Village vignettes - Drought

Annasamy Anna tells me of the seven year drought of his youth, sixty yeas ago, , when they used to line up in the government gruel centres daily for jowar gruel. But there was no drinking water problem, as some wells still had water. Trees did not dry and die. Drought only meant no rains, and hence no cropping.

In today's drought there is no drinking water for man or cattle. The bores have sucked the ground bone dry, and there is not a particle of moisture, and the trees have all dried. Our trees also.

The Director Social Audit and Nagesh looking at the fallow wetlands, to see what water harvesting needs to be dona and how. These areas used to be lush with paddy and sugarcane in my memory since I stepped into the village in 1995.