Every Joe knows we can’t exist without water. But way back in time it was a thinker named Thales [624- 541 BC] of Ionia [modern-day Turkey] who while trying to discover the origins of life concluded that water was the material cause of it. He is generally considered first philosopher in the western tradition not because he found definitive answer to the riddle of life but rather for offering materialistic and naturalistic explanations of its origins and nature quietly ignoring gods and the supernatural which were thought to be creators of what exited.

In religious scriptures water is not taken as material cause of life but is certainly understood as a vital source that sustains it on our planet. “And the earth was without form, void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters…” says the holy Bible about the Creation.

We normally have three major interconnected sources of water; rivers, aquifer and rains. The Punjab in the distant past had plenty of water due to its rivers. In Vedic times seven big rivers ran through it and hence it was called Sapta Sindhua. The River Hakra due to hitherto unexplained geological and seismic changes went dry. The remaining six are there but with the passage of time certain developments such as massive increase in population and environmental degradation have resulted in an increasing demand of water consumption and decreasing flow in the rivers, and lesser/erratic rainfall. Consequently we are constantly threatened by water crisis with multiple implications.

Our economy which is still by and large agrarian provides jobs to a large chunk of people forming an important segment of national workforce. If water becomes scarce it’s not just agriculture that suffers, our industrial sector is also severely affected due to electric power shortage. When water level in big dams goes down, it automatically reduces hydraulic power generation impacting the national economy.

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In the near past we had an array of rituals some of which were performed to appease the elements in the times of failed monsoon or during the rainless months. Divine powers were supplicated through specific ritualistic acts to intervene and allow the rain to fall from the heaven. One such ritual, simple but weird, bordering on magic, was burning of dolls.

Children especially girls used to play with dolls made of colourful cloth. If there was no rain at particular points of seasonal cycle, they were urged to burn the dolls they loved. Setting their precious little on fire the children would chant; “wuss way baddla kaiya, asan guddi gudda saariya [black could, come down raining / we have our dolls burning].

Children offering their favourite little playthings were supposed to invoke nature which taking pity on them would release the rains to end human sufferings. It was a kind of sacrifice, an offering to the heaven to solicit its bounty.

Another ritual, very common and popular, during rainless season was for the young persons to throw buckets of waters at the unsuspecting elderly. Soaked to the skin they would swear at them and try to chase them. But eventually it would end with a good laugh. It’s notable that in both the rituals the persons involved are special in some ways; children epitomise innocence and the elderly obviously symbolise helplessness. It has been imprinted in some dark recesses of human imagination since time immemorial that in stressful situations children’s innocence and the elderly’s helplessness can induce nature to shed its wrath and be kind to humans. Whether the effort bore fruit or not is immaterial. What it certainly did was psychologically stabilising; it provided solace in the backdrop of despair and created hope in the hopeless conditions. The situation persists even today in case the rainy seasons fail but with rituals not as performative as they once were.

Humans dread what disrupts the chain of natural cycle according to which we arrange our activities, individual and collective. Death of a child for instance causes us much more anguish than that of an aged person.

“Rain in the month of May and windstorm in winter are bad as dust storms are unwelcome in the month of October,” says Waris Shah, who knew our agrarian society minutely. When we have no rain in monsoon, facing a scorching heat we raise our seared hands in supplication towards the sky not really knowing what is above the sky. And when there is cloudburst we again raise our hands drenched by water towards sky. In the former case we lament lack of water and in the latter the excess of it. We desire to see things run their natural course. But does a natural course have a fixed trajectory? Nature may at times deviate from its known course due to multiple seen and unseen factors. Those who understand nature know that it’s indifferent to us, for that matter to all living creatures. “Worship with fullness of heart the weak memory of heaven! /It cannot trace either your name or your face,” writes poet Bertolt Brecht.