and some city vignettes...
a couple on raksha bandhan
On our way to get idli batter.
At the store.
Goddess Lakshmi
Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, prosperity, light, wisdom, fortune, fertility, generosity and courage; and the embodiment of beauty, grace and charm.
Monument along the way back
On the way back home
1 August 2009
Around one lakh people were affected as the swollen Bagmati breached its embankment near Tajpur in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district on Saturday
This is as good a time as any to discuss the work I will be focusing on in the next 7 months at the AKF India office. Initiated in 2005, AKF India under the EC co-financed Sustainable Community- Based Approaches to Livelihood Enhancement (SCALE) Project launched the Innovation Fund for Rural Development Award. The purpose of the Innovation Fund is to document innovative processes of rural livelihood enhancement in the context of rapid development in India. Since then, 7 awards have been given out to NGOs to try out innovative processes in rural livelihood generation in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. Each award is for a period of 2 years and all the projects are wrapping up by the end of this year.
At AKF India we will be documenting the lessons learnt from each of the approaches undertaken by the project partners as well as the I- Fund program in general. The projects address a range of issues in the context of globalization like quality of life for seasonal migrant tribal workers in Southern Rajasthan, sustainable productivity of local resources in Thane-Maharashtra, revitalization of traditional hand-loom weavers coming out of bondage in Chirala region of Andhra Pradesh, community based development communication initiatives to strengthen pluralist traditions and heritage to name a few.
How truly privileged am I?
Perhaps that is why it stormed last night. Made sense why I was missing d so much.
What a day today, Dr. D. K. Mishra, a veteran civil engineer from IIT-Kharagpur who has been working and studying the rivers in Bihar came to the AKF India office. He recently released a book titled “TRAPPED! Between the Devil & Deep Waters: The Story of Bihar’s Kosi River.” Dr. Mishra had us riveted, his experience of over 25 years comes through as he spoke of his work documenting the major rivers of Bihar, their history, cultural aspects of these rivers and their relationship with people who have settled along them, history of flood control in India, the efforts to tame the Kosi and the making of its tragedy, politics of decision making processes concerning rivers and it’s outcomes and aftermaths.
* Bihar consists of eight major rivers – Ghaghra, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Adhwara group of rivers, Bagmati, Kamla, Bhutahi Balan, Kosi and Mahananda.
According to Indian folklore oceans are considered as husbands or ‘pati’s’. Rivers in India originating from hills are called ‘parvati’ and those coming from a tank/ pond are called ‘saroja’s’. Rivers who follow a path, do not jump, bear responsibility by nature and bear sons are therefore married, examples of these are the Ganga and the Narmada. Rivers that cannot be tamed and run wild are virgin rivers – Kosi being one of them.
He elaborated on impact of modern flood control interventions on rivers that gradually turning floods into a form of devastation rather than a nature’s way of enriching the land. Floods, an annual occurrence in India are traditionally regarded as a boon in some respects because they carry a load of silt — sometimes believed to be the richest soil in the world — which is deposited in the plains and benefits farmers. Dr. Mishra mentions that back then, the way of life was adapted to the whims of the flood plains. William Wilcox, a British engineer in the 18th century who observed and documented a very special kind of ‘flood irrigation’ system in Bengal. I found some information on this online and include it here to elaborate what Dr. Mishra was talking about.
“He noticed that there was an intricate system of ‘disused’ channels called Kaninadis or Blind Rivers. Whenever the rivers flooded, these channels actually functioned as canals to divert excess flows. The villagers would build low embankments to hold the flood waters, only to deliberately breach them as the level of the rivers rose, so that the top layer of flood waters would spread as a shallow sheet all over their paddy fields depositing fine silt and algae increasing the fertility of the soil and replenishing ground water. Not only did these ‘golden waters’ bring rich silt, it also contained large quantities of fish eggs, which would settle in the biologically rich ponds, fields and wetlands of the floodplains – the ‘fattening up’ grounds for freshwater fish. And that’s not all, the growing carnivorous fish would snap up all the wriggly, malaria causing mosquito larvae. Not just flood control, but lots of rice and fish – and malaria control”.
