ECLIPSED HOLI!

 

What sets aside the Holi of 2024? Firstly, the festival coincided with an Eclipse. It happens when the sun, moon and earth form an alignment called syzygy and on a full moon day. Secondly, it was one of the hottest Holi day our nation saw, accredited to the El Nino and rise in global average temperature. What’s more? Well, it was hot like really hot even though the summer has just knocked on the doors and we’ve opened the doors. We’ve still not let our guest inside.

My sister was sick a week ago. Suffering from seasonal transition viral, after an exhausting travel schedule and still performing her duties as board invigilator, supervisor and other mandatory duties at her school. She had to push herself hard throughout her schedules not because she isn’t used to but because there was an added contingency to deal with, her health. Even after knowing her schedules, she didn’t want to exchange her duties for the sake of clarity and the least she wanted was to take antibiotics. Alas, after much exaggeration of her health conditions , she had to finally take a day’s off by switching her duties, take the full prescription of antibiotics and recharge.

What we understand is that despite an illness, of course, a body would continue to function but there would be impacts on efficiency and on the physical and organizational fronts too. While the whole nation celebrated Holi with much joy and enthusiasm, there was a part of the body, sick. While I watched my neighbors of all age groups playing for 4 hours straight with colors, water and mud, I wondered how many gallons were used in the purposeful fulfillment of annual celebration. And multiplied by our national population who celebrated the festival with equal contribution of joy, how much would we’ve collectively wasted so forth.

Karnataka, faces one of the worse water crises of all times. Not just the poor urban or rural areas, but the much civilized and industrialized portions having impeccable infrastructure and ease of living are grappling with the crisis too. People are fleeing to their hometowns, applying for work from home option if applicable. There are limits to water supply timings, water usage on washing and cleaning has been cut off to save for drinking, cooking and other necessary activities. While the world anticipates a severe summer, there’s not enough for even to meet the fundamental access to potable water. And that’s not all, the neighboring states too are anticipating a similar crisis owing to a closely similar water reservoir filling capacities patterns.

The irony is that the full moon is our national annual festival while the eclipse is Karnataka's water scarcity. The least we could do was to stand in solidarity and respect the resource we’ve in our hands. Be thoughtful of how we celebrated and how much limit was the limit. Because even if today, we’ve plenty of it, Karnataka is just another essential organ of the body of India, and anything happening to it worse or better, would have a domino effect on the whole nation.

Keeping aside the aforementioned steps that could be adopted at individual or community levels, for a much impactful result, the Housing socities and RWA’s guided by the Local Body could lay down the guidelines for water usage and regulations on availabilities. A rule coming from the Centre would be even more an authoritarian word. Alas, the parties sprinting through for the upcoming elections, forgot duly noting that it’s not a regular race rather an obstacle race and one doesn’t gets to win without having attempted those.

Having said that, I don’t mean to discourage the citizens from celebrating the nation’s most loved festival rather be thoughtful and considerate especially when the concerns are on environmental and humanitarian grounds.

VEDIKA