The Holy Cusec

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The Holy Cusec
- Thara Tlau

The Holy Cusec
- Thara Tlau

‘Twas a small village, creepy and indolent, on the border of Karnataka in Tamil Nadu state where Nisha and her parents lived. Creepy and indolent all the more so for the past three and a half years since the great Indian Monsoon failed; not only the village but the whole region which depended heavily on the Kaveri River and its irrigated canals. The previous years, the villagers, predominantly farmers could afford minimal harvest with maximum efforts. They had tried every possible means available from their traditional practices inherited from generations past to sustain their crops’ survival. They would channelize the canal water in the form of small nullahs to inundate the cultivated fields. The task of letting the canal water flow down into these nullahs was rather vehemently a robust exercise, akin to a military one, which involved a secretive manoeuvre. They heightened the level of water in the canal so as to let it overflow into the nullahs. For this, they created an artificial reservoir to store the water, to heighten the level and to let it overflow into the nullahs. They filled cement sacs and gunny bags with sand and kept them ready in the embankment area whereon there would be an army of volunteers to undertake the exercise at the right time. The right time, according to them, was dusk when the people of the next village wouldn’t venture out in the vicinity of the canal and detect their mischievous plan. Otherwise, sudden decrease in the water level of the canal could ring an alarm bell in the next village. When the right time arrived, the volunteers pulled down the sandbags into the canal and blocked its flow. The canal then filled to its brim and overflowed into the nullahs. This inundated the fields consequently. The exercise usually lasted till dawn and the volunteers would then hurriedly pull up those sandbags to the embankment area and hid them among wild bushes and fallen tree leaves.

The continued failure of the monsoon for more than three successive years made life more miserable. All the sinister exercises they had undertaken the previous years had become redundant; redundant because there was not enough water in the canal which could be stored overnight to let it overflow into the nullahs. The water level had come down so drastically that at least three days would be required to fill to the brim, which was not possible since that would invite anger, if not wrath, from the next village whose panchayat members kept on measuring the water level of the canal day in and day out the past two years to ascertain if there was any increase in the level which they had been praying for with sumptuous offerings to the rain god. Nisha’s village too had been doing these; offerings and prayers to all the gods they could perceive, remember and be aware of. In the afternoon, people would gather near tea stalls or the banyan tree near the village middle school to listen to the radio. They would listen emphatically the debates and discussions, and at times breaking news about the river water dispute but with little or no understanding of the technical terms involved. They could not quantify the ABC of cusec of water demanded by their hon’ble Chief Minister. The Chief Minister of Karnataka’s contention that he could not release ‘that much cusec