Blue Lake, Fading Glory. The story of neglect and a now a hope of resurrection

Kashmir Valley is known for its beauty, its landscapes, and its high, beautiful mountains covered with snow all around the year, its culture, its hospitality, and what not. We have abundant tourist places here to which people have a lot of affection and they visit these places to escape disturbances, tiredness, toxicity, and the commotion of day-to-day life. These places provide a worthwhile escape from the commotion of daily life and help us embrace peace, serenity, and solitude.

These places have been there since the existence of the earth, and our ancestors took care of nature so well. Their sacredness toward nature was carried through generations. They considered nature to be a divine gift from the Almighty, and any harm to it would be sacrilege. They considered these places to be heaven, and not only these places but the whole valley in fact. Even though they were not well educated or well-versed in science and other technologies, they had deep respect for these places and would never think of harming nature.

With the advancement of education and science, people not only came to know the importance of nature and every entity we have on our planet, but the greed of modern human beings has actually turned many into ignorant people who hardly care about things except their materialistic ambitions. People care about things only until they are materially beneficial, and ignore things which they feel are not monetarily significant. Anyways, not all people are the same, but still there are some elements in every society who always try to be notorious, and that is what keeps them in the limelight.

Here I will talk about Nilnag Lake, which is just about 7 km from our place. It is a high-altitude lake covered with beautiful tall pine trees all around, and the reflection of the trees makes this lake quite unique. Maybe that is one of the reasons that this lake is termed the Blue Water Lake. Not only does the lake provide us an escape spot because it is close to our place, but it is also one of the places we usually visit when we get exhausted due to our day-to-day tasks. It also provides relief in the hot, scorching heat when lower areas become very hot.

These places were not very popular until social media came in. Now such places have become quite popular, and people from all corners of the valley visit them. As this place is located at a distance of about 35 km from Srinagar city, it is a good place for people who can return in a single day.

It being one of the places which is not under any particular authority makes it quite vulnerable because people hardly care about using the facilities provided, and do whatever they want without being controlled by anyone. That is the most unfortunate part, because ignorant people usually come to these places to feel free and end up doing what they want. Because of such behavior, a huge quantity of trash can be seen scattered here and there at this beautiful place. The upper parts of the banks of the lake, which otherwise provide sufficient space for people to sit or even camp in serenity, have now become unpleasant to the eyes because of the trash scattered everywhere. People do not even spare the main lake and throw plastic wrappers and bottles into it for no reason. That is where the backwardness of minds can be seen.

They do not know what will happen to this lake and its biodiversity because of such activities, and that bothers me a lot. I had seen a huge amount of trash in some corners of the lake at the end of last year, and when I went again in the spring season, that trash had settled down and would eventually harm the bio-life living inside. With every passing year this trash will accumulate inside the lake and will actually fill up the space, leaving us with no such beautiful lake in the near future.

I informed the Rural Development Department in the past and undertook a couple of cleanliness drives where we collected huge amounts of trash, filled it in dumpers, and transported it to dumping sites. Still, people seem to be paying deaf ears to these concerns and do not care. Anyway, in the next season, just after this winter, I will again run a campaign to help people understand the importance of these places, the damage that trash causes here, and what it will do to our future generations.

I hope I will be able to make myself strong enough, not just physically but economically as well, to run these campaigns and to do such activities in the future which require not only physical effort but also money. I hope I will be able to attract your attention and receive some upvotes so that I can generate a small income to spend for this noble cause.

I might have also posted earlier some of the above photographs on steemit under the username @jahangeerkhanday. All these photos are mine.

Thank you.