THIRST

THIRST

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

06/VI/2024

People in Rajasthan are dying due to heat stroke and dehydration. With the mercury hovering around the 50° C mark, add a few degrees if one is in direct sunlight, sweat evaporates without you knowing it. It is tough to beat such weather.

It is not only humans; it is the flora and fauna which too are feeling the heat. Cattle congregate under trees. Birds are perching under every leaf. During the day everything looks so dull, with no movement of man, bird, or beast. Only those who cannot but travel are seen on the road.

Folks keep sending me videos and photos to keep water for the birds as a noble gesture during the summer. None of them have sent what they are doing to practice what they preach.

We as a family are not only quenching the thirst of birds but also feeding them grain. Besides, we let the bees freely enjoy a drink in our water lily tubs. To understand what is a beeline, one has to see to believe when they come in swarms.

The ship of the desert can go without a drink for up to a week. Man cannot survive without it for more than three days. In Rajasthan, people ensure that water is kept in matka in a piyao for passers by. Village folk make baoris or shallow kuchha water tanks for wild animals and stray cattle.

Most of the homes have a half-broken pitcher or a bowl made of stone/cement for birds and cattle which roam around the town. Cows come at the gate and call if they do not find the water bowl full or the stone slab without a roti. People do their bit.

Till the time the Rajasthan canal had come to Jaisalmer where I was posted from 1985 to 90, water was a major issue in the parched district. Water tankers, bhishties (water carried in goat/sheep skins), camel carts would ferry water. No one wasted a single drop.

We in the Mech forces, who operated in the desert extensively, knew the importance of this precious liquid very well. A tyre puncture was cakewalk but a punctured radiator, or a leaking water hose spelt disaster. Filling soap in those radiator cracks was often practiced. No one wanted to be stranded in the wilderness amongst the snakes and scorpions.

Water chaggals/pakhals or mule tanks/canvas buckets were the only way to store and carry water. A chaggal could chill the water as if kept in a fridge. A pit in the sand, sprinkled with water and stuffed with beer bottles was a treat to chill oneself under a Khejri tree during exercises and training.

No one from our unit passed by a grave of an unknown soldier from the Jat Regiment while proceeding to a BSF post called ‘Pitthewala’. They say he died of thirst at that spot. A lit Biri was kept at his head and a glass of water was poured to keep his spirit quenched and contended. The folklore prevalent was that if you pass by without offering a glass of water and a smoke, you were bound to have a breakdown and many vouched for it.

Be that as it may. During our commando course, we were doing a manoeuvre of ‘Escape and Evasion’. Without food and just one litre water for about 72 hours in hostile enemy territory was no way task. We were supposed to live off the land and drink water only from authorised sources, which did not exist or by sterilizing it, which we never did.

By the time we reached the finish point we were exhausted and thirsty like hell and were so hungry that each commando could eat an elephant. The culminating move was to cross a dirty, mucky, stinky river with improvised water crossing expedients, like inflated trousers, or a series of water bottles tied around your waist.

We were specifically told not to let that contaminated water touch our lips, as it is infested with bacteria and parasites. The moment we went into that murky black coloured water, glug-glug-glug we drank as if water had finished on earth.

To our surprise Commando found a water bowser with clean drinking water standing at the exit point. By then enough water had gone down the oesophagus, consequences of which we bore during our forty-kilometre endurance march back to camp. Imagine you have loose motions and every ten minutes you feel the pressure to relieve yourself. With 32 kgs on your backs plus a four kg rifle, it was a nightmare.

Well, conserving water, saving it, and utilizing it judicially is the need of the hour. Every drop counts and every life counts even more. Let us ensure that no bird, insect, or human dies of thirst.

We are doing our bit. Are you? I wonder!!!!!!!!

JAI HIND