Category — Journey

After visiting Bharatpur bird sanctuary I am wondering about the way a place builds its identity. Bangalore is known for software development, Bihar is known for backwardness while Chattisgarh is known for Naxalites. The reasons could be the business, history or political or any other activity. Bharatpur is known for the migratory birds. These birds are the essence of the town. We had a buffer day when we were at Karanprayag, but we decided to make best use of it by visiting Bharatpur and Fatehpur Sikri. We travelled 480km riding for 14 hours through Uttarpradesh late in the evening just to reach Bharatpur on 12th of June. But to our dismay the Bird Sanctuary (also known as Keoladeo National Park) had a board on the main gate announcing the closure of the park for two months - May and June. But we were lucky to speak to the guards and locals around the park.

Through the conversations we came to know that in last 3 years the number of migratory birds has drastically reduced. This is mainly because the lake that supports the avifauna is dry. The lake is rain fed during monsoons. But the water is not sufficient during winter season. Water to the lake is fed from the other rivers such as Banganga. Since 2004 the water flow to the park has been reduced by almost 95%. This is because some farmers wanted this water for their livelihoods.

The park supported a large variety of migratory birds. The hotels and restaurants around the park are named after these birds. Though the park has been declared as world heritage site, it is now just a dry patch in the outskirts of Bharatpur. Recently there has been heavy logging leading to almost no place for birds to build nests and with the lake being dry, birds have started to change their migratory pattern. They have been choosing non-protected regions to breeding and are getting killed by people for meat.

This sanctuary was created about 250 years ago. Since then the park has given Bharatpur a new identity. Thousands of birds have bred and returned to this park again and again over centuries with all the trust in the people of Bharatpur. They have been flying here from as many as 12000km just to find water and a small place to build nests, lay eggs and raise their hatchlings. Now this pattern has been broken.

We human beings have started to believe that we are the only species that are meant to live on this planet. Our respect for other living beings and our understanding about their importance/role in our live is decreasing gradually. Time is not far before the park will be closed forever. Today by stopping water to the park people and government of Rajastan have made their first attempt to ruin the identity of Bharatpur. The public interest litigation on this issue alludes to the power and control we human beings have over our fellow creatures.

But we leave Bharatpur with a big question in our heart - are we here to dominate and live alone on this planet or are we here to co-exist and live in harmony with all other living beings? Is the Earth meant only for homo-sapiens?

Today we complete our 50th day of the journey. So far we have travelled for about 9,500km, crossed 15 states and 5 Union Territories. 35 more days of journey to go. We are now passing through Uttarpradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. God save our souls

When I met Frederick Noronha in Goa, he mentioned two important books - Fish Curry and Rice ; A Source Book on Goa, Its Ecology and Life-style
by Claude Alvares and Jalyatra by Nitya Jacob. He even presented me with a copy of Jalyatra. Since then that book has been my guiding post. After reading about Gharats (water mill) and Hidrums (water pump) in that book, I searched for them in Uttarakhand and understood how water has been creating livelihoods and generating electricity. I even met Nitya in Delhi and had a discussion about his book and my journey. I recommend Jalyatra to people who are fans of Water. India Water Portal also has a post on “Interview of Nitya Jacob by Frederick ‘FN’ Noronha”. You can read it for more information about the book and its concept.

About 22 years ago people at Saboli were determined to stop the activity - felling of trees and destruction of land used for livestock grazing. Yes, government was clearing a large patch of land in the peaks near Ranichauri in Uttarakhand (the then part of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarpradesh) to make way for an agricultural university. The local people in the region took the issue to the streets - protested, shouted slogans, condemned the authorities and brought out demonstrations. The authorities did not budge while the people did not stop the protest and this led to a deadlock.

The authorities called upon a meeting with locals. In the meeting authorities promised - free water supply to Saboli, employment to local people, new and better varieties of seeds for their fields and new techniques (which would be found in the university through research) to increase yield. The naive villagers were lured by these promises. Authorities easily cleared 100 acres of oak forest and pastureland to build a university at approximately 6500ft. Soon the expansive university came into life. The problem of land was solved. Now there was problem of water at that height. Water flows downwards and since the university is at the peak, it does not have sufficient water to feed its intellectual staff and students. Large pipelines were laid through the land used by people to trek and take the livestock uphill for grazing. Promise of good and free water kept the villagers silent. University started to pump water from below. The land which was feeding streams with water soon became a thirsty monster consuming thousands of litres everyday.

