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The Mahim "Miracle": Sweet Sea and Holy Insanity
Subhan Ahsan
India is a place of many beliefs and at times it can produce very odd situations. I stay in Dubai and am a localite of Mahim, Mumbai.
Last night my friend, after watching Aaj-tak, told me "Your Mahim is in the news, Subhan. Seems like some miracle had happened near Baba Makhdoom's Dargah." The news channels were running stories of the Mahim sea having miracously turned sweet. This change, first noted by a teen, spread quickly all over Mumbai and within hours there were ten thousand people thronging the beach to take a holy sip and dip.
Many immediately claimed it was a miracle of Baba Makhdoom, who was a holy saint. Though Mahim also has a large St. Michael's Church and a very old Sitladevi temple, it is unclear why they were ruled out from this miracle. Maybe the Saint's Dargah is closer to the sea than the other two.
No offence to Shah Makhdom Ali Fakhi (ra), as he was no-doubt a pious man (he being a Konkani from Mahim, and my family sharing a similar ancestry, I have much reverence for him), but reverence or not, it doesn't mean a person has to start drinking a creek water, pollutated with the industrial waste, human waste and all kind of imaginable rubbish.
The Mahim sea-front can easily be considered the worst beach/seaside that Bombay has. A small sweet river flowing from the interiors of Maharashtra, reincarnates into a dull-dark gutter of flowing industrial/city wastage when meeting the Arabian Sea in Mahim. It is only the ignorance of man that propels him to forget all these and consume what could potentially be hazardous.
The local authority has tried its best to inform the people of the dangerous consequences drinking such water can have.
"Due to heavy rainfall in the area, the ground water gets fully charged and may exert excess pressure. This can cause fine cracks in the rocky bottom through which ground water tends to come out," Dilip Boralkar, Member Secretary of the MPCB said here."Fresh water being lighter than sea water will float on the surface and may taste relatively sweeter. Normally, seawater is low in salinity during the monsoon because of the continuous rainfall in the area. This year we have had heavy rains in Mumbai ground water being fully charged may be the cause," he added.
Still the madness continued all night and the next day.
The Mahim "Miracle": Sweet Sea and Holy Insanity
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Deepti lamba
URL
August 20, 2006
04:47 AM
Subhan, I was horrified to see a pic of a lady feeding her barely month old baby that water. How dumb can people get?
Subhan Ahsan
URL
August 20, 2006
07:15 AM
@Deepti - Same here too.
The problem back there is the local politicians or aspiring leaders, who tends to act as community leaders, are the one leading the pack. For them showing up on National TV Channels is once in a while opportunity. The concerns of Municipal authorities fells on deaf years, but whereas these local leaders, acting appropriately, could have made much difference.
Though I have some doubt this incident will lead to large scale health problem, as Mumbaikars are already used to high level of contamination in tap/drinking waters. :)
Deepti lamba
August 20, 2006
07:57 AM
Subhan, question is when they led the pack did they drink the saintly water?;)
temporal
URL
August 20, 2006
02:41 PM
read about this first on kav's blog and now here:)
the gullibility of folks never ceases to amaze me:)
or is it a sign of desperation and utter weakness?...
sheesh!
DesiGirl
URL
August 20, 2006
03:02 PM
Hmm, brings to mind the 'miracle' of the Ganesha idol 'drinking milk' a decade or so back in Chennai.
different time, same story!
Sumanth
URL
August 20, 2006
03:44 PM
Its again Party Time for Journalists frogs and Media.
They are propagating the "Ganesha drinking Milk" Meme all over the country now (so that everyone starts doing it everywhere) and at the same time telling the prists to desist the people from not creating a shortage of milk in the country by feeding the idols.
The journalist frogs are real bastards who create massive "positive feedback"(vicious circle loops) in the society and then they "Blame it on Rain".
Subhan Ahsan
URL
August 22, 2006
12:31 AM
Maybe theres a kind of competition on:
....perfumed water began dripping from the statue of Mother Mary.
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/aug/22mary.htm
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