Aqualogues: The Festival Where Water Found Its Voice

There are about 18 to 20 households in Muchura Daldali up in the hills of Godda district, Jharkhand. The inhabitants belong to the Paharia (Pahariya) tribe of Dravadian origin, perhaps one of the most backward socio-economic communities in the country. 

Forests and their natural resources have sustained Paharias for centuries. They once ruled the hills of present day Santhal Pargana division in Jharkhand covering six districts — Godda, Deoghar, Dumka, Jamtara, Sahibganj, and Pakur.

Paharias are now categorised as a particularly vulnerable tribal group, alienated from their forests and combating poverty, malnutrition and human trafficking.

In 2019, we drove some 350 kilometres from Ranchi to Muchura Daldali, in peak summers, navigating through the coal mining belt of Godda. The air was thick and grey with coal dust and pollutants. I was there to meet the members of this indigenous tribe, believed to be the earliest inhabitants of the region, but were on the verge of going extinct. 

Mud-and-bamboo houses with baked-tile roofs, and carpets of yellow mahua flowers greeted us. A few people were busy breaking off the seed pods of the semal tree (Bombax ceiba). They extract cotton from it which they then sell for a living. This natural floss is used for stuffing pillows, quilts, and mattresses, and is a natural alternative to synthetic fillers.

There was an awkward silence and a reluctance to engage us in conversation, initially. But, Neeraj Kumar, an activist who has worked with the Paharia tribe for a few decades, softly urged me to dip my fingers in the water a Paharia brought us in a brass lota (small pot). 

I did, and the conversation began to flow. Paharia women sang to us about the mountains, rivers, forests and Mother Nature. More than anything else, the water ritual at Muchura Daldali stayed with me long after I returned home. 

The water-filled brass lota ritual of the Paharia tribe was not like any other ice breaking sessions I had attended as an environmental journalist.  It was a unique way of connecting with the community. 

At the recently held Aqualogues — The Water Festival at the Ahmedabad University, Gujarat on September 26/27,  I shared  this story. Aqualogues 2025 was organised by WforW Foundation, a think tank built as a citizen collective to facilitate conversations around water and promote the vast traditional knowledge of communities across the country. 

It was during a session, ‘Water and Heritage’, which I was moderating that I shared the incident that had left such a deep impression on me. To me, it was a perfect example of how water is woven into the cultural practices of communities, making it sacred and an elixir of life. 

Water is a part of our shared identity. The theme of Aqualogues 2025 was ‘Water Conversations – Confluence of Ideas, Disciplines, and People (Jal Samvaad – Vichaar, Vidya, aur Vividhata)’. Through a series of panel discussions and DIY workshops, every effort was made during the Festival to unravel the layers of water that run through our society. 

The Water Festival reimagined water as a vessel of knowledge, culture, community, vulnerability, and creativity. It brought together students, scholars, artists, practitioners, and policymakers from across the country. It created a space for interdisciplinary dialogue, artistic expression, and collaborative learning on the theme of water.

Padma Shri Uma Shankar Pandey set the tone through his keynote address in which he emphasised the importance of traditional knowledge of Indian communities on decentralised water conservation and rainwater harvesting. 

Often referred to as Bundelkhand's ‘Pani Ke Pehredar’, Pandey, who hails from drought-prone Banda district of Uttar Pradesh, turned dry fields into thriving ecosystems using traditional wisdom and collective will. 

His popular slogan, Khet par med aur med par ped (Plough the field, build mounds, and plant trees on them), has become well-known and was also referred to by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his radio programme Mann Ki Baat. Pandey’s innovative water conservation model has made over 470 gram panchayats in Bundelkhand water-sufficient. 

Sara Ahmed, Founder of Living Waters Museum, is also a professor at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune. She set up the Living Waters Museum in 2017. The museum is a repository of visual narratives on India’s rich and diverse water heritage using digital media and the power of storytelling. 

The museum has built strong partnerships with students, architects, artists, activists, and educators to understand urban water history from ancient systems to the present, focusing especially on urban waterscapes and the relationships between water, livelihoods, and public health. 

Chandrasekaran J, Founder-CEO of WATSAN Envirotech Pvt Ltd, narrated a deeply personal story of how as a newborn baby, he was declared stillborn. But someone at the hospital noticed the baby move and his life was saved. 

His own personal story has led to Chandrasekaran dedicating his entire life to support poor and marginalised communities by offering them low-cost, electricity-free water filters, which provide clean and safe drinking water. 

According to him, the WATSAN water filters remove even tough pollutants such as high fluoride and arsenic, and are an alternative to RO (reverse osmosis) units that waste a lot of water and have become ubiquitous in almost all households and rural villages.  

On the Water Walk by Mansee Bal Bhargava of WForW Foundation participants visited Asarva Lake in Ahmedabad city. Far from being a pleasant morning wander around an urban lake, the outing was a rude shock. The surroundings of the lake are heavily concretised and untreated sewage flows freely into the waterbody. The Water Walk was a lesson on how not to try to ‘revive’ a lake, said Bhargava.

Adjoining the Asarva Lake is an ancient stepwell. Mata Bhavani Vav (vav is Gujarati for stepwell), was built in the 11th century during the Solanki period. The structure features a long flight of steps to the water, with intricately ornamented pavilions, columns, beams, and brackets. However, the vav has no water now. 

According to Bhargava, lakes and vav are like brother and sister. Their relationship is both functional and locational, with a lake often feeding a stepwell and acting as a vital source of water for the community. But, this relationship has fractured due to the development model that cities have adopted, which negates this traditional wisdom and ancient relationship, she said.

There were some success stories that Rajkumari Sunita Devi, Director of State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA) for Watershed Management in Manipur, shared. They were about successful watershed management and spring revival in the northeastern state. Springs are an important source of water for hill communities and drying up of springs in the Himalayan region is a grave concern. 

In Manipur, all the springs have been physically geotagged by involving local communities and villagers, said Sunita Devi. The state government is using geospatial technologies for mapping watersheds and implementing springshed development works.

Nafosa Barot, founder-member of Utthan, an NGO in Gujarat that mobilises women for water harvesting, discussed water through a gender lens. Barot spoke of how women-led water conservation works have borne excellent results as these are rooted in their lived experiences. Women bear the maximum burden of water shortage and water crisis. Barot is also the winner of the 2020 Women in Water Award by the International Water Association.

The evenings at Aqualogues 2025 were dedicated to film screenings. Jalal Jeelani, a filmmaker from Kashmir, screened Saving The Saviour, a documentary on Wular Lake that has won international awards. The protagonist of the film is 13-year-old Billa Ahmad Dar, who collects floating garbage from the lake to support his family. He is happy because by doing so, he is contributing to cleaning the water. 

One of my favourite workshops at Aqualogues 2025 was a DIY activity by The Rewaayat, an apparel couture (rewaayat in urdu means culture), where we learnt to make fish using rags and textile waste. 

It was after many years that I had a needle and thread in my hand. But I sewed a fish using fabric with the traditional Ajrakh block print. The fish now has pride of place on my desk back home.