Water is a witness to it all. In ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, Samuel Taylor Coleridge through his poetry takes us to the circumstances that the mariner finds himself in when he is out to explore foreign lands. On one hand, water is a means to explore, to discover new places and on the other there are those who set sail in hope and in hopelessness, seeking salvation in foreign lands. Raul Zurita’s ‘Sea of Pain’ draws upon the Syrian refugee crisis making one resonate with what water holds. Seas connect the world, yet it simultaneously transforms into a graveyard, a memorial for thousands of Syrian children, like Alan and Galip Kurdi. The photograph of the 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed ashore on a beach in Turkey, changed the way the world looked at this humanitarian crisis while questioning what being human is?
As a part of Kochi Muziris Biennale 2016, Anamika Haksar’s ‘Composition on water’ is an adaption of Namdeo Dhasal’s poem – Water, which expresses the deep seated social injustices and inequality through improvisational theatre and installation. The performance talks about memories of oppression and the contemporary water crisis faced by
Dalits and other minorities, in the 21st century. “Upstream, the water is all for you to take, downstream, the water is for us to get” – a dialogue from the performance serves as a reminder of the hegemonic divide that decides the ownership of water.
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In this issue of the 12 Magazine, bodies of work examine and ponder upon various facets of Water in the state of Gujarat. Sahil Saxena’s Sangharsh explores Bamanbore, a village in Gujarat that faces severe water crisis in the summer months. The photo series also looks at the relationship that people share with their blue water containers and how these containers decide their newly assigned roles in the community. Dire times also test the social fabric of one’s immediate locale. In The Ordinary, Shahrukh silently observes people with limited access to water sustaining themselves in the Pols of Ahmedabad.
Civilisations have come into existence and thrived on the banks of rivers. Rivers have played an essential role in defining our social and cultural identities, which over time has given birth to traditional values and belief systems around water bodies, that have earned the status of being Godly. These beliefs and myths, in folklores, are reimagined and represented in Like the flowing river by Nalini Ranjan Nirad and Little Kali by Rohith Krishnan. The relationship with water can run on several levels and is subject to change with time. In her book Washing over an era, Vamika Jain examines how Sabarmati river and the washermen community have evolved, which now has given their relationship with water a new meaning. As time passes, the dynamics of the relationship with water also dwindles and man desires to be in charge, without giving much thought to the consequences that acting upon this wishful thinking may have. In The Work of New Gods, Sumit Barauh traces the structures made to control the Sabarmati from Dharoi dam to Vasna barrage, that has changed the landscape and the natural course of the river.
The abundance and scarcity of water define what home can be for migrant communities. “What is their sense of home?” is the question Aayush Chandrawanshi answers in Off the Coast, when he is invited to spend a few days on a boat with Andhra fishermen, whom he met at the port of Veraval. Not just a pinch of salt by Nalini B, is an inquiry to understand the lesser known, semi nomadic lives of the Agariyas – the salt panning community from the Little Rann of Kutch. The Gulf of Kutch is a home to a major climate change indicator – coral reefs. Siva Sai’s documentary film Coral Reefs in Gujarat shows various human interactions with the coral reefs and the contribution of the scientific community in restoring them.
Jal Nahi Toh Kal Nahi is Pavithra Ramanujam’s personal account of things she learned from people of Gujarat while looking at the cycle of taking from and giving back to water. She also looks at various commercial and environmental aspects that become a part of this cycle. Joel Fernando questions the motive behind ‘service for society’ (Seva Bhavo) and the commodification of water through his work ‘Free’ Drinking Water where he visited 50 different public drinking water spots in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. In her book The Water Parks Isha Gahlot draws attention to the irony of unrestrained consumerism that we indulge into, in a water deficit state of Gujarat. We do so to escape the monotony of our lives, to find comfort and leisure in the lap of water, even if it is momentary.
Amlanjyoti Bora in his book Architecture to the sea documents the 400-year-old craft of shipbuilding in Mandvi, which is still valued in the age of mechanization. After spending a lifetime on water, half the world’s ships come to Alang to be born again. In her set of books Maria 1 & 2, Shreyasi Pathak juxtaposes the mechanical activity of ship breaking and repurposing with the sense of nostalgia that the objects possess long after the ship has been taken apart and sold.
