PREFACE

The India International Centre (IIC) held ‘The Festival of Water’ from 16 to 22 February in 2004. This festival was a part of a series of programmes on the sea, organised by them in 2003. The intention was to widen the scope of awareness on water, an essential element for life on this planet, especially as water, or the lack of it, has become an issue of great concern in the twenty-first century.

Water has been a primal element in the shaping of cultures, the first sustaining element for life on earth—be it plant, animal or human. From time immemorial, countless myths have evolved around water as the source of life. In the mythological and symbolic world, the regenerative traditions of water have been internalised. All religious traditions have treated water as sacred, with many messages of ecological imbalances embedded in them.

In Indian culture, the functional aspects of identifying water sources—natural as well as man-made water systems—have been given the status of a ritual, which is transmitted through myth and belief. This, in turn, is reflected in the arts of music and dance. Songs of the river and of the ocean, from the traditional fisherman to the maritime trader, have all had a dialogue with the sea with a complex invocation to protective deities to calm the natural elements and restore harmony.

The Festival of Water focused on the living continuities of the culture of water, which permeate every aspect of our lives, through performing and visual arts, poetry and readings, films, talks, discussions and cuisine. This volume contains a selection of presentations that formed part of the festival as well as a few commissioned papers. The opening article ‘The Ecology and Myth of Water’ by Dr Kapila Vatsyayan forms the introduction, which is followed by a photo essay on the Kaveri River by Clare Arni. The book is divided into four sections—The River, The Sea, Water Resource Management and The Culture of Water.

‘The River’ comprises the following articles: ‘Himalayan Rivers: Geopolitics and Strategic Perspectives’ by Claude Arpi; ‘The Narmada: Death of a River’ by Shripad Dharmadhikary; A Boat of Hope’ by Sanjoy Hazarika; and ‘Water as a Metaphor in Indian Cinema’ by Partha Chatterjee.

‘The Sea’ includes an overview on the ‘Indian Ocean’ by three scholars from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)—Himanshu Prabha Ray, Rohan D’Souza and Gulshan Dietl; ‘Pre-Portuguese Maritime Crafts of India: The Ethnological Evidence’ by Lotika Varadarajan; and the ‘Composite Culture of Goa’ by Maria Couto.

The part titled ‘Water Resource Management’ includes thought-provoking essays such as ‘Water: What Must We Do?’ by Ramaswamy Iyer; ‘Hunting Down Water in India: In Search of Vox Pops’ by Sanjay Barnela and Vasant Saberwal, with poems by Maya Khosla; and ‘Environmental Values and the Quality of Life’ by M. N. Buch.

The concluding section, ‘The Culture of Water’, comprises articles devoted to various traditions revolving around water in different regions of India. The papers in this section include ‘Vanchipattu: Songs of the Boat Race in Kerala’ by Vijayan Kananpilly; ‘Bhatiali: Songs of the Boatmen of Bengal’ by Indrani Majumdar; and A Selection of Poems’ with an introduction by Keshav Malik.

The ‘Festival of Water’ was the brainchild of Kapila Vatsyayan, an eminent scholar of Indian culture. As Chairperson, Asia Project, India International Centre, she gave the organisers a lot of encouragement and guidance in the difficult task of translating her ideas into the festival.

This festival was arranged in collaboration with the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA). Without the unstinting support of the late Ms Sharbari Mukherjee of SNA, it would not have been possible to present two rare events—‘Vanchipattu’ (traditional boat songs of Kerala) by T. V. Sambasivan and party, and ‘Bhatiali’ (songs of the boatmen of Bengal) by Amar Pal.

We would also like to thank the contributors to this volume and Suhasini Ramaswamy who edited the papers.

PREMOLA GHOSE
CHIEF, PROGRAMME DIVISION
INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE