Mullaperiyar, Kerala, India
If you think the energy wars which have been driving the global economy for the past 170 years have been intense ..........the quest for oil ain't nothin' compared to the global agenda for potable water. Face it, an agenda for economic hegemony is going to get even more basic: survival.
I am not a sage in the least, but unless you've had your head in the proverbial sand for the past 30 + years......to witness miles and miles of Plastic Water Bottles clogging up the small arteries of the world (not to mention the 6(?) miles of Pacific Ocean),everyone from Arundati Roy (her activism regarding that Other damn dam in northern India and it's water supply for the likes of Coca-Cola, {damn the needs of the people}, to the Aral Sea (fresh water) in Russia, dried up due to damn dam restructuring the path of the rivers, and climate change,the arid desolation creeping into Africa, the greater salination of all the oceans, CLIMATE
CHANGE,POLLUTION,AGRICULTURAL RUN-OFF and the mother of all problems: POPULATION GROWTH.
oh....and did i mention the first observation my parents made on buying a house in Rancho Santa Fe, southern California in 1989?
"They all carry around bottled water!"
Which is a roundabout way of getting back to the story in India.
DAM999 (title of a current movie banned in Tamil Nadu.....see UTube)) The deal the Raja of Kerala made with British Empire somewhere around 1910. Sorry, don't know the specifics..... but the British Empire built this dam in Mullaperiyar to serve both the state of Kerala and adjoining state of Tamil Nadu (due to the way the rain water flows from the Western Ghats).
Almost 100 years later, after a multitude of
earthquakes..... the dam is "possibly" falling apart with cracking infrastructure . Now comes the political part; the people IN want to stay In...therefore one of the proposals is to build another dam .....but Disallow any of the water to flow into Tamil Nadu.
As election season heats up....... the party In Tamil Nadu decides to call demonstrations and strikes.
How I observed this: (beside reading The Hindu, or any one of the 1000 newspapers in India).
First day in Cochin, I met a couple from America who had just completed the same tour with Charles. They told me about the" tense time " regarding driving from Madurai (Tamil Nadu) to Periyar (Kerala, border town Kumily).
Demonstrations.........threatening to not allow them through (van) and feeling scared about the van being attacked (Kerala license plates).
Okay. The first day I took Charles aside.... really just for information....... and after that....well let's just say I became Charles' confidante and "sounding board" for all his extraordinary scheming on how to get his "Intrepid" group through the borders. The trip was 16 days long. We were scheduled to get to Periyar around day 12. I listened A Lot.Each day the plan changed (due to the news). Several times I opted out. (forget it Charles..... I will not be spending 16 hours on another train and then another 12 on a public bus to get to the place that is renowned for Leeches. I will fly to Varkala for a few days and meet you in the Backwaters! (my intrepidness has its limitations)
Needless to say...... no one else had a clue until day 11 when it became apparent......and Charles starting talking "alternatives".
SO what happened?
Well Our Intrepid leader is astute, quick thinking, imaginative and really a good leader.
We left Madurai before 5am in two separate unmarked cars, with Tamil Nadu plates. We arrived at the bordering state at 7:45 am (demonstrators appear around 8am).On the roads we kept seeing hundreds of pairs of flip-flops. WHy?- because the demonstrators would have to run away from the police....and who can run in flip -flops?
At the border town of Kumily, we walked across and changed vehicles and drivers and had a Kerala license plate. We drove on to Periyar without incident . The borders (13 locations, Charles had to figure out the right one to go through) all closed within 3 hours later. A General Strike was called in Tamil Nadu- Everything CLOSED- restaurants, stores, schools, buses, trains no supplies/nada. Even the shops in the Big Madurai Temple (more later....it's like the Vatican of Hindus).
Needless to say.....the drinks were on me that night with endless toasting of Charles!
(p.s. in the coming weeks I kept hearing nightmare stories from other travelers who got stuck......really stuck because of this Damn Dam incident)
So- the "final commission report" to the Kerala gov't is due on Jan.15.
Meanwhile, Charles is still conniving for all tourist guides on how to travel through obstacles.......and the people of Tamil Nadu
are inarguably sweating about where their water will come from in the near future.
Lee Koppelman- Please feel free to add your expertise on this issue, groundwater pollution, desalination, and the general consensus that POTABLE water is here as The Issue that the global population (and of course, the poor being the first victims of this) faces NOW.
travelin' woman
If you think the energy wars which have been driving the global economy for the past 170 years have been intense ..........the quest for oil ain't nothin' compared to the global agenda for potable water. Face it, an agenda for economic hegemony is going to get even more basic: survival.
I am not a sage in the least, but unless you've had your head in the proverbial sand for the past 30 + years......to witness miles and miles of Plastic Water Bottles clogging up the small arteries of the world (not to mention the 6(?) miles of Pacific Ocean),everyone from Arundati Roy (her activism regarding that Other damn dam in northern India and it's water supply for the likes of Coca-Cola, {damn the needs of the people}, to the Aral Sea (fresh water) in Russia, dried up due to damn dam restructuring the path of the rivers, and climate change,the arid desolation creeping into Africa, the greater salination of all the oceans, CLIMATE
CHANGE,POLLUTION,AGRICULTURAL RUN-OFF and the mother of all problems: POPULATION GROWTH.
oh....and did i mention the first observation my parents made on buying a house in Rancho Santa Fe, southern California in 1989?
"They all carry around bottled water!"
Which is a roundabout way of getting back to the story in India.
DAM999 (title of a current movie banned in Tamil Nadu.....see UTube)) The deal the Raja of Kerala made with British Empire somewhere around 1910. Sorry, don't know the specifics..... but the British Empire built this dam in Mullaperiyar to serve both the state of Kerala and adjoining state of Tamil Nadu (due to the way the rain water flows from the Western Ghats).
Almost 100 years later, after a multitude of
earthquakes..... the dam is "possibly" falling apart with cracking infrastructure . Now comes the political part; the people IN want to stay In...therefore one of the proposals is to build another dam .....but Disallow any of the water to flow into Tamil Nadu.
As election season heats up....... the party In Tamil Nadu decides to call demonstrations and strikes.
How I observed this: (beside reading The Hindu, or any one of the 1000 newspapers in India).
First day in Cochin, I met a couple from America who had just completed the same tour with Charles. They told me about the" tense time " regarding driving from Madurai (Tamil Nadu) to Periyar (Kerala, border town Kumily).
Demonstrations.........threatening to not allow them through (van) and feeling scared about the van being attacked (Kerala license plates).
Okay. The first day I took Charles aside.... really just for information....... and after that....well let's just say I became Charles' confidante and "sounding board" for all his extraordinary scheming on how to get his "Intrepid" group through the borders. The trip was 16 days long. We were scheduled to get to Periyar around day 12. I listened A Lot.Each day the plan changed (due to the news). Several times I opted out. (forget it Charles..... I will not be spending 16 hours on another train and then another 12 on a public bus to get to the place that is renowned for Leeches. I will fly to Varkala for a few days and meet you in the Backwaters! (my intrepidness has its limitations)
Needless to say...... no one else had a clue until day 11 when it became apparent......and Charles starting talking "alternatives".
SO what happened?
Well Our Intrepid leader is astute, quick thinking, imaginative and really a good leader.
We left Madurai before 5am in two separate unmarked cars, with Tamil Nadu plates. We arrived at the bordering state at 7:45 am (demonstrators appear around 8am).On the roads we kept seeing hundreds of pairs of flip-flops. WHy?- because the demonstrators would have to run away from the police....and who can run in flip -flops?
At the border town of Kumily, we walked across and changed vehicles and drivers and had a Kerala license plate. We drove on to Periyar without incident . The borders (13 locations, Charles had to figure out the right one to go through) all closed within 3 hours later. A General Strike was called in Tamil Nadu- Everything CLOSED- restaurants, stores, schools, buses, trains no supplies/nada. Even the shops in the Big Madurai Temple (more later....it's like the Vatican of Hindus).
Needless to say.....the drinks were on me that night with endless toasting of Charles!
(p.s. in the coming weeks I kept hearing nightmare stories from other travelers who got stuck......really stuck because of this Damn Dam incident)
So- the "final commission report" to the Kerala gov't is due on Jan.15.
Meanwhile, Charles is still conniving for all tourist guides on how to travel through obstacles.......and the people of Tamil Nadu
are inarguably sweating about where their water will come from in the near future.
Lee Koppelman- Please feel free to add your expertise on this issue, groundwater pollution, desalination, and the general consensus that POTABLE water is here as The Issue that the global population (and of course, the poor being the first victims of this) faces NOW.
travelin' woman
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