The 12-km Water Walk

Here in Suwalia, a Bhil village without electricity, water or a tarred road, there was a light shower last night and Dina’s been up since 4 am with his parents scooping the collected water into clay matkas. After the goat’s drunk the water, Dina, his father Behra Ram, mother Ansi Devi and sister Dhali will begin a 3-km walk they take four times a day every day across the sand dunes to neighbouring Setrawa village to stand in the water line for six matkas of water.

All the men in the family bear a telltale hump on their left shoulders: a purple misshapen swelling caused by decades of carrying heavy water matkas to and from the village. The humps are dead, there’s no longer any pain. Does Dina have a hump? Yes he does, he nods. He lifts his blue ‘Power Sport’ T-shirt. The beginnings of the water hump are clear: the Quasimodo-type extra shoulder, for balancing an earthen matka for the 12 km every day. Does it ache? ‘‘Matha dukhta, pag dukhta (head hurts, feet hurts),’’ says Dina. ‘‘Not this.’’

‘‘We wake up in the morning, thinking water,’’ says his father. ‘‘Go to sleep, thinking water. I can offer you ghee in my house on some days but I can never offer you water.’’

There have been a few lacklustre showers, and drought has not been declared, yet drought-like conditions are spreading through the interiors of Rajasthan. ‘‘The jowar crop is ruined,’’ says Ansi Devi, ‘‘if it rains a little, maybe we can get grass to feed the goat.’’ Hot sand sprays into the eyes and ears.

Even the water supply at Setrawa is dependent on power. ‘‘Pani lao, pani jao, that is our life,’’ says Dhali. Dina dreams of thunder. But jolts awake to find its only a passing Army truck on its way to the border, 100 km away.

With crop failure looming, Behra Ram has taken up work as a daily wager in the sandstone quarry in Balesar, earning Rs 100 for ten days of stone breaking. ‘‘Water is needed to soften the stone,’’ he says. ‘‘If there isn’t any, we have to do it with shoulders.’’

Thorn trees and desert scrub surround the huts. The four 20-ft tanks that the villagers have dug to store rainwater are empty except for a residue of brackish liquid. After they return from the water line, Behra Ram takes a mazdoor truck to work in the quarry and Dina comes to the tank to draw up some of this liquid through a tin can on a wire. The liquid is then passed through cloth to filter and then drunk. When does he go to school? ‘‘When it’s time for the mid-day meal,’’ says Dina.

One trip to the water line in the morning, back to feed the goats, then to the tank to drink, then a cursory trip to school. The Rajiv Gandhi Swaran Jayanti Pathshala, 2 km away, is painted with the slogan: Pani bachao, bijli bachao, sabko padhao. The school has its reservoir which is kept padlocked except during the mid-day meal which consist of dalia and water.

‘‘If Dina drinks water in school, he doesn’t bother us for water at home,’’ says his mother. Family meals consist of chili paste and roti, then back again to the water line in Setrawa village in the afternoon and evening.

Ansi Devi gave birth to her fifth child Santoori while on her way to the water line. ‘‘Never mind which month of pregnancy you are in, you have to go for water.” What about going to Jodhpur for a movie? ‘‘No chance,’’ says Behra Ram. ‘‘If you miss your turn at the water line, someone will break your matka.’’

‘‘This is not as bad as the drought of 2002,’’ says local pradhan Kalyan Singh, ‘‘but unless it rains more there will not be any gowar (livestock feed) or mauth (grain). Already it is too late for jowar.’’

Sweet water supplies are most difficult. The pipeline water that comes to some of the neighbouring villages is khara paani (brackish water). If the sweet water supplies from the water pipeline from Jodhpur are not enough, families have to pool their resources and either hire a camel cart or tractor to purchase water.

Behra Ram has taken up basket weaving in the evenings. After a day’s stone cutting, he collects his evening supply of pusta (opium) and is flying by the time he reaches home. ‘‘But not so high that I can’t do my basket weaving.’’

In the evening, Dina shins up a khejri tree to skim off the leaves for fodder for the goat. What does he want to be when he grows up? ‘‘Fauj,’’ shrugs Dina. ‘‘There is no food or water in this village,’’ says pradhan Kalyan Singh, ‘‘Most boys leave by age 20, 22. Those who know carpentry go to Dubai and Goa. Labourers go to Poona. Others join the Army.’’

Dina’s village is in Shergarh tehsil which contributed the largest number of Kargil martyrs and has sent hundreds of soldiers to the ’65 and ’71 war. Like his grandfather and granduncle, when he is old enough, maybe Dina will leave the burning sands of the Thar and journey to that remote glacier where his ancestors died.