Where have all the dead fish gone?

The next day (after recovering from the train ordeal by eating, shivering in bed and watching Namaste London) I went off to Harike, hung with the local forest department range officer, spoke to some locals about the dead fish. Unfortunately for me, there were no dead fish by the time I reached. All that remained was a lingering sewage smell. Where had all the dead fish gone? Eaten every one.

The local populace had either eaten them (yipppeee…free fish! Easy pickings, never the mind the funny gabbu) or they had sold them. Fishing rights are also auctioned on sections of the canals and local fishermen then sell to the concerned contractor who sits in Harike or Faridkot, playing cards. I met a few of them and found that the fishermen had sold them the fish and these fish made their way to the local fish market. Needless to say I was planning to stay strictly veggie on this trip! Some Bihari migrant workers had also eaten the fish and some had fallen ill too.

I also talked to folks in Faridkot and found that the town’s purifies its canal drinking water with due diligence. The operation is outsourced to private companies. The guy there took us around (me and Balle’s alter ego- the Faridkot TOI reporter) the facility. Basically the important machinery were non functional (and this was for at least the past 15 days. Before that the chap didn’t know cos that’s when the contractors were changed) and all they did was to pump it from one tank to another while adding bleach and some other chemicals to it.