Before the monsoon

The dreadful floods and loss of life reported from Uttarakhand have drawn attention to the onset of the 2013 monsoon, which arrived on June 1^st at Kanniyakumari (the expected date) but then moved far more rapidly north than is normal, catching the pilgrims going to Kedarnath unawares. The finding and cremation of bodies continues – wood with which to cremate the dead is being taken in by helicopters which return with survivors.

But here in the middle of Tamil Nadu we are anxiously awaiting the rain – at second hand. Apart from the odd shower, we don’t expect much rainfall on the plains until November, when the winds of the retreating monsoon pass over the Bay of Bengal, picking up new moisture, and depositing it to the east of the mountains. But our dams and tanks are thirsty for water.

It is said that water which reaches the sea in rivers is wasted, so the Cauvery, the Vaigai, the Pannaiyar and the Palar are rivers of sand up to a mile wide and remain like that for most of the year. But there is a huge network of canals and irrigation channels which snake out over the land from large reservoirs at the foot of the hills.

There has been rain in the Nilgiris, and I hear that the Kundah dam is filling up and they have been able to start power generation. But around Kodaikanal there’s hardly been a drop. I walked up to the river this morning and it is a mere trickle among the stones. Nothing is reaching our dam, and soon the level will be below the lowest outlet and Dindigul will have to rely on water from deep borewells.

After the monsoon

The lake can fill very quickly once the river starts flowing – our neighbour saw it rise one year by three feet overnight – but just at the moment we look out onto grassland and the local herdsmen are taking advantage of this and bringing in goats, sheep and cattle to graze.

The other people taking advantage of the low water level are the sand and mud miners. Until yesterday, there were three diggers removing 6 feet of red sand – said to be excellent for brickmaking – which was going out in convoys of big lorries. Closer to the remaining damp patches, gangs of men were taking out dense black mud and loading it onto tractor trailers, destined for the plantations. River mud and sand is very fertile and much in demand, and there is a big “informal” economy around its extraction.