Cut to 1964 or 1965. Five students of St John’s High School drowned at Dasham falls. Among them was Akhil, three or four years my senior. A bright and outgoing boy, Akhil was forever laughing. Juniors like us looked up to him.
An astrologer had told his mother that he should not go near water bodies and his parents made sure that he did not. But on this day, he had joined the class picnic because the boys were planning to go to a place, which was dry. But somewhere on the way, the boys persuaded teachers to change the plan. Akhil, we were later told, refused to go near the water in deference to the commitment he had made to his parents. But fate interfered. His friend was caught in a whirlpool and cried for help. And one after another four of the boys rushed into the water and were lost forever.
Most of the people who die at Dasham are young. Akhil’s brother, Anoop, is now director (public relations) of Indian (Airlines) and another brother, Chetan is in Power Grid Corporation, posted also in Delhi. We speak occasionally and exchange greetings. But, we naturally never talk about Akhil. Or, the young cousin of Uday Shankar Rao, who once worked in Mecon and now works for Alstom in the United States. I do not remember his name but Uday’s cousin, studying in BIT-Mesra, was an outdoor person, who never returned from Dasham. The latest victims, from the outskirts of Calcutta, two members of a club at Baruipur, were also young.
Newspapers have quoted the visitors as saying that they could not read the Hindi signs in Hindi. While the signboards have come up recently, it is not understood why they are written only in Hindi. Adding the warnings in English and in Bengali would surely not have added to the cost. What’s more, it is not understood why the department of tourism cannot put in place a system of every group of tourists descending on Dasham to be tagged to a group of local villagers and guides. No group will mind paying for the convenience of having local residents as guides, who can explain to them the do’s and the don’ts. Above all, Dasham and other falls around the capital must develop other activities to occupy the mind and time of the tourists. Currently, they can only sit on the rocks or get down into the water.
Trekking, music, crafts villages, snack bars and cycling tracks need to be developed to give the tourists a chance to unwind. It is also not clear why the safer pools of water cannot be marked for bathing with railings around them. With neither the sea nor high mountain peaks, Jharkhand will remain a tourist destination for the young and the middle classes. But when will some sense dawn on our ministers and secretaries and when will they stop visiting Germany and England in search of tourists?
It is strange that they are not blamed by anyone for the deaths at Dasham. But can they really escape the responsibility?
