Mungaru Male (Monsoon)

Mungaru Male (Monsoon)

 It’s a Sunday morning, I am sitting in the portico of my farmhouse encased in a sweater and a cap to keep away the biting cold wind and sprays of chill rain drops falling on the ground and creating a fine mist.  After a quiet period of no rains in June and July 2^nd week, it is pouring from last two days.

I believe Kuvempu our Rashtra Kavi and recipient of Jnana Peetha Award was once asked how he became a poet and nature lover.  In a quintessential answer he said ‘Everyone is a poet in Malenadu.  The nature here makes you poetic’.  How true was this statement!!

I am also feeling poetic and in a melancholy mood today.  As I see the rains pouring, many thoughts come to my mind.  Indian economy is 50% dependent on Agriculture and a large part of this agriculture is heavily dependent on a strange but highly reliable rain system called “Monsoon”.  This year monsoon in June was reported as the lowest in the last 52 years.  El Nino effect is really playing spoil sport for the new government of Mr. Modi.  El Nino effect is a warm temperature zone created in Pacific which reduces the intensity of monsoon to a large extent. 

Newspapers have been reporting errant monsoon this June and headlines go like : Drought in more than 15 districts of Karnataka; Mr. D.K.Shivakumar the power minister of the state prayed for rains in a temple in Kigga where the fabled Saint Rishi Shringa had brought rains; J. Jayalalitha, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu goes to Delhi for notifying the Gazette for formation of the Cauvery River Authority; Andhra and Telangana fight about water sharing from Nagarjuna Sagar Dam; Telangana ups the ante about Pollavaram Dam; J. Jayalalitha vows to increase the height of the Mullaiperiyar Dam; Bhadra River Basin farmers will be denied water for sowing Paddy this year due to poor monsoon in June; All Cauvery River Basin Dams in dead storage and so on.

Such morose news makes me feel like I am better off not buying newspapers!

It is general knowledge information that India survives on three natural water creating systems.  The snow melt from glaciers of Himalayas feeds most of the north Indian rivers like Ganga, Indus, Yamuna, Sutlej, Kosi, Brahmaputra, etc.  The Aravallis Mountain Ranges in the Central India feeds many rivers like Narmada, Chambal, etc.  Finally the Monsoon feeds the whole of Southern Peninsula where fabled rivers like Godavari, Krishna, Tunga, Bhadra, Krishna, Sharavathi, Cauvery, Periyar, etc.  Indian Mythology and Indian History are replete with rivers closely linked to many events and culture, Rama’s Ayodhya on the banks of River Sarayu, Bhishma the son of Ganga, Ashoka the legendary king embracing Buddhism after a war with Kalinga where the River water turned red with the blood from the defeated armies, Pururava meeting Alexander in a war on the of River Jhelum, Lord Wellesley crossing the Cauvery River to breach the island fortress of Srirangapatana to finally defeat and kill Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Battle of Mysore.  So imprinted are these facts and stories in our Indian way of life.  Rivers are gods for us.  Water is god for us.

On the other hand if you invoke any river’s name today you may well be involving in a war right in your drawing room.  Karnataka says “Kodagina Cauvery, Cauvery belongs to Karnataka, Cauvery belongs to Mandya”, Tamil Nadu says “We will put the recalcitrant upper riparian state of Karnataka in place if they don’t release the monthly quota of Cauvery Water”, Kerala says “We will not allow to rise the Mullaiperiyar Dam’s height” and so on.  Every river is mired in controversy.

The broad questions are, Who owns the river water? What is the just right of each state for the water share?  Is the right of a Thanjavur Delta farmer greater than the right of a Bangalore citizen to drink Cauvery water or vice versa?  Should the breaking of Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Seemandhra lead to fresh water disputes?

Sitting here in a small village in Malenadu watching the rains lash last two days I am getting more basic questions.  The monsoon rains that is pouring here does not know upper riparian or lower riparian criteria, it does not know Tamil or Kannada or Telugu.  It pours because a hot zone created over Sahara in Northern Africa sucks up water from the Indian Ocean forming huge cloud formations and South Western Trade winds push them to the Indian Peninsula.  The first landmass they encounter is the Indian West Coast and the Western Ghats, a range of hills spreading from Southern Gujarat to Kerala known in various states as Sahydri, Malenadu, Niligiris and Malabar.  Here the clouds lose maximum water in the form of torrential rain forming puddles; streams; collecting into small rivulets, running into more rivulets forming the rivers.  The Western Ghats are the least populated areas in India and they are also one of four carbon sinks for Planet Earth.  The other three being Amazon Basin, Congo Basin, Malaysian and Indonesian tropics.    

On this morning the rains are bringing in me lots of questions instead of joy. 

Question One: When it rains in Kodagu and Wayanad, Cauvery River flows, if it were not to rain in these places of Western Ghats one can forget the Cauvery River Authority.  When there is no river, then there is no authority.  So Jayalalitha can take her Gazette and shout till the cows come home.

Question Two: While so much politics happens at the state levels between Karnataka-Tamilnadu, Kerala-Tamilnadu, Telangana-Seemandhra, the actual water does not know which state it belongs to.  Can any scientist or politician separate the water molecules into Kannada H20 and Tamil H20?

Question Three: Does the farmer in Thanjavur know that there is a farmer in Kodagu also who has same human attributes as himself and vice versa.

Question Four: Does Jayalalitha know the birth place of Cauvery (Talacauvery) and its location?  I am sure she knows because she was born in Mandya and grew up in Mysore. 

Question Five: Does a techie in Bangalore coming in from various parts of the country know where his glass of water comes from?  Does he have an idea that it was created in partnership between African Sahara, Indian Ocean, South Western Trade Winds and Western Ghats, and after a journey of 1000s of kilometres it is entering his kitchen?

Question Six: Why can’t rain fall in a more systematic manner as per the River Tribunal sharing formula? 3 TMC (a unit of water measurement) of rain on Bangalore city as per Cauvery River Tribunal Orders, 419 TMC of rain over Tamil Nadu equally divided over 12 months, 270 TMC of rain over rest of Karnataka leaving out Bangalore City.  Simple idea but see the problem of sharing will be solved. 

Hence I think the culprit creating the river water sharing problems is the Monsoon Rains itself.  The Monsoon Rains are so primitive, it never adopted technologies such as Supply Chain Management, Just in Time Arrival, Door Delivery, Resource Management Systems (like cash flow) and Efficiency.  The primitive systems use methods such as vaporisation, condensation, precipitation and gravitation.  They are yet to understand and adopt modern man’s techniques and modern man’s outlook.

But beware if the rains and water flow were to adopt modern man’s techniques there would be chaos.  Think if nature were to adopt modern man’s effort based sharing formula. African Sahara would want a portion of rain because it is a big stakeholder in creating the hot zone and so it will demand 50% rain as its contribution.  The Western Ghats which helps in precipitation and also bears the brunt of the monsoon may claim a share of 30%.  Left over 20% becomes available for distribution across rest of Deccan Plateau?

Another idea comes from our method of commerce.  Every Human activity has turned into activity of commerce, someone generates a product or service and someone consumes.  Consumer pays the generator.  Applying human principles to the rain, Sun which provides the heat for vaporisation wants a revenue share, Indian Ocean which provides the water for vaporisation and condensation wants a share, the South Western Trade Winds which provides the transport from Indian Ocean to India wants a share.  The force of gravity and the slopes which make the flow of water possible wants a cut too.

Who will pay and how will they pay? 

We Indians need to look inside for answers for these questions. 

Maybe the answer is in our history itself. 

We have had towering personalities amongst us like Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Bose, Sir M Vishveshwaraya, Dr Abdul Kalam to name a few.  They became towering because they fought for whole of India, an Indian Nation.  They would not be towering if they had limited their fight for their home states.  Imagine Gandhi fighting for Gujarat Freedom.  Vishveshwaraya’s engineering talent was never limited to Karnataka only.  He designed and built Krishnaraja Sagar Dam on Cauvery near Mysore and he also built the drinking water system for the city of Hyderabad.  Dr. Kalam’s missiles like Agni and Prithvi do not just protect his home state of Tamil Nadu, they protect every nook and corner of India.

I close this line of thought with a concept of Kuvempu called “Vishwa Manava”.  Loosely translated means Global Man or Global Citizen.  Today’s need is for us to think, act and behave big and magnanimous.  Indian first or else Indian federalism will be at stake.  Indian Nationhood will be at stake.  Every drop of rain falling in my front yard is seems to be shouting at me, “Indian federalism is at stake, take care, move away from small pettiness in your mind.  Or in near future you will live in Indian Sub-Continent made of 30 countries like Republic of Tamil Nadu, Republic of Karnataka, Republic of Kerala, etc.”

We have a choice, do we want to live in Republic of XYZ or Republic of India?

Location, Mrughavade, a small village in Malenadu, India.