The month of Kattak has cranes, Chait is a forest fire and Saawan carries thunder and lightning / In winter arms around beloved’s neck offer such a pretty sight (Katak kunjaan, Chait daunh, Saawan bjiliyaan/ Siyale sohndiyan pirr gull baahiriyan), says the Punjab’s literary and spiritual patriarch Baba Farid in one of his couplets.

The sky is still threateningly illuminated by lightning in the monsoon (Saawan) and spring (Chait) still comes with its usual riot of colour. But the onset of winter (Kattak) rarely witnesses the neat lines of cranes noiselessly moving high in the sky in their long journey from Central Asia and Siberia to our land in search of relatively sunnier climes. And cranes, if ever they descend on our land, would love winter more as it’s no longer the same winter as described in our literature and lore in yesteryears; cold and frosty. The winter traditionally used to be harshly biting. ‘Here comes the month of Poh (the severest winter month)/ only those who in twos sleep together will survive (Aaya Poh, oho bachan, jehray saun do), a folk saying tells us.

What it all shows is the fact that we used to have severe winter in the hilly regions, plains and deserts of Punjab and that too not in the distant past. Our older generation stills remembers the winter days and nights as bitingly cold against which humans, livestock, tender plants and crops needed protection. Puddles in the open courtyards and in streets would have an icy crust by the morning. One would see some ground frost and frosty fields. Trees in the morning would sport a thin white layer. People, in order to protect themselves, would try to spend their spare time in secured shelters, don warm clothes, mostly handwoven, cheer themselves up sitting around log fire and consume specially prepared sweet dishes of herbs, seeds and nuts such as ‘Alsi Di Pinniyan’, ‘Rauh Di Kheer’ and ‘Panjeeri’ which have now become rarities in the face of confectionary’s onslaught in our consumer economy.

Over the past four decades, the weather pattern has considerably changed and change has consequences, which are now affecting all segments of society though in an unequal measure. The most visible outcome can be seen in the erratic monsoon pattern and dwindling winter which now lasts not more a few weeks. Shortened spells of winter presage a real disaster in the making that would have far-ranging effects on our physical existence as well as on social and economic life. Reasons that have created such an ominous situation are not unfathomable.

This fraught situation is one of the outcomes of, what is generally referred, to as the climate change. Highly developed nations are mainly responsible for what has happened to our planet but developing countries cannot be totally absolved of the responsibility. The fundamental problem with our planet is human presence and whatever it entails. In 19th century, when the conquest of nature was accepted as a prime human goal, Nietzsche, in his furious retaliation, said what is as relevant as provocative. He declared in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra: ‘the earth has a disease called man’. Man has almost destroyed the earth but is reluctant to take the responsibility for his deed or misdeed.

Two factors stand out when we look at the problem from a local perspective, firstly, the exponential population growth and secondly, elimination of forestlands. Adam Smith has been proved wrong in his homeland regarding his predictions about population increase. But it seems he had the gift of prophecy as his predictions have been fulfilled thousands of miles away in our land. Unchecked increase in population has resulted in the degradation of environment which was avoidable. More and more land has been grabbed, ejecting the wildlife from its natural habitat. The worst thing is the deliberate destruction of forests that has denuded our soil of trees and flora and fauna, paving the way for rise in temperature in already dry and hot region. Fast-vanishing forests, mangroves and thickets have had negative effects on ecological balance, affecting natural as well as human life. Elimination of the green in the countryside and mountains is as good as sowing the seeds of one’s own destruction.

Humans, in fact, have unwittingly appropriated the art of self-destruction as a result of accumulated knowledge spread over thousands of years. But ‘what forgiveness after such knowledge!’ says T.S. Eliot though in a different context. A dangerous fallacy humans have sustained over a long span of time is their notion of human supremacy consequent on human superiority. The nub of the matter is that we don’t own this planet. We share it with what is there in it, animate and inanimate. Let’s once again refer to Baba Farid who offers a way out of this predicament in symbolic terms by pointing to a stark contrast between two diametrically opposed approaches to life: ‘Blacksmith with a sharp axe on his shoulders eyes the forest / Farid, I herein seek my beloved and you burning coals’. The trees epitomise for the poet-mystic the concealed presence of his beloved but the blacksmith find them little more useful than burning coals in his furnace.

So choice is ours; we can coexist with what exists in our planet or we can, in our arrogance, self-destruct by destroying what exists outside of us but has organic link with us. Life is but a series of intricate interconnections that makes the life possible at the planet. Any rupture in relations between connections will burst our bubble. Situation is so bad that it calls for immediate action. Delayed action will be as good as a disaster, the saint warns us. ‘How long a tree on the riverbank can hold its ground / O Farid, till when can we contain water in an unbaked pitcher?’ — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, January 14th, 2019