Within few years of University’s operation, people started to get piped water supply and few of the localites got employed at the university. Over 22 years much as changed. The university has started charging people for water. Now the villagers have to pay hefty water bill of Rs.135/month, which is costlier than most of the Indian cities, for the erratic water supply. As most of the streams were forest fed, clearing the patch has dried them out. Now only 15 out of 80 streams are alive. I found these things out while talking to the villagers here at Saboli. These people now laugh at their folly. But I could see the pain in that laughter. Today these villagers have no roads to walk uphill, no fodder for their animals and almost no water for themselves. The university no longer employs any locals.

To visit university website that cleared forests and affected biodiversity to make a facility to study forestry, click here.

(Dear friends, because of the issues with bandwidth, I will not be able to upload any photographs along with the blog post. Please bear with me till I get access to broadband connection.)

Yesterday as the last part of our learning, Manoj ji took us to the Tehri dam. As we started getting closer, I saw a gorge filled with greenish water. As I followed it, I saw a green lake making its way through several such gorges and stagnating there. This lake is called ‘Tehri Jheel’ and is the result of the dam. As we proceeded further, I spotted the mountains between whcih the dam is constructed. Amidst the mountains that are filled with greenery, these two looked like dead one with patches of concrete over their entire body. Between them was the large earthen mass with three flood gates at the right side. The road led us just above those gates and we stopped to take a look at the massive structure. When I took a closer look at the structure, I recalled my journey with my parents to Badri and Kedar in 2005. The dam was still under construction then. It was flooded in 2006 and since then one can easily see the mark on the mountains up to which the lake rises.

Tehri Dam is one of the most ambitious and controversial projects of the government. The dam was conceptualized in 1972. Several governments changed power at the center. But no government wanted to re-think about the project. Year by year the water and power scenario in Delhi started to worsen. May be it became more and more clear to the government to submerge as much of land as possible to generate 2400MW of power and supply water to thirsty Delhi. But many people I met believe that the power that is being generated is 20% of the promised capacity. One quoted reason for this was the massive silting. I don’t know whether it is true. But one thing I witnessed was that the villages around Tehri don’t get any good electricity though the dam supplies it to cities hundreds of kilometers away. The lights at Rakesh’s house never lit up to their complete brightness and fans rotated with a very low speed. We took few photographs and chose to head back to Rakeshji’s place at Saboli.

Today morning we started from Rakeshji’s house to go through Tehri dam and further to Ghansyali. As we crossed the dam and took a right turn, we saw two townships of New Tehri - houses that looked more like cloned concrete blocks. Till then our journey thorugh every town was filled with variety in the type of construction - whether it could be the type of materials used or the shape of th houses. But at New Tehri everything looked homogeneous. The interesting part is, second township is at the top of a mountain. The resettlement from 3000ft to about 7000ft has resulted in government spending Rs.9.36 to pump a liter a water for upper community. Most of the times these people don’t get water as there will be some or the other problem with motor, pipe, etc. First you displace people who lived by river side to a new height to provide water to people in distant cities and then deprive the new township with water - I don’t know what kind of strategy this is. But I recollected the words of our first prime minister - “Dams are the temples of modern India”. May be the gods of these temples need some or the other kind of human and ecological sacrifice.

Crossing the townships we went downwards to have a look at the other side of the dam. We saw the tunnels from where the Ganga gushed out with much less intensity. All her momentum had been converetd into electricity coneverting her into a silent stream. We crossed this stream and started moving upwards. The road towards Ghansyali leads us through the catchment and the part of the reservoir that gets submerged in monsoon. Soon we hit a diversion. The board read something like - “Take the new road. This road has been submerged by ‘Tehri Jheel’”. I was about to take the new road but the driver of the vehicle behind me asked me to continue on the old road. I don’t know why was he there at that moment. I took the old road.

I started to drive slow as the quality of the road was bad. As we descended, I saw a clear transition in vegetation - I came across dead trees and shrubs. A clear line separated the vegetation - The submerged region had dead grey vegetation while the portion above it had green lively vegetation. As we moved further, we came across damaged hamlets and earlier green paddy fields now filled with weeds. We were riding along the roads which would get submerged in about two months only to re-appear in summer. All along the way I was trying to locate the spot where ther river would join the lake. Slowly the green water started to turn grey and within few hundred meters it turned muddy. I knew that the spot is very near. I took a turn to left and I spotted river - It was almost without energy. I saw the amount of silt that it was carrying with it. It was joining the lake hesitantly as if it had no option. As we moved upwrads towards Ghansyali, the depth of the submerged portion of the mountains started to reduce and finally disappeared. But the ride through the submerged region made us feel as if we were riding through a burial ground. We can never forget this eerie feeling of Tehri.

