The floods of 2015 was the very first time I had to move away from the house I was born into, as it was filling up with sewage water. Back then, the stretch from Boat Club Road to the Music Academy did not have stormwater drains. That hasn’t changed even now. Rainwater entered into sewage systems and raised the overall water level to what was an all-time high then.
At the time, I was a student of arts at Stella Maris College, but the floods meant that I could not access the studio space on campus for a significant amount of time. Many artists’ studios had to close too, and all major galleries had shut down. There was little to no activity and zero governmental support for artisans and craftspersons to get by.
The average citizen has learned how to cope with the gushing waters of man-made floods, and although there has been some progress towards restoring the natural waterbodies of Chennai city, official efforts have been a far cry from being substantial. The issue is that, for us Indians, nature must make monetary sense, and we cannot abide by a park with trees simply being just that.
Trees and other flora act as buffers and placeholders in the event of a flood or natural disaster. Equally important are Chennai’s backwaters, marshlands, three freshwater rivers, the Buckingham Canal, several man-made reservoirs and the Coromandel coast, all of which have been severely abused in the name of the population. Either awareness is lacking, or implementation is complex for reasons other than funding or logistics.
There are several civic efforts, such as the urban forestry work done by the non-profit group Nizhal, that are significant and necessary. Shobha, the lady who runs Nizhal, has been a great inspiration to me in the way that she has envisioned community-based tree conservation. A kitchen or terrace garden or the recently-popular hydroponic farming solutions come to mind. They allow people to recycle their own sewage and kitchen waste, harvest food and water, and lower their carbon footprint.
How do we conserve something, yet make a living? Some answers that are immediately evident are water sport efforts, such as sailing, kayaking, windsurfing, ocean awareness programmes, and more. I think people of this great city should be taught to love the waters, and then respect will bloom from fondness, I am sure.
(The writer is a visual artist, designer and curator based in Chennai.)