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.
“When our everyday contact with water is in the kitchen sink or washrooms, we associate water with sewage/waste carriers, and yet expect the water sources to provide clean drinking water. This is reflective of a fundamental contradiction in our attitude to waterbodies”, said the dancer-researcher who, along with Sukrit Sen, tabla exponent, heritage advocate and Museum member, to make presentations at various institutions.
And, when one considers the fact that the human body is made up of a large proportion of water, a fragmentation of emotion signifies a disruption of a flow within, that in turn, leads to an impaired relationship with the water flow in the external environment.
According to Ms. Mulay, an Oxford University graduate whose research engagement is on ‘The Heads and Tails of Ganga River – the Glaciers and the Delta’, funded by INTACH, Delhi, this was in contrast to the times of yore when nature had been an integral part of the emotional cosmos.
To illustrate the point, she pointed to a visual of a Radha-Krishna painting where the Yamuna river flowing in the backdrop was an inevitable presence, and very much a character in the romance. “In dance performance too, the river is inseparable from the story”.
Pointing to this recurring motif in myths and legends, Ms. Mulay drew a comparison between the Kurma avatar (tortoise) in Indian mythology and the belief in American indigenous communities that their land is carried on the shell of a turtle. “Probably, it is a reference to a shifting landmass... a scientific phenomenon wrapped in a story or legend where the tortoise or turtle represents the interface between water and land”.
In fact, the mythological references to the Ganga as atmospheric (Swarga Ganga), terrestrial (Bhoo Ganga) and subterranean (Patal Ganga), conceptually denote a complete hydrological loop, she said.
“We need to fundamentally change our approach to water and waterbodies and to achieve this, connecting with the emotionality of water becomes important. Art forms, where the licence for anthropomorphism (endowing human attributes to other forms) overrides the logic imperative, provide a gateway to re-establish an emotional connect with rivers and waterways”, Ms. Mulay said.
