Unmaking of a water crises

Not much seems to have been learnt,  partly because resolution to the crises rests on the very premise that drove it to the present predicament.

India’s water crises is worse than what it may seem. In effect, it is worsening by the day, each season, and year on year. Post independence, per capita water availability has declined from a high of 4,000 cubic meter in 1947 to an abysmal low of 1,486 cubic meter in 2021. It is an alarming trend, given the accepted global norm being 3,000 cubic meter. Given the country’s annual water endowment of 4 billion cubic meter, the picture one gets to see is that of scarcity amidst plenty.

Statistics reveal only a part of the daily ordeal a sizeable population in the country has to go through, both in urban and rural centres. As household water connections have remained an exercise in numbers, as per capita daily allocation of 135 litres for urban and 55 litres for rural areas is good only on paper but not on the ground. The gap between water haves and have not has only widened. No surprise, therefore, that increasing demand, asymmetric distribution and contaminated supplies have left a large growing population vulnerable to water stress, social conflicts, and medical conditions. Over the decades, programs and projects have delivered promises but not enough water. As a consequence, a country with strong cultural and spiritual connection with water is water stressed.

The solution to the crises may seem obvious, yet it has remained somewhat elusive for the well-entrenched water bureaucracy both at the federal and the state level. As the total precipitation is received during few monsoon months in a year, tapping rainfall into surface storage structures for use during lean season remains a workable solution. Before being subsumed under the urban sprawl, the traditional water tanks peppered across the country had stood us in good nick to even out seasonal and geographical variation in rainfall. Large dams were supposed to have performed better as a replacement, but cumulative storage capacity of these structures has remained below par. As a result, India’s per person surface water storage is an abysmal 150 cubic metre – 10 times less than the global average of 1,500 cubic meter. In comparison, China stores thrice as much while the US stocks ten times more than India. As a consequence, multi-locational hydro-anarchy has been more of a norm than exception as the country inches closer to an abyss. 

Water bureaucracy ought to take the blame for deepening the hydro-logical fault lines created by the British. No wonder, the present water management persists on capital-intensive big engineering structures that cause modifications of the landscape upon which traditional wisdom of eco-region specific water conservation techniques and judicious water use was practiced for centuries. Far from appreciating the hydro-logical diversity and reviving the traditional systems, the water institutions have sought to spread scarce resource across land and across time. Not much seems to have been learnt,  partly because resolution to the crises rests on the very premise that drove it to the present predicament. Thus, the story of water has continued to evolve as an expanding sedentary society negotiates a world of moving water.  

This and much more, Watershed provides a comprehensive assessment of country’s unfolding water crises. With climate change impact getting pronounced, the extremes of drought and floods is bound to expand water insecurity. Amidst the scary scenario, however, the book highlights community initiatives on water conservation that need integration with the beleaguered mainstream water systems, and their possible up-scaling. Making the water sector resilient to externalities of challenges is the running theme across the book as it traverse 4,000 years of country’s water history. It is readable primer on the rich, complex and diverse waterscape that nudges the reader to learn from the past in carving out a water secure future. 

In proposing a checklist of actions, however, the author misses out on the fact that the society has long delegated all decisions on managing water to the water bureaucracy, who gets to decide what happens in everyone’s home. The fundamental question about water is related to power, and only by developing a new social contract with the communities can the water bureaucracy unfold a hybrid water management where power on water is shared for promoting location-specific community-driven initiatives. With water crises on the verge of breaking through the thin walls of political institutions, forging a power-sharing alliance with the communities can usher a new era in water management. Else, individual and community action towards conserving water will remain at the periphery with the political institutions pursuing business-as-usual. Institutional reforms in the water sector can be the first step towards saving the country’s water.     

Watershed: How we destroyed India’s water and how we can save it. 
by Mridula Ramesh 
Hachette, New Delhi 
Extent: 415, Price: Rs. 699.

First published in the Hindustan Times on April 23, 2022.

