Literary literacy, water illiteracy

A  case is being made by speakers of all hues with or without acceptable credentials relating to grooming the growing children into adults for facing the challenges of life that the surest option is educating them. However, we also hear voices from knowledgeable circles berating the goings on in schools and colleges across the country laying bare the all-too-familiar fact of marks scored and certificates acquired by the mass of students in millions year after year as a brazenly infructuous activity with funding by both the Government and private sources. Some among the scholarly fraternity are fascinated by recalling the role that the now-defunct Gurukula institutions played in imparting comprehensive knowledge to the young generations of the past through rigorous training programmes. The land’s people of a distant past are known to not only take pride in being born in the land’s now-waning tradition of keeping close tryst with nature, read environment, but also recite with joy routinely many peace verses (Shanthi Mantras such as kaalevarshatu parjanyaha... and swasthi prajaabhyaha paripalayantam...) in turn laying down the ground rules for actions that sustained the balance between conserving nature-provided resources such as water, soil and greenery and also their frugal utilisation. The air that used to be abuzz with calls to construct rain water harvesting systems in homes from various sources, both well-informed and the well-meaning fraternity during the months preceding monsoon seem to have receded to the background leading to reports of deficit rains in some regions (including Karnataka) and excessive rains in some other parts of the country such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarkhand, Assam and Odisha. The monumental achievement of the famed water conservationist Rajendra Singh, currently visiting Karnataka, in transforming vast parched areas of Rajasthan from dry to water-rich State doesn’t seem to have spurred anybody in emulating him. The nation’s officially claimed literacy, read literary literacy as showing a rising trend has just put to a glaring contrast of poor water literacy, read elementary understanding of the imperatives of conserving water resources in their variety. While it is a common experience to hear people disfavouring the land’s ancient practices of keeping a tryst with nature that has endured for centuries, the time has come to address the task of moving from water illiteracy on a war-footing, on the lines adopted by Rajendra Singh.