W
inter is settling over north, Jandar Mandir is in the clutches of the cold spell. Last season it drooped to two degree Centigrade in the same month. V.Jazeera remains unfazed and comfy in her makeshift cloister, walled and roofed with flux board sheets and tarpaulin, on the footpath in Delhi.
She is on a sit-in in front of the Kerala House in Delhi flanked by her adolescent daughters Rizvana and Shihana and the infant-in-arm Mohammed settled snuggly on her breast, on the luxury of a a plywood sheet on the floor. An old sari twirled and tied to the rope that hung from the branches of the peepul tree is the cradle for the toddler. Students from JN University come to see her, help her daughters in their study, the pedestrians ask her if she had food. The lanky woman past her youth, decked in blank abaya with headscarf, assiduously declares that her task is to terminate the rampant and invidious sand mining along the 580 Km of Kerala coast line.
Her struggle is singular, a one-off strife away from the spotlight with no fanfare or ticker taped Manhattan parades -that did not fill a lot of column inches in the media.
“I am the daughter of the sea .I live with my eyeballs glued to the sea.” With a lackluster look that beguiles a vivid and untiring mind, she harks back to the days spent in her teens with her peers-the days they reveled in counting sea waves- the frolics on the sand dunes, the engaging sand games- draining a lot of turtle eggs. It is the unscrupulous sand mining which ate away the vitals of the vast swaths of sand before her, its fauna and the sea weeds. With stunning disbelief, Jaseera saw the 60m distance to the sea dwindled before her, her house fast running towards the sea.” The state and central governments have the responsibility for the enforcement of the coastal conservation laws.” She rues.
Jaseera is not a green freak nor an eco-warrior baptized to the nature conservation. She has not heard of Ernst Haeckel who coined the term “Ecology”.She has not read Karl August Mobias nor has she heard of Sunder Balji Bahuguna,Bhatt Sab,GowriDevi,Swamy Naganand or the Chipko movement. But she could not be laid back as a silent spectator resigned to her comfy cocoon while the sand from the convoluted coastlines called “Neerozhukkumchal”is ravened by the hungry sand larks. Neerozhukkumchal is a sleepy hamlet in Payangadi, a small town at a commuting distance from the Kannur District head quarters. She knew the staccato of the clawing disaster getting louder. Jaseera wanted to resist.
She had her rustic devises. Often she threw herself before the wheels of tippers plying with sand loads unmindful of the bodily harm it provoked. Armed with the mobile phone–the lone technological aid in her command- she took photographs of migrant women in convoy, employed by the sand mafia, with the sand sacks as head load. The mafia red in tooth and claw, unleashed a serious of harassments and intimidations. She braved the torture and tease with stoic forbearance. The mafia took all out in their arm chase with the politicians, police-all playing footsie with them. They tried coaxing, coercing, cajoling but she steadfastly refused to grovel before them. The mafia riled by the obduracy of the fragile women devised a new offensive in collusion with the local politicians - connecting her resistance to the right to work of the local women, in a bid to legitimize the lawbreaking –which they knew could ignite the public temper.
Undaunted Jaseera took her case to the police. The police preferred to play ostrich and remained mute with the refrain “if necessary we shall take petty cases against the errants.” This was when she decided to sit-in before the Payangadi police station. On June 14th Jaseera sat on the ground near the wall of the police station compound in the safety of an umbrella braving the torrential July rain and the ice cold sea wind with her baby huddled to her chest.
Many argued she was after media attention and money. Some sermonized with her on the virtue to be a good home maker-tendering the children and the family than to venture in big things that remain in the realms of men.
inter is settling over north, Jandar Mandir is in the clutches of the cold spell. Last season it drooped to two degree Centigrade in the same month. V.Jazeera remains unfazed and comfy in her makeshift cloister, walled and roofed with flux board sheets and tarpaulin, on the footpath in Delhi.
She is on a sit-in in front of the Kerala House in Delhi flanked by her adolescent daughters Rizvana and Shihana and the infant-in-arm Mohammed settled snuggly on her breast, on the luxury of a a plywood sheet on the floor. An old sari twirled and tied to the rope that hung from the branches of the peepul tree is the cradle for the toddler. Students from JN University come to see her, help her daughters in their study, the pedestrians ask her if she had food. The lanky woman past her youth, decked in blank abaya with headscarf, assiduously declares that her task is to terminate the rampant and invidious sand mining along the 580 Km of Kerala coast line.
Her struggle is singular, a one-off strife away from the spotlight with no fanfare or ticker taped Manhattan parades -that did not fill a lot of column inches in the media.
“I am the daughter of the sea .I live with my eyeballs glued to the sea.” With a lackluster look that beguiles a vivid and untiring mind, she harks back to the days spent in her teens with her peers-the days they reveled in counting sea waves- the frolics on the sand dunes, the engaging sand games- draining a lot of turtle eggs. It is the unscrupulous sand mining which ate away the vitals of the vast swaths of sand before her, its fauna and the sea weeds. With stunning disbelief, Jaseera saw the 60m distance to the sea dwindled before her, her house fast running towards the sea.” The state and central governments have the responsibility for the enforcement of the coastal conservation laws.” She rues.
Jaseera is not a green freak nor an eco-warrior baptized to the nature conservation. She has not heard of Ernst Haeckel who coined the term “Ecology”.She has not read Karl August Mobias nor has she heard of Sunder Balji Bahuguna,Bhatt Sab,GowriDevi,Swamy Naganand or the Chipko movement. But she could not be laid back as a silent spectator resigned to her comfy cocoon while the sand from the convoluted coastlines called “Neerozhukkumchal”is ravened by the hungry sand larks. Neerozhukkumchal is a sleepy hamlet in Payangadi, a small town at a commuting distance from the Kannur District head quarters. She knew the staccato of the clawing disaster getting louder. Jaseera wanted to resist.
She had her rustic devises. Often she threw herself before the wheels of tippers plying with sand loads unmindful of the bodily harm it provoked. Armed with the mobile phone–the lone technological aid in her command- she took photographs of migrant women in convoy, employed by the sand mafia, with the sand sacks as head load. The mafia red in tooth and claw, unleashed a serious of harassments and intimidations. She braved the torture and tease with stoic forbearance. The mafia took all out in their arm chase with the politicians, police-all playing footsie with them. They tried coaxing, coercing, cajoling but she steadfastly refused to grovel before them. The mafia riled by the obduracy of the fragile women devised a new offensive in collusion with the local politicians - connecting her resistance to the right to work of the local women, in a bid to legitimize the lawbreaking –which they knew could ignite the public temper.
Undaunted Jaseera took her case to the police. The police preferred to play ostrich and remained mute with the refrain “if necessary we shall take petty cases against the errants.” This was when she decided to sit-in before the Payangadi police station. On June 14th Jaseera sat on the ground near the wall of the police station compound in the safety of an umbrella braving the torrential July rain and the ice cold sea wind with her baby huddled to her chest.
Many argued she was after media attention and money. Some sermonized with her on the virtue to be a good home maker-tendering the children and the family than to venture in big things that remain in the realms of men.
The evening sun slanted at the far west and smuggled its
rays squirting into her room through...........
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