Light from a dark place

'We are in a perpetual quest to find our voice and the courage to express what we really feel.'

Astute yet sensitive, written with elegant style and delicious verve,  the collection of stories by Wajida Tabassum are seductively glorious. Expressing herself within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated society; and staying independent within a tight-knitted family, the stories alone carried her out of a murky hole to a meadow. Breaking free from impoverished and forbidden life, she weaved prose that allowed hushed sadness and repressed emotions to navigate the world without fear. Credit to her ingenuity that didn’t allow social intimidation to get the better of her creative instincts. 

Translated into English for the first time by Pakistani journalist Reema Abbasi, the stellar collection of nineteen short stories set in the old-world aristocratic society capture the entire range of the realities of middle-class compulsions and depravities indulged in by the social elite. Arranged under four sections – Lust, Pride, Greed and Envy – all that is a sin to others ends up as triumph for the protagonist. Holding on to the force of its original rendition, Abbasi has translated the stories with flair and finesse to connect with the dilemmas that continue to confront women in modern times. ‘We are in a perpetual quest to find our voice and the courage to express what we really feel’. Wajida sets her women free to chase their freedom with a stubborn passion. 

Asserting that Sin, like people, has many shades and facets, Wajida had hoped that the stories will be read and remembered as works of literature. Erotic with symbolic details, the women in her stories refuse to be puppets. Bearing subtle resemblance to Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaaf, the Begum revolts against her husbands’s drunken sexual escapades in Hor Uper (Up, Further Up) by appointing a young boy to massage her. Replacing her gharara, a garment stitched between the thighs, with a long skirt called lehenga acts as a symbol of revolt. In Lungi Kurta, another tale wrapped around garments, a new bride exchanges clothes to take revenge on her husband’s betrayal. The stories make a smart, powerful, and very contemporary read that touches on the struggles shaping the very world women live in today.

In her lush and vivid prose, Wajida lets her women shed any threat of censure by the society to take full ownership of their bodies. In doing so, she lets the reader confront the entrenched assumption that women lack courage to radically liberate themselves. Through her own story Meri Kahani, Wajida surprises reader with her rebellious fearlessness while being part of a conservative, demanding household. The consummate erudition is matched only by her creativity, and startling capacity for unfolding emotional layers. She wins deepest admiration for it, while her vulnerability remains heart-breaking at the same time. 

Reema Abbasi

Each of the stories in this anthology capture the power of the subliminal with nuanced precision.  Power play, betrayal, impotence and abandonment run through most of the stories, providing backdrop for the downfall of the nobility. Zaakat (The Alms of Death) and Joothan (Leftovers)  reflect nobility of middle-aged Nawab Jung in poor light, getting a lesson on charity from the poor adolescent girls in the first and an eye-opening message on who survives on whose leftovers in the second story. Considered a jewel of Urdu literature, Wajida demands to be read. 

Told in sharp and evocative style, stories in Sin examine the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be a person. An entrancing page-turner, the stories have just enough to trigger the ultimate implosion. With notable exceptions, Wajida was a woman who did not so much express opinions or emotions, but interrogated both. Reading her for the first time, I can safely say that she was a woman who mattered, very much. Such is the power of her prose that you can’t get her out of your head. 

One of the foremost women writers of her time, Wajida was known for her formidable power of storytelling. First published in the middle of the last century, her bold writing was seen as immoral and scandalous and faced many a public protect. In the league of Chugtai and Manto, Wajida is wonderful at understated sadness presented without a twinge of self-pity. Her stories reflect a tender and enduring portrayal of the difficulties of forging one’s own path after being born and raised in a conservative society. ‘My stories will journey out of their walls when the time is right for me to navigate without fear,’ she would say.

Wajida was not just another writer, prone to the petty delusions but genuinely interested in drilling down into the hardpan of human existence. She didn’t look for approval, and refused to be bullied by what everyone was saying or what everyone believed. She abhorred the kind of thought that forecloses thought. Less said, one may commit sin by not reading Sin.

