8 Water
From where I sit at my desk I can observe another kind of life also – the life of a well. When water arrives through a tap you have no idea how central a role water plays in our lives, its availability, delivery, and clarity are all taken for granted. Not so in a country where the majority of people still use wells, mostly common wells, and where life is made more difficult by seasonal drought.
Activity at the well starts at daybreak, about 6.00am at present, and thereafter there’s a constant stream of people coming and going. Women arrive for their daily bath, hauling buckets of water over themselves, their saris tied above the bosom. Women to and fro and eventually retire to make way for the young men – somehow times have been arranged so that modesty is maintained. When the men have finished then the women return and clothes are washed and laid out to dry on the green banks edging the paddy. And so in regular fashion throughout the day people arrive with their buckets, with their soiled clothes – and with their need to socialise, for the well also functions as a social centre where people cheer each other with stories, jokes, and news.
I have a well here, my very own – well it would be my own, but I share it with a couple of water-snakes, a crab, and innumerable insects, water-spiders and the like. Here I wash my dishes, my work tools, and muddy old me. Washing clothes at the right time is essential, there’s only a few hours sunshine before the rains start in the early afternoon.
The locals manage very nicely drinking the well water, but when it was tested – scientifically – it was found to be nitrogen-rich: we’re right next to a fertilised paddy field; it was also found to contain a plentiful supply of micro-organisms, not all of which sounded very healthy. I therefore have water sent in courtesy of Lakshman’s wife at 15 rupees a tubful – actually this doesn’t always look too brilliant either, but it originates with the gradually encroaching waterboard, so who’s asking? Lakshman’s wife – who doesn’t appear to have an identity apart from her spouse – also prepares my food; they live in the ‘village’, actually it’s a jungle, and I doubt very much if it’s cooked in waterboard water, so I don’t know how much I gain by the arrangement. Anyway, the food is good, and I’ve suffered no trouble with virulent diseases yet.
The monsoon was already underway by the time I moved into my kutir. It followed an extensive drought which had led to water-cuts, power-cuts, and high prices. So when the rains came they were most welcome – the wells had become greatly depleted, and one day I witnessed a terrific argument when someone sent a servant down with the guard dogs to wash, something less than appreciated by those who rely on the well for their water supply.
One good thing about the monsoon is its predictability, we have two long rain periods here in the up-country, this one is the S.W. monsoon starting in late April and continuing, I’m told, until August. In the beginning the rains were coming like clockwork, starting at 2.30pm and continuing until 4-4.30pm, and falling again in the night. Sometimes fierce winds accompany the rains, and my kutir, which was inadequately protected, was prone to getting a soaking at this time; we’ve since put up polythene sheeting over the grillwork which has made the room waterproof.
With the winds blowing and the rains falling I sometimes sit on my verandah – which is reduced to about 1sq metre that is dry – and just marvel at the power of the natural forces. Lightning rends the sky, almighty crashing of thunder, and torrential downpours: all of which inspire feelings of awe, and I’m not surprised it used to be thought that the gods were angry, when what is normally a nurturing environment turns violent, it is difficult indeed to understand. And through all this the activity of the day continues; it’s rather odd to see people going to the well and heaving water when there’s enough falling out of the sky not to bother. When the torrents of rain clear, there is the farmer still working his fields, they can’t wait for the morrow.
There is a certain stillness in the air on this on May morning. It was a stormy night and the trees are still dripping – an echo of the rain; the frogs have finished their chorus, but the crickets are still singing. Gradually birds emerge from their trees and greet the day, and in the jungle an unseen owl hoots but gets no reply. The paddy birds are up and feeding, egrets in mating plumage, water hens, pond herons, going about their business undisturbed before the arrival of man and buffalo. In the distance a group of parakeets, ever skillful in flight, dive and swoop in their play. Overhead a solitary eagle crosses the vast expanse of the heavens.
The colours of nature: the browns of the soil the greys of the sky, the numerous greens of paddy, tree, and jungle. There is a mist in the air and the mountains appear blue through the veil. Clouds pursue their journey west to east, going to meet the new day, occasionally draping the peaks of the mountains as they pass by. There is a fragrance of life in the air, and imperceptibly the darkness gives way to light.