Burning the midnight oil for a bucket of water

medium87504398MAHISMAL (NASHIK DIST): Life has been a series of miserable summers for Paribai Waghmare. The 55-year-old hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep ever since she got married 30 years ago and moved to Mahismal, a Nashik hamlet. Every day is a punishing 2km trek through dirt and dry brush to a pit in which groundwater collects to form a pool. She fills about 10 litres in her steel vessels. After that, it’s an uphill haul home on foot. Sometimes, the expedition can take as much as five hours if another group gets there first.The waterhole Paribai frequents is called Karakalicha Nala – a remnant of what was once a stream. What's visible today is a tiny pool of water hidden by tree canopies that prevent excess evaporation – it’s this natural feature that makes the nala special as compared to the fast drying manmade wells. 68864731From late evening to well past midnight, dozens of women from villages as far as 5km away turn up at this tiny pool for a long and despairing wait to fill a single bucket of water. Once empty, the pool takes hours to recharge. Through April, the waiting time at the queue is two hours. By May, a few litres could take all night.The wait for water at Karakalicha Nala is fraught with risk. A large bonfire starts as soon as groups of women begin to arrive at the tiny pool. It's meant to keep wild animals at bay. “There was a leopard attack here a few years ago,” says one villager.Conversations around the blaze are friendly, almost festive. The women discuss TV shows, local gossip and a recent wedding. But they don’t discuss the drought. “What’s there to talk about? This is a daily thing for us,” says a woman. medium nocaption68873857 By midnight, the nala goes dry. The women, who’ve waited nearly two hours, balance the filled vessels on their heads before the long walk uphill. One slip and the family goes without water that day. “We tell the others that the nala is dry. Once it slowly fills up again, more women will come,” says Ambibai Warade from Ghalvad village, about two hours’ walk from here. This was her third visit to the waterhole that day. 68864207Mahismal where Paribai lives is home to 495 people. A tight cluster of 65 homes, this hamlet is one of four within Nashik district’s Surgana taluka that have, for decades, suffered debilitating water shortages. A glassful of water here is almost always shared between two or more people. Each home has a toilet, but no running water. The conditions are equally bad in neighbouring Ghalvad, Shirish pada and Moranda – all a few kilometres apart from each other. Topography is their immediate enemy. Mahismal, Galwad, Shirish pada and Moranda are located on parched hilltops. For decades, residents have been pleading with the government to bring supply up to their homes, but like their water, infrastructure has been coming in trickles. Much of the villagers’ ire is directed at J P Gavit, seven-term MLA from Kalwan assembly constituency under which Mahismal falls. Gavit, who is fighting this election as the CPM candidate from the Dindori Lok Sabha seat, says he had sent a water scheme proposal to the state government and irrigation ministry last year. “The proposal includes construction of a small dam or lake, from where water will be lifted to a tank to be built on the hill. The proposal is pending. The four hamlets are ironically part of the rain-rich Ronghane gram panchayat, a network of 11 villages. The other seven, which are in the plains, don't have to go thirsty. 68866350Chintaman Gumbade, 50, a local police patil (a person appointed to work with government agencies, including the police) says, "These four villages have been cursed. The good rains we receive run off to the plains, we're left with dust to breathe." Gumbade says the water scarcity starts around December. “From then on, we race from one waterhole to another.” 68862225Villagers can’t always wait for Karakalicha Nala to recharge. Another source is an almost dry, 25ft-deep manmade well in which government tankers empty water for thirsty villagers on alternate days. Gumbade’s son Yuvraj demonstrates how they get to the little pool at the bottom. Using jagged edges of rocks and a rope, he goes down. The women lower buckets into the well for him to fill, and another man then hauls them up. large68862243But most young men of Yuvraj’s age have left for daily-wage jobs in the cities or the region’s famous vineyards. In most homes, the women look after the children and elderly – and fetch water for the households. “For thirst years all i have done is lift water, carry water and cook for the family. Generations of women before me have wasted their lives like this and even my children will suffer,” laments Paribai.At the edge of the well, a little girl aged eight or nine is handed a small vessel of water to carry as she joins her mother and other women on their walk back home.Photos and video by Aditya Waikul