Sin by Wajida Tabassum, 
translated by Reema Abbasi
Hachette, New Delhi 
Extent: 220, Price: Rs. 499.   

First published in Deccan Herald on April 17, 2022. 

Man behind the greatest showman

Visual narration was his strength, through which he connected with the audience and left an indelible mark.

Measuring up to that sobriquet, Raj Kapoor stayed ahead of his times as the greatest showman who celebrated the making of purposeful cinema with aplomb. Allowing creative imagination to stay in the lead, his storytelling had an un-compromising flourish that risked everything at the cost of saying something important. His defining film Mera Naam Joker, the story of a clown who makes other laughs hiding his own sorrows, did not connect well with the audience but attained the status of a classic nonetheless. For a creative genius, the product held value over profit: ‘I agree that there should be some kind of economics but, for a true filmmaker, the heart has to reign supreme.’

In his four decades of an intensely engaging career, both as an actor and a filmmaker, Raj Kapoor  could carve a distinct niche for his creative pursuits in holding a mirror to the society. From his directorial debut in Aag in 1948 to an unfinished Henna in 1991, he dealt with human emotions, demolished social taboos, and exposed the duality of society. Visual narration was his strength, through which he connected with the audience and left an indelible mark. In the illustrious company of the tragedy king Dilip Kumar and the eternal romantic Dev Anand, Raj Kapoor stood out for his creative versatility to complete the Hindi cinema’s iconic trinity. 

In paying rich tributes to his mentor, Rahul Rawail reveals the eccentricity of the person behind the colossus. The Chaplinesque character on screen had a complimentary off-screen side to him, which was crazy, weird, affable, and amusing. Put together, it seemingly helped the actor and the director in him to have hugely appealing distinct identities. Need it be said that the dual identities epitomized a brand of film making that was unique to Raj Kapoor, guiding him to pick subjects which few had the courage to – Awara, Jaagte Raho, Jis Desh Me Ganga Behti Hai, Mera Naam Joker are few among many of his films that bear testimony to the sheer spectacle of content, form, technique and magnitude on celluloid.  

Raj and Dimple on the sets of 'Bobby'.

Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work is a racy memorabilia of the time spent assisting and learning from the maverick filmmaker. Drawing on valuable moments from an enviable association, Rawail shares memorable nuggets on the art and science of film-making that had made Kapoor attain dizzy heights in the world of cinema. Passionate as he was, considering himself ‘non-existent if cinema did not exist’, Kapoor had an incredible eye for details with an uncanny grasp on musical opportunity to create everlasting visual impact. No wonder, his musical flair remains a bench mark that continues to inspire and feature in songs composed till date.

Rawail recounts the making of the song Aa ab laut chalen in the film Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, which engaged 60 chorus artists and 120 musical instruments to match the onscreen grandeur of the situation. Since no recording studio in 1950’s could accommodate a large ensemble, the song was recorded in the open just past midnight. Kapoor’s obsession with music was overwhelming, and his knowledge of film-making was extensive. It was only through an innate knowledge of all aspects of film making – camera handling, the lighting, shot arrangement, scene sequencing and editing – that his films could be larger than life. 

Predominantly told through his association during the making of two iconic films - Mera Naam Joker and Bobby – Rawail reconstructs the aura of the greatest showman by pulling relevant anecdotes from the past that he had learnt from the master himself, and his close associates. Written with warmth and clarity, Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work makes for a delightful reading about the enigma who lived and breathed cinema. The book reveals that when it came to cinema, there was nothing that Raj Kapoor could not do. 

Raj Kapoor’s legacy lives on across many countries, a reflection on the filmmaker who was more than  the sum of his whimsical and creative facets. Himself an accomplished filmmaker, Rawail signs off his thoughtful memoir with a moving chapter on Kapoor’s untimely demise. ‘The flames engulfed the mortal remains of the Master and, as the fire rose, it heralded the birth of the immortal Raj Kapoor.’

