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It rained here after seven months and it lasted exactly seven minutes! It was a bizarre phenomenon because I was not standing in the middle of the Taklamakan, but on the rooftop of my home. As I drenched myself in the rare gift of nature, I helped clean a few guava leaves that struggled to flaunt the spring-green colors from beneath the black dust.
Dhanbad, my birth place, used to be a small town in the state of Bihar in India — that is, until the discovery of high-grade coal below its strikingly barren soil. When my grandparents moved here during that time, there were hardly a few houses around and every night the shrill cry of jackals from the thickets was a normal affair.
Dhanbad falls exactly by the Tropic of Cancer. During my childhood I would spend day and night — in vain — trying to locate it in the sky. Also, because the city is around 200 miles from the Bay of Bengal, dark, copious rain clouds were never a rarity. And when it rained, it poured. Rainwater used to reliably cater to every human need. The rainwater percolated through the pervious rocks, getting filtered and purified in the process and was made available through wells, the gaping holes on the surface of the earth. Every house — or a group of them — had to have a well because water, the most basic amenity, was the responsibility of the municipality only on paper.
We had a well when I was a child. About a dozen lean yet able men started digging in our backyard. After a weeklong expenditure of sweat and brawn, the sweet reward appeared 30 feet below. We worshipped it because we felt secured. Shortly thereafter, we distributed sweets among family and friends. The pulley mounted on an iron rod was set up and we drew the crystal clear water using a rope made of coconut fiber tied to a cast-iron bucket; it was pure fun.
With time, the fiber rope was replaced by plastic rope that would hurt your hands less, while the lighter but sturdier buckets made it even an exhilarating experience. The freshly-retrieved water would be cool during the summer and warm in the winters, titillating our senses; there was nothing more tasty and satiating in the whole world! The rustling of the iron pulley functioned as my morning alarm and the chilled water functioned like a thousand pleasant needles readying me for school. I had truly grown up with the well — all pain, scolding, failures and scars were washed away by a bucket full of water. During a monsoon, the well swelled unto its brim with murky water, but the weirdness of having it at your hands reach added to the pique.
In the last decade, though, as I visited home every once in a while, I have noticed my loving well is struggling to survive. It had been dug deeper at least twice, and, when I last noticed, the water was barely a bucket deep.
Dhanbad now houses over 2.5 million people. Within a mere 60 to 70 year period, it’s population has multiplied more than one hundred times! Traditionally in Dhanbad, little regard is given to the environment. Individual ancestral houses have been demolished to pave the way for multi-story complexes that support nearly 60 families. The water table has deepened beyond the reach of many wells, hundreds of feet deep. They are no longer retrieving water, but rather air!
In every direction, concrete forests are devouring the little space left for the once dominant big trees (this causes the birds to undergo local extinction). And, after years of coal mining, the color of the soil has morphed from brown to black. Even though the city is miles away from the mines, the particulate material suspended in the air is way higher than permissible limits. The sky no longer sports an indigo hue, but is now permanently gray and hovers hundreds of square-miles outside the city.
Greed, superseded with ignorance and a reluctance to accept the reality is driving the attitude of my people as blatant premonitions fail to draw their attention. Even worse, Dhanbad’s case is not unique.
Exponential population growth, migration and urbanization have affected the most taken-for-granted resource known to man — water! The repercussions are several times more horrific than running out of oil or any other scarce resource. Human intelligence and technological advancement can create substitutes for almost anything except water. It would be too optimistic to claim that Dhanbad’s water source could last another decade.
The torrential rain did wet the soil, but it was not enough to revive my well. The unique “glug” sound of the bucket thudding the water and even the cuts in my palm from releasing the rope too fast are etched in my memory. Alas, those memories are all that is left for now. My reaction for the well might be melodramatic, but the situation is much graver. All this serves as a reminder of the catastrophe that’s beckoning.
Water, the life-giver, could very well become a “life-snatcher.”
— Ranendra Dutta is an IC Columnist and a postdoctoral research associate in the deptartment of Biological Sciences.
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