Long
Long Ago:
This
is a picture of Ghadsisar. Sar means a lake. King Ghadsi of Jaisalmer got it
made 650 years ago with the help of the people.
All
around the lake there are ghats with steps leading to the water, decorated verandahs,
large halls, rooms and much more. People came here to celebrate festivals and
for programmes of music and dance.
Children
came to study in the school on the ghat. The talab belonged to everyone and everyone
took care to keep it clean.
Rainwater
collected in this lake spread over many miles. It was made in such a way that
when the lake was full, the extra water flowed into another lake at a lower
level.
When
that too filled up, the extra water flowed into the third lake and so on filling nine such interconnected lakes. The collected
rain water could be used throughout the year and there was no shortage of
water.
Today,
Ghadsisar is no more in use. Many new buildings and colonies have come up in
between those nine lakes. Now the water does not get collected in these lakes
but just flows away and is wasted.
Through
the eyes of Al-Biruni
:
One
of the most famous of the historic accounts of India is that written in Arabic
by al-Biruni nearly a thousand years ago.
Al-Biruni
is regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era and was
well versed in physics,
mathematics, astronomy, and natural science, and also distinguished himself as
a chronologist, historian, and linguistic.
He
spent a large part of his life time in ghazni in modern-day
Afghanistan and the capital city of the
ghaznavid dynasty.which was based in what is now central-eastern
Afghanistan.
In
1017 he traveled to the Indian subcontinent and authored “Tarikh Al-Hind”
-History of India, after exploring the
Hindu faith practised in India. He is given the titles the "founder
of indology ".
More
than a thousand years ago, a traveller came to India.The place that he came from
is now called Uzbekistan.
Al-Biruni
carefully observed and noted down the details of all that he saw. He wrote
especially about those things that he found very different from his own
country. Here is a part of what he wrote about the ponds of that time. The
people here are very skilled at making ponds. My countrymen would be surprised
to see them. They pile up huge
rocks
and join them with iron rods to build chabutaras (raised platforms) all around
the lake. Between these, there are rows of long staircases, going up and down.
The
steps for going up and coming down are separate. So there is less crowding. Today
when we study history, we can learn a lot about those days from the writings of
Al-Biruni. (This stamp came out in 1973, one
thousand
years after his birth.)
Drop-by-drop:
Jaipur
is the capital and largest city of the state of Rajasthan, India. Jaipur became
the capital of Rajasthan after Independence in 1956.
Jaipur
is currently experiencing growing water scarcity and diminishing drinking water
sources, relying extensively on groundwater and a single surface water source,
the Bisalpur Dam, which is shared with Ajmer and villages in the Tonk District
and located 120 kilometers southwest of Jaipur.
Scorching
heat coupled with water crisis has made life very difficult for people in
Rajasthan. In at least 24 many cities and towns of the state including Barmer,
Jalore, Makrana, Rajgarh, Balotra water is being supplied only once in four
days.
Camels
are being used to pull water tankers instead of ferrying people. At every
boring well in the state rows of camels with water tanks are seen.
Besides
Jaisalmer, many places in Rajasthan, get very little rainfall. Here it rains
for only ten to twelve days in the entire year, sometimes not even that much.
The rivers here do not have water in them all round the year.
And
yet, most of the villages in these areas did not have a shortage of water. People
knew that every drop of water was precious. Lakes and johads were made to
collect these precious drops of water.
Water
was everyone’s need. One and all came together in this work – be it a businessman
or a labourer. Some water from the lakes soaked into the ground and reached the
wells and bavdis
(stepwell)
in that area.
The
soil of the area also became wet and fertile. Every house had a system to
collect the rain water. Look at this picture.
How
do you think the rainwater that falls on the roof will reach the
underground
tank?
Draw
the path:
Have
you ever seen a stepwell? Look at the picture. Can you imagine by looking at the
picture that the steps go down several storeys deep?
Instead
of drawing the water up from the well, the people could go down the steps and
reach the water. That is why they are called stepwells.
Long
ago, people used to make long journeys with their caravans of animals and
goods. People felt it was a good thing to give water to thirsty travellers.
Thus, they built many beautiful stepwells.
Customs
related to water:
Even
today people get water from very old lakes, dharas, stepwells and naulas. Many
customs and festivals are related to water.
At
some places, whenever lakes get filled up with rainwater, the people
gather
around the lake to celebrate.
See
the bride of Uttarakhand in this picture. After getting married she has come to
the new village. She bows to the spring or the pond. In cities
one
can see an interesting form of this custom.
The
new bride worships the tap in her home. Can we even imagine life
without
water? Devraj
Think
over it:
In
1986, there was no rain in Jodhpur and the surrounding areas. People remembered
the old and forgotten stepwell (baoli). They cleaned the stepwell and more than
two hundred trucks of garbage was taken out of it. People of the area collected
money.
The
thirsty town got water from the stepwell. After a few years it rained well and
again the stepwell was forgotten.
There
are two old wells in the area where Punita lives. Her grandmother says that
about fifteen - twenty years ago there was water in these wells. The wells
could have dried up because:
Water
is being pumped up from under the ground, with the help of electric motors.
The
lakes in which rain water used to collect are no longer there. The soil around
trees and parks is now covered with cement.
This
is how we get water:
A
Jal Board water tanker comes to our colony twice a day. We have to stand in a long
queue to get water from the tanker. People at times We fill water from the
well.
The
nearby well dried up a year ago. Now we have to walk far to reach the other well.
We
are not allowed to take water from some of the wells because of our caste. have
fights over water. We get water at home for half an hour. We fill this in the
tank to use all day. Sometime it is dirty.
We
get water from our taps, all day long.
We
have put a pump directly in the Jal Board pipeline. Now we don't have any
problem! We have put a motor to pump up the water from the borewell. But there
is no electricity, so what do we do!
There
is a handpump nearby, but the water that we get from it is salty. We have to
buy water for drinking.
We
get water from the canal itself.
It
can be done:
There
are some groups that work hard to bring water to the people of different areas.
They ask the elders about the water arrangement in their times.
They
rebuild the old lakes and johads, and also build new ones. Let us see how the
group called Tarun Bharat Sangh helped Darki Mai. This is Darki Mai. She lives
in a village in the Alwar district of
Rajasthan.
The
women of the village used to spend the entire day looking after their home and
animals. Sometimes, it took them all night to pull water from the well for the
animals. In the summer, when the wells dried up, they had to leave the village.
Darki
Mai heard about this group and asked for help. Together, the people from the
group and the village decided to make a lake. The problem of food and water for
animals is now less. People get more milk. They have started earning more.
THANKYOU,
NANDITHA
AKUNURI
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