Raj Kapoor: The Master At Work  
by Rahul Rawail
Bloomsbury, New Delhi 
Extent: 245, Price: Rs. 699.

First published in the Hindustan Times on April 13, 2022. 

History written on water

Embedded in its contested basin are the seeds of a probable 'world war on water'.

If one doesn’t understand the past, misinterpretation of the present is unavoidable. Apt in the context of river Nile that courses 6,800 kilometres across 11 countries, historical knowledge becomes critical to fathom the hydro-political transformation the region is currently going through. From Herodotus to Flaubert and from Alexander to Napolean, the waterscape that cuts across the sprawling desert under a cloudless sky and a scorching sun was as much an inexplicable wonder as an ideal subject of divine benevolence. However, it was only during the nineteenth century that the Nile’s geography was systematically mapped. 

Having established himself as an acknowledged water historian, Terje Tvedt has condensed 7,000 years history of one of the greatest rivers in an immensely readable volume that is insightful, engaging and reflective. The Nile is a historical travelogue that begins in Egypt, at the mouth of the great river, and moves upstream along its banks tracing the source of its twin streams - the Blue Nile from the Ethiopian highlands and the While Nile from Lake Victoria - before the two merge at Al Mogran in Sudanese capital Khartoum. The author submits that it is only ‘by following the river up from place to place, as slowly and systematically as the river’s own heartbeat, that its secrets can be uncovered and its role and significance for society’s development can be understood’. The Nile emerges as a wellspring of knowledge, the history of human evolution and development in the region through its flowing waters.  

Written in a non-fiction story telling style, the narrative has been built on the characters and the events in history - from Caesar to Cleopatra, to Churchill and Mussolini, and to Abiy Ahmed and Donald Trump – who all sought the control and use of the Nile. In the course of its chequered history, the river has remained a perpetual object of political intrigues and power struggles. The colonial march of subjugation of the natives upstream of the river contributed to shifting the goalpost of contention along the river - from the Aswan Dam in Egypt to the Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia. Over the years, each country sharing the river course has sought to emulate the Egypt’s model of development at an ecological cost to its free-flowing waters. Embedded in its contested basin are seeds of a probable 'world war on water'. It is for the geopolitical developments in the region to allow the river to ‘let live’ and  avoid such dreadful future.       

The Nile makes for a fascinating read. It is a travelogue enriched with ancient and colonial history that has transformed the region in which most governments in the river basin have drawn plans to control, tame and harness the river. One wonders if the finite natural resource can satisfy everybody’s needs at any time? Tvedt, a professor of geography at the University of Bergen, is an unrivaled communicator who has kept the interests of a wider readership in mind while unfolding the biography of a river which is lifeline for over half a billion people. Through the story of the Nile, the author opens a window to the historically, socially and politically diverse countries of the region -  Sudan, Kenya, Burundi, Eriteria and Ethiopia. Without getting hold on the history of the region, understanding its present predicaments may remain elusive.

The contribution of the Nile to origin and growth of civilization is unparalleled, it nourished the earliest humans who wandered out of Africa and peopled the earth. No one would disagree that the river has played a crucial role in the histories of the countries through which it flows, even if its importance is somewhat exaggerated in determining the political outcomes. Presenting a multidimensional and pluralistic perspective on the historical water course, Tvedt wonders if competing interests of member countries will cause hydrological anarchy or the impending threats propel the governments to collaborate for the Nile hydro-solidarity? 

The Nile is an ambitious undertaking, vast in scope and expanse. It is a welcome addition to growing literature on the Nile, and is highly recommended for all those interested in how rivers shape history, politics and culture. It is a magnificent work which could easily become a classic.    

The Nile: History’s Greatest River
by Terje Tvedt 
I B Tauris, London 
Extent: 380, Price:  £ 30.

First published in AnthemEnviroExpertsReview, July 2022