The region around the dam has already suffered an earth quake. The dam has been build on a siesmically active area. It is alleged that any damage to the dam would cause severe floods up to Rishikesh. We had a flat tyre soon after Ghansyali. I put my wheel in a Trax. Along my way to get the wheel fixed, I spoke to the drivers and fellow passengers. None of them were sorry for the people who were affected by the dam. They all thought that those people were greedy and wanted more money and land from the government than what they actually deserved. Few of them were even proud. One of them said - “Earlier nobody knew Tehri. Today Tehri is known all over the world. It is the second largest dam in Asia. See, if you want development, there has to be some kind of damage and sacrifice.” For me it looked like an ideal demonstration of how man can tamper with the natural cycles of nature.

I agree that development requires sacrifice. But the great question remains - who gets to choose whom for this sacrifice?

Francis Fernandez who freelances with India Water Portal writes about the interaction at Trivandrum:

22nd April, morning the Water warrior rode into Trivandrum. On his K2K trip, fresh from the southern most tip of India from Kanyakumari, CSP stopped over at Kovalam for an interaction organised by “Zero Waste Campaign” an undertaking of Thanal.
The meeting was organised in the offices of the Campaign, near the beaches of Kovalam and was headed of by Mr. Sridhar of Thanal who introduced the participants and kicked off the discussion. The core group present was members of the Campaign. The first part of the meeting involved the sharing of information, experiences by the Campaign members in the various projects that they had undertaken, were currently involved with. This was followed by introductions all round and the meet was kicked off.
A Waste-to-Use thread was visible in all the projects that have been undertaken here. Conversion of tailor waste cloth to beautiful, useful objects of everyday use, creation of banners, in an eco-friendly manner, avoiding plastic flex printing by using reject cloth and a lot of creativity are a few among them! A plan to avoid the pollution/littering of the pristine beaches of Kovalam by plastic mineral water bottles was explained. A handmade bamboo carrier was provided to tourists, who could carry their own bottle, and refill stations for the same were put up. The bamboo carrier is an easy to carry, stylish to use method that was adopted by quite a few hotels who also co-operated in setting up the refilling stations.

Piping hot tea, and more narrations about plans to reclaim the beaches for the local people, to instill a feeling of belonging in order to induce them to actively participate in care and maintenance of resources kept the discussions lively.

The discussion went on to the subject of water availability and conservation. It was a pleasant surprise for CSP when he understood that the panchayats were taking up phased implementation of RWH structures in their locales. The women traded stories of how the RWH storage tanks are used to store tanker water in summer time when there is less rain, and more water is needed. Also the inconsistency in water availability in the Kovalam area came under discussion. The up stream communities are able to get enough water, exploit groundwater resources and sell the same to down stream communities that do not have a stable supply of water. The feeling of injustice that strikes harder when hotels manage to fill their pools with freshwater, but leaves the local people parched also figured in the talks. CSP offered advice to the participants indicating that water from RWH practices should be primarily used for drinking, cooking as it would prevent the use of unverified quality tanker water for such purposes. He also provided some pointers as to the proper sterilization methods with regard to drinking water.
CSP also took time out to sign a protest poster initiated by Thanal against the introduction of genetically engineered crops to India. Silje kept the flash popping as she steadily documented the interaction, intermittently answering queries regarding where she was from, and the reasons for the trip!
Thanal members, CSP and me had a final photo session following which we gave him and Silje a warm sent off. With a whispered prayer and a good luck wave the water warrior rode off.

For me the meet provided a “face” for the India Water Portal and Arghyam. Working freelance for the Portal on a remote basis the meet provided a better understanding of the driving forces behind the k2k initiative and also the need, necessity for evolving a better water infrastructure as we move along. The water warrior came alone, but carried with him the spirit of those who had dedicated their time and efforts to ensure the safe, sustainable, and any time availability of water to all!

– Francis Fernandez

I have uploaded new GPS tracks of the trip and they are now available under the category - “GPS Tracks“.

I am still in the process of uploading more tracks. Some of the tracks are not available. Few times the battery went low and few times I donno what happened

The evening of 13th May was a much anticipated one. Diwakar and Srikanth wanted to see Wagah border - the line where India ends. [Read more →]

As we continued on NH-15 from Rajastan towards Punjab, the sandy terrain slowly started to turn greenish. As we entered Punjab, we understood the reason why it is called the “Granary of India”. Punjab has a strong network of canals and majority of its population is engaged in agriculture. The entire highway was lined up with cultivated fields on both the sides. But major cities such has Bhatinda clearly had the industrial flavour. The abundant water in its canals took me to my school days again - Punjab - the land of five rivers. But in reality, [Read more →]

When I was talking to my colleague Binayak about my trip to Ladakh, he asked me to visit Tso Moriri lake. I immediately included it in my schedule with full excitement. Already a day’s delay had percolated into our schedule as one of the bikes had developed some serious snag and we had to spend an entire day in Jammu getting it corrected. So instead of 21st May, we headed towards Tso Moriri on 22nd. [Read more →]