I have seen some wonderful posts on our group and let us now start using them for short, medium and long term goals. Let us have our eyes on the short-term solutions, but our minds working out solutions for the long-term goals. Medium-term belongs to rejuvenation of lake areas and water catchment areas. Long-term belongs to protecting the source of our rivers, lakes and in general forests and vegetation that add to water supply and production.
We say we worship the rain god Indra to bring us good rain. But do we respect him, when he does? No. How can we respect him if we are inviting him into our homes that is not even fit to be, let alone for ourselves, not even for a pig which seems to say that it prefers to be in the muddy waters rather than our littered houses.
Look around – houses we call our homes, our city, our village or whatever it is. When the rain god touches foot on our so called home, there is litter everywhere. No wonder he will turn away and go back, perhaps never to return.
However, there is something wonderful happening in a small town in Karnataka, India to regain Indra’s trust and the confidence in us. A small town is starting a water conservation movement, a movement that can and will have a domino effect to an even a bigger task of conserving water at national or global levels. It is respecting the God Indra, the way he should be respected. A bit of history on how I got involved with the movement is worth sharing here.
SACRED Trust of Mudawadi, as I know it, started serving Mudawadi and its neighboring villages by providing computer literacy to village students through locally hired teachers. I got connected with Dr. Vasudev whose work in the rural areas interested me enough to take a trip with him to Mudawadi to see how it is all getting done.
I was horrified when Dr. Vasudev told me that the rivers flowing through the district are getting polluted by the Bangalore city sewage system, making it unfit for irrigation purposes. At that time, I had joined KRRS through him and met Mr. Narayan Gowda, President of KRRS to get appointed as VP of Education to see how the rural area can be developed through its own people who live there and breathe that air and who provide us that precious food that we many a times assume that it comes from either TOTAL mall or from a local vendor. The experience taught me many life lessons. Unavoidably, I had to join my family in Australia who were left there on their own to manage without me for almost an year. I could not serve KRRS as I had intended, but never failed to be in touch with it through Dr. Vasudev and thorough others. I was very happy to join the SACRED water conservation group on whatsapp when Dr. Vasudev invited me. It has given me this opportunity to reach you all with my thoughts even though I am thousands of miles away.
Starting the SACRED Water conservation movement is a great self-less act to address the burgeoning water crisis in and around the villages through its newly formed group attracting contributors, well-wishers and highly talented individuals to voice their thoughts on a possible course of action to the movement and to bring awareness to this water crisis. It should not only be applauded, but also should be assisted to set a stage for higher order contributions from the talented members of this group.
Water crisis is at a critical stage where both the supply side and the consumption side of water MUST to be addressed to ensure that the farmers get the needed supply of water for irrigation, and, a general well-being of a larger humanity that does depend on the farmers can be taken care of.
Supply side of water is limited to a general 2% of water that can be consumed by the humanity. And, surprisingly the human body is 97% water. It is a scary thing to note that humans cannot survive without water and if supply vanishes, we vanish, and no amount of conservation will save the humanity at large.
What should we do? Conserving water will be like someone saying that you are sure to die but we can extend your life for another few years. However, going after the supply of water may be like finding a permanent cure? This begs the question – where should we put our concerted effort – conserving water or protecting the source of supply?
I would say that we should have short-term, medium-term and long-term goals to solve the water crisis – just not for the village of Mudawadi or for Kanakpura taluk, but for the state, for the nation and for the world. We all can lead the effort so others can take our lead. Make it an orchestrated effort around the world by bringing together all the like-minded water conservationists.
Let us start small and short-term. But have the foresight to invest in medium-term and long-term. Actionable efforts for short-term and fund-able projects for medium-term and long-term are the calls for this write up. Focus on solving the water crisis in short-term, and invest in protecting the supply of water in the medium-term and long-term.
In the short-term, the group has great ideas to conserve water. To that let us add, keeping the water around us as clean as possible. Littering roads, railway tracks, water ways all add toxins to the purest form of rain water coming down to drench us, cool us and provide the needed supply of water to survive. Why should we let that water become impure and muddy from the thoughtless actions of many? Why not spend less energy in purifying water by starting with the task of keeping it clean? Build infrastructures to stop building up the sewage, and start building up the awareness of clean water in the general public. The urban pollution is infiltrating the rural regions to make it worse for the farmers. Educate the farmers to take their protests to the general public to say – don’t bite the hand that feeds!
I am really depressed to see that the packing industry has blown the very culture on which throwing was OK once before. Now throwing is NOT-OK, because the packaging that wraps the food is far worse than the packaging that was used during the era of throwing outside mentality. Those days, everything from banana leaves to other forms of food wraps were all organic and would have organically decayed. Now the plastic packaging that is wrapping the food – do you think it will decay? Have you seen it decay? Please wake up to either recycling it properly or stop using them if you want to keep sticking to throw outside mentality that has become difficult for you to unlearn.
When we can unlearn, we can change the community thinking from throwing to recycling; show them ways to buy food without the plastic wrappings; confidently educate the urban public about the harms that they are creating for the food production. If we really believe in Mahaan Bhaarath, we should believe in ourselves that we can make these changes and make them to be felt by everyone like the way we feel the wounds to our own-self.
Do it now please and do it with heartfelt actions. Pictures may tell thousand stories, but amplify them with actions. Be victorious!
Jai Ho.