Reviving intimacy in the relationship with water
The Hindu
WaterFest ’23 is a festival on the theme of ‘Stewardship for Water and Biodiversity’ and has designed various programmes to prompt a review of society’s relationship with water as it pursues the larger goal of promoting a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility for the integrated management of water resources and biodiversity
From ocean cruises and boating rides through mangroves to dance and soundscape performance, a host of water-based events were organised recently as part of the ongoing WaterFest ’23 to re-establish intimacy with the life-sustaining resource.
Organised by ‘All For Water For All’ (A4W4A), a collective of individuals and organisations working in the Puducherry-Villupuram-Auroville-Cuddalore (PVAC) bioregion, the festival on the theme of ‘Stewardship for Water and Biodiversity’ designed various programmes to prompt a review of society’s relationship with water as it pursues the larger goal of promoting a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility for the integrated management of our water resources and biodiversity.
The environmental crisis that engulfs modernity, is in essence, a cultural crisis, noted Radhika Mulay, classical dancer-environmental researcher and member of the UNESCO flagship, the Living Waters Museum, Pune.
Drawing a connection between the man-made obstructions to the natural flow of rivers and streams that force unanticipated changes of course (avulsion) and the fragmentation of human emotions, she made the case that in urban culture, the relationship with water is transactional, reduced to a consumer-commodity construct, and totally devoid of emotional value.
“We need to revive emotionality in our relationship with water”, she told the audience at a lec-dem on Water, Sound and Movement” hosted by Svarnim, Sri Aurobindo Society as part of WaterFest.
Ms. Mulay, who is based at the Centre for Water Research, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, noted that the more fragmented the flow (of water) due to man-made obstructions, the more the emotional disintegration.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.