and mostly by the Tamil people who have a wrong belief about the dam's safety and oppose every little initiative by Kerala for a new dam. I request them to go through every article that is available to you and opt mostly for those writings out of your state. Estimate and understand yourself. If you want to have a further confirmation take a ticket and go to the dam location and see for yourself how pathetic it is! [caption id="attachment_468" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption=""We're all DAMnED""][/caption] We don't have anything to tell you, dear kins. We are fighting for our lives to which there is no other alternative. You are fighting for water that is only next important to our need. By banning the movie 'Dam 999' or laughing at our little efforts that we do for our survival, you don't attain anything, but just hinder all that you can do for us. Your brothers are staying there beneath the dam. Ask them about the reality... Our brothers are staying in your lands. Ask them whether they feel peaceful. It is not whether we stay there or not. We all die out with the dead indirectly, even if we stay away from the disaster. If a news happens like the dam will errupt tomorrow, I will be there in a passenger to my home. I want to die there where I was born, along with whom I saw from my first breath, floating in those flooded dreams for tomorrow that is to be decayed. I don't want to live even a minute more after my homeland is dead. After that, when you go through the collages of the biggest dam disaster in history, hear our voices that are embedded. And regret...not!

HUMAN LIFE IS MORE PRECIOUS THAN WATER!
[caption id="attachment_471" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Stand for us, brothers!"][/caption]