Chandrappa’s generation would like the younger lot to know and live their culture on their land – but that’s a tall order today. The land doesn’t yield and the youth in the village want to leave.

“These young boys nowadays, they don’t care,” he says suddenly angry as he imitates their local slang.

“We used to be united. We used to celebrate our tradition because it’s meant to be celebrated. But nowadays...” we’re invited to complete the story. “Most of my friends have died,” he says. And a way of life has died with them.

In the village, we see young boys speaking loudly on their cell phones and zipping around on their bikes, sometimes three or even four squeezed on the battered backseat of a precarious looking contraption.

They’re impatient with tradition. It hasn’t brought them wealth or the good life. Why preserve something that’s killing them?

“We still celebrate Amavasya and Pournami in the Siddarameshwara temple in the hills,” he says. The hills are still lush because the communities have protected them from deforestation. But on farms, trees and cattle are disappearing.

“People take their cattle up the hill to graze every day. There are lush forests there. While the cattle graze, they eat in the shade of the temple, pray to the deity and return home. The deity protects us,” he says. Somewhere, Hope stirs.

The Central Ground Water Board report says that in most parts, the groundwater quality in Arsikere is good for drinking except for a few areas where nitrate and fluoride was found above permissible limits.

There is a well-developed tank system with 249 tanks in the Taluk. Chandrappa doesn’t understand all this. Neither does he care.

He says the soil needs trees and cattle to renew itself. He knows if the soil is rich enough to hold water, aquifers, lakes, rivers, ponds and wells will fill. And his jatres and habbas will return.

In rural Karnataka – as in all of rural India – a water crisis does not mean taps going dry every other day. It means a civilisation is in limbo with a very real possibility of losing its way of life.

Biography

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