The floods have receded, leaving us to survey the damage. There is less than we feared. The water entered the land through a few main points. We think we can close most of them up so that much of the land isn’t affected next time. The one part of the land which is very lowContinue reading “Coming out the other side”
Category Archives: weather
One in 1200
That’s how many villages in UP are affected by the floods. News like this always seemed distant when we lived in the city. We are the last village before Mirzapur, which is the worst hit. It’s been raining everywhere (except in Banaras), and I suppose we were just too busy too notice. The rice cropsContinue reading “One in 1200”
Escape!
Yesterday morning, we realized that if we didn’t leave the campus immediately, we would be stuck there. In fact, we were already almost too late. The river is now higher than it has been in the past thirty years or so. All our fields are submerged. One entire section of the village is under water,Continue reading “Escape!”
Today
This was in the morning. It rose another few feet by evening, and no one could reach the bridge to take pictures any more.
Floods!
Well, we made a mistake not to make our bridge even higher. Our carpenter had planned it for about five feet higher than it is, and that seemed outrageously high to us. But, today, the nala has risen above it. If you stand on the bridge, you are knee-deep in water, and it is stillContinue reading “Floods!”
The Worship of the Nala
The past days of rain have turned the nala into a gushing stream. There is even a ‘waterfall’ near our building, so that we hear the sound of rushing water all day and night. Here’s a post from Prof. Nita Kumar’s blog about the inauguration of our bridge – a controversial affair! “The nala, that is,Continue reading “The Worship of the Nala”
Bamboo, bridges, and snakes
It’s been a couple of weeks since our last update, because of some unexpected events. But we are back. We’ve had over ten days of sunshine, which meant extremely hot, humid, unpleasant weather, but also that we have been busy. First of all, we decided that we need to get across the nala, rain orContinue reading “Bamboo, bridges, and snakes”
Summer Solstice
Sol = sun, sistere = to hold still. The day when Surya devata or the Sun God shines closest, longest, brightest in the Northern Hemisphere. It may be a great day for the sun in universal terms, but here, in our villages of Betawar-Chhitauni, the sun has not been glimpsed for days and is notContinue reading “Summer Solstice”
“Where’s the loo?”
“This is not the tale of how we always had to strategise before planning to spend the day, or half the day, on our new up-coming forest retreat, “Ganga Van.” The multi-acre campus had no bathroom. It did have an “office block,” with a good-sized room set up as an office, an unfinished bathroom andContinue reading ““Where’s the loo?””
First trenches done!
We managed to hold off the rain till last night (!), and started filling the trenches yesterday. Twelve are done, and what beauties they are! They all have a mix of soil, cowdung, straw, and leaves. They are porous and feel rich and ready to welcome new life. It finally rained last night, so thatContinue reading “First trenches done!”
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