German woman and son clear litter in Rishikesh // Brit 'Garbage Girl' faces an uphill task
RISHIKESH: In the midst of a sea of survivors at the Rishikesh bus terminal, a nine-year-old rushed about with a carton in one hand swiftly picking empty cans, bottles and paper bags. His mother followed him. She too went about quietly collecting the waste lying around. Contributing to the relief exercise the mother and son from Germany are in no rush to catch the first flight to the comfort of their home and have instead stationed themselves here doing whatever is required. But their concern for the environment at the camp strewn with plastic bottles, paper plates, empty cartons brings to the fore the reality that the nation, despite the disaster in the hill state, is yet to learn to respect nature.
So far 35,000 survivors have registered with the administration, SDM Riskhikesh Ramji Saran Sharma told TOI on Wednesday. Rishikesh is the main transit point that evacuees have been brought to the last three days to catch buses, trains and flights from Dehradun. A sense of charity permeates the relief camps around these exit points with much relief work going on. But the environment is getting filthier every passing day. Dustbins are brimming, people are throwing plastic bottles in storm-water drains and the sites are marked by half-eaten eatables while paper plates are littered all over.
It was this scene that 9-year-old Ramo reacted to on Wednesday when he told his mother he wanted to pick up the waste. NGO workers trying to get people to join the garbage removal exercise along with the sanitation staff were only too happy to provide Ramo and his mother with gloves to pitch in. As the mother picked up glasses, Ramo dived under chairs and tables pulling out what he could find. He had no time to talk and only stopped once to ask the NGO worker if the gloves were safe. His mother said her name was Kamala and they'd had been living in different parts of India over the last few years.
The mother and son were in the upper reaches near Gangotri till a few days ago when they came down to Rishikesh. She said that Ramo studies in Rishikesh but will now be going to Europe to be with his grandmother for a while.
DEHRADUN: A white girl picks up plastic cups, paper plates and waste at the busy Sahastradhara helipad where survivors of the Himalayan tsunami are being flown in.
With her are some young men who also clean garbage left behind by the crowd that has thronged the helipad for a glimpse of the helicopters. The vicinity of the helipad is spotlessly clean. Meet Jodi Underhill, a 37-year-old Briton who runs the voluntary organization, WasteWarriors. She came to India in 2008 as a tourist and seeing the filth in the hill stations decided to do her bit to clean them up. Apart from helping to clean keep the helipad relief camp clean, which has witnessed a huge influx of relatives of stranded pilgrims, policemen and media contingents, Underhill has started a Facebook page to coordinate relief work and help volunteers. Underhill has a word of caution for those planning to do voluntary work in the devastated region. "You need to train yourself to work in the mountains," she said. Proper equipment is a must. Underhill is angry at the state of the Himalayan region and calls the flash floods a wake-up call. "This is the land of Shiva. It's a warning to people not to destroy the Himalayas."
She said authorities must rethink strategy and take a fresh look at the indiscriminate construction of dams, use of dynamites to blow up parts of mountains. There was a need to regulate tourists in the fragile regions. "You are doing a great job," policemen and officials at the helipad tell her.