The British government had started to embank Damodar River in 1854 in order to safeguard the railway line between Howrah and Raniganj. But following the construction of the embankment proved unsuccessful due to the large number of breaches and the natural tanks and lakes in the countryside started dying an unnatural death and the fertility of the soil was impacted. In the following years they refrained from making any more embankments. Mishraji points out that infact that there were no embankments built till 1947 – the year of India’s Independence. It is interesting to note her that Kosi is also termed as the ‘sorrow of Bihar’ and the Damodar ‘the sorrow of Bengal’. Both these were coined by the British who found it difficult to collect revenue from these basins.
Debates on controlling the rivers through embankments, dams and on the other hand allowing them complete freedom continued through India’s history. In 1953, Kosi was sanctioned for embankments and in ’54 a delegation of the Central Water Power Commission were sent to China to study River Hwang Ho. With the political sanction already available and the decision to construct the embankments along Kosi already made, the experts were primarily sent to justify the decision. What they failed to report was that the famous Hwang Ho river in China had breached on 1500 occasions, changed its course 26 times and could not be brought within the embankments 9 times (recorded since 1047 – 1954). In the floods of 1933, the embankments breached in 50 points affecting 11,000 square kilometres (sq km) and killing 18,000 people.
And thus starts the story..the politics of flood control in India whch seems to have no end.
14th July 2009
Just as I spoke about the “visual” Delhi, the news yesterday was full of the accident at the Delhi Metro rail construction site in South Delhi. At least three cranes collapsed at the accident site on Monday morning when clearing operations were on.
It has now been 3 days since we came to Delhi and surprisingly remain overwhelmed. How can I not be prepared for this? I sit and look out though the window while getting driven to work (something I am very thankful for) and the physicality of Delhi seems to be weighed down. There are construction cranes everywhere. Visually Delhi looks like it’s bursting at its seams.
Zahra provides knowing comfort. She represents for me what I left behind in Toronto. Those who know her would recognize when I say that she has these stunning nuances in her demeanour that make everything around her look beautiful. So thank your for that Z.
Over the last couple of days we have visited the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and seen their Public-Private Partnership for Regeneration of Humayun’s Tomb-Nizamuddin Basti-Sundar Nursery Area. The restoration work at the Humanyun’s tomb is beyond belief and even the explanation about the work is narrated with painstaking detail. We move along to the Nizamuddin Basti – one of my favourite places to visit while I previously working in Delhi, largely due to the phenomenal work of the local charity I was acquainted with. The basti makes your heart jump out of its chest and beat wildly. I would recommend looking at this link to capture what I am talking about.
http://thedelhiwalla.blogspot.com/2008/10/special-recommendation-time-out.html
At the basti we had a chance to meet with the community volunteers, workers and staff of the organization who are currently working to strengthen basic services in the three core areas of health, education and environmental sanitation. We also visited the government school and meet with the staff, principal and children. The school has vigorously been working towards making their environment child friendly and from the outset if seems to be a welcoming and happy place for the children. Something that I found is not very common when it comes to schools in India. A big thank you to Vikramjit, Saurav, Kishwar and the children for showing us around the Tomb, the Sundar nursery, the basti and the school. I am thankful that they can share their passion and idealism with us – visitors for a fleeting moment.
And I closed the first week with a swim.
Humayun's Tomb
Jali work on windows in the tomb
Baoli in the Nizamuddin basti
An excerpt from William Dalrymple’s book City of Djinns.
“ ….Delhi, said Pir Sadr-ud-Din, was a city of djinns. Though it had been burned by invaders time and time again, millennium after millennium, still the city was rebuilt; each time it rose like a phoenix from the fire. Just as Hindus believe that a body will be reincarnated over and over again until it becomes perfect, so it seemed Delhi was destined to appear in a new incarnation century after century. The reason for this, said Sadr-ud-Din, was that the djinns loved Delhi so much they could never bear to see it empty or deserted. To this day every house, every street corner was haunted by them. You could not see them, said Sadr-ud-Din, but if you concentrated you would be able to feel them: to hear their whisperings, or even if you were lucky, to sense their warm breath on your face.”
Close to midnight on the 7th of July we quietly slip into the city and the heat clings to every pore of the skin and clogs it.
Exquisite, motionless yet mesmerizing, merciless and powerful – this city is an important part of my life. Yet, I tread carefully. Not ready to face the djinns tonight.
