Still Uncared for
As the tales of shivering to death and the bone-chilling hardship of a vast majority of our 124 million people unspin, we get uncomfortably aware of the mitigation measures touching only the outer fringe of a pervasive human sufferance. A tropical country completely unused to fire-place or heater-blower culture has suddenly had near-western world inclemency with eye-level dense fog and overcast sky that would not allow sunlight to penetrate for normal warmth into the habitat. Barring a few days' interval, from perhaps tomorrow, the Met Office says, the cold wave is likely to re-visit us in a worse form around the second week of January.
So, this is still a sordidly developing situation which we must approach and rise up to with the benefit of lessons learnt from the hopefully receding first phase of the cold wave. The distribution of clothes and banquets was Dhaka-centred and ill-organised as this was, a greater number went away empty-handed cursing the government more than their own lot. Apparently, there was more of tokenism and display under the TV camera rather than a noticeably caring and effectual governmental activism. But have we not been rudely shaken into realising that a cold wave can bring forth as much of a national exigency as a cyclone or flood does?
There is, therefore, no way we can trivialise the arrangements needed for reaching adequate relief to the cold-stricken people. The Daily star suggested through this column on the very first day the chill had made news that schools, colleges and UP buildings be turned into night shelters and that the armed forces pitch in with tents wherever possible. While the government looked less than pro-active in its own domain it could not also stir up social involvement and participation in the alleviation exercise. Even as political parties, the ruling AL and the opposition BNP, failed to show the kind of activism people expected from them.
A cold wave leaves some hidden dangers and vulnerabilities to people's health - lung and respiratory tract inflections, for example. Let's get on with the task of containing and treating such afflictions.
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