How life and livelihoods changed

Nilratan Halder | Published: August 29, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

If people in low-lying flat plains of Bangladesh heeded to weather forecasts this year, they surely were in for trouble. The forecast was specific that that the south-western winds from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, which are responsible for monsoon rains, would be weaker. So the concern was that there might be little rain in the Indian sub-continent. However, an untimely arrival of stormy winds from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea has left a favourable impact to induce rain in this part of the world. The weathermen well read the first part of the weather pattern but they were totally in the dark about the second part of the development.
The monsoon wind has its origin in the temperature rise in this part of the world. Comparatively colder, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean send enormous amount of vaporous air to cool the land. When the vapour forms cloud and gets further cooler, it causes rains. If the flow of wind is weak, it cannot cool the vapour sufficiently to produce rain.
That climate change is heating not just this subcontinent but even the entire planet is a cause for serious concern. Luckily a few twists in the weather pattern have this time proved the weather people wrong but saved the region from poor rainfall. Now many areas in Bangladesh, Nepal and India are grappling with floods. In some areas of Bangladesh, even roads and highways have gone under onrushing flood waters.
It is in a situation like this, the importance of boat is felt by affected people in the surrounding areas. If people felt convinced that floods were a thing of the past, they were likely to be caught off-guard. In the country's south in particular, boat is the only means of transportation during the monsoon. But there are some other areas where dams built to protect human habitats across a wide swathe have actually make boats redundant. But heavy rainfalls are enough to inundate the areas within the boundary of such dams.
Protection from floods has brought about a geo-morphological change in such areas. There are sluice gates for releasing accumulated waters from the confined areas but when the water level outside too is same or higher, the method becomes useless. It surely is a critical time for the inhabitants in such areas. Lack of inundation for years together has made them accustomed to a way of life pattern different from what they had been used to. Now the older generation may grow nostalgic about the day when yearly flooding of the vast plains brought along with it alluvial cap on crop fields.
Those were the days when farmers cultivated the two main crops of Aus and Aman paddy. The paddy stalks grew with the rise of water level and unless floods of disproportional size swept away or rose over the tops of paddy plants, it was a picturesque scene all around. Water flowed energetically with fish of all varieties moving in flocks or separately. Today, IRRI and Boro are cultivated in such areas and the yield is much higher with hardly any threat of floods sweeping away the crops. All because cultivation and harvesting season has changed completely. During the harvesting time storm may lash and damage crops but this is not as dangerous as floods.
Sraban, Bhadra and Aswin are the months when farmers in such areas spend idle hours. But in the past the harvesting period for the Aus paddy spread from late Ashar to Shraban. Then Aman paddy became ripe in Agrahayan and its harvesting went on until first or second week of Poush. In the month of Kartic, though, yet another variety of paddy called Deegha or Shail were fit to be harvested. Usually these varieties were used for meeting the shortfall of rice before the Aman harvest. The good thing about such rice is that all the varieties were aromatic.
Those day have gone forever. So have gone the many varieties of Aus, Aman and Deegha and Shail. People's livelihoods in villages have also radically changed. With the change in cultivation season, villagers' life pattern too has changed. Fish of natural water have almost disappeared. Many species have become extinct. Now pond and farm fish have taken in their place. But anyone can see they are a poor substitute.
Clearly people have changed even before the impact of a perceptible climate change. Now they will have to brace themselves for the second phase of adaptation when climate takes its toll in a telling manner.