Two contrarian futuristic scenes, one frightening, another delightful, about Kochi, 100 years from now, emerge in front of young environmental scientist Twinkle Tom. One, the city goes underwater due to unaddressed climate change. Another of people plying down the city’s canals and playing in its crystal clear waters that if the water related issues are attended to scientifically and socially.
These are possibilities that Twinkle speaks of after her long and dedicated work with the Public Utilities Board (PUB), the National Water Agency in Singapore responsible for transforming the choked, filthy Singapore River and its crowded catchment, the Marina Bay, into an area where tourists throng and one which the local community is proud of. Kochi’s canal cleaning and beautification are possible much sooner, not wait a century , with an integrated approach and involvement of the community, believes Twinkle.
But this is not the only area of the city that she thinks about. Marriage brought her here and for her big day she found, to her dismay, that the city did not have a wedding gown store that would fulfil her dream. She had seen plenty of these in Singapore and believed that there was room for such here. She began doing serious research, “almost a PhD on the gown”, something that came naturally to her, after doing her Masters in Environmental Science from Stanford University in America and her engineering course from NIT Calicut. Twinkle is from Thiruvananthapuram.
“Here even an anarkali was being passed off as a gown. I began my research and when it is for oneself it is very thorough,” she says. Twinkle went through each stage of procuring the perfect gown - fabric, style and accessories. She sensed the changing trend and felt that every bride-to-be here was yearning for a gown in her trousseau. “In the last one year the trend has changed. Weddings are bigger affairs now and brides wear lehnga , sari and a gown on different occasions. For the Christian bride the gown is worn in church; she wears the manthrakodi or sari for the reception whereas the Muslim and Hindu brides wear the gown for the reception,” says Twinkle.
Her research brought to the fore some common notions about bespoke gowns. “If a style looks good on someone every one else wants the same without giving a thought about their body type. A neckline looking good on one need not suit another,” she says.
Twinkle recommends readymade gowns as the bride can choose a style based on how it looks on her rather than how it looks on a model. At her store D’Aisle in Ravipuram she procures gowns from Singapore, a market she knows well, and customises them.
“Because of fairytales and dream sequences in films every girl now wants to possess a gown,” she reasons about the growing market, adding that Swarowski belts, tiaras, veils, gloves and related accessories are all carefully sourced by her to fulfil the desire of the wearer.
Away from such romance Twinkle does not ignore the reality of environmental degradation. The city’s choked canals, its murky groundwater, the overlapping of a drain as sewer, the strain on the Periyar, the repeated, temporary dredging of canals and the ad hoc addressing of water related issues trouble her, for she has seen and been part of projects that have turned water bodies around and changed entire community lifestyle. She has been there, done that, so to say. “I have gone and inspected 50,000 premises in the catchment area of Marina Bay. When we educate the community they feel guilty of spoiling their resources. Pointing fingers does not help,” she says.
The turnaround in Singapore was brought about by simultaneously rehabilitating – housing the squatters and hawkers that occupied the banks of the river and water bodies. In addition to infrastructure development, efforts were taken to educate these people. “Here, I think less is being done for educational awareness; people need to feel a sense of ownership of the project,” she says.
A fact Twinkle ferreted from the Corporation website, of the city being only five per cent ‘sewered’, bothers her. “Which means the rest of the sewage goes untreated and finds its way to the water bodies.”
Excited about the Clean Ganga Project - Namami Gange, and while she waits for an opportunity in such projects she has thoroughly studied, out of interest, the water situation of the city.
“The canals are sewers and drains together. Illegal constructions on water banks need to go, a sewage treatment plant downstream and treatment of water to an acceptable level before it flows into the river, using water hyacinth to advantage, desalination plants, awareness drives and such are required,” she says. Twinkle is optimistic about such turnarounds because at the start in Singapore she found the mindset of the community was much the same as it is here.
Today, post transformation, the community is proud of their engagement with the project.
“Your population becomes your security. Everyone’s eyes and ears are the CCTVs. Nobody then dares pollute the water,” she says.
And while reality strikes Twinkle on such issues she goes into flights of fancy dressing up dreaming brides in beautiful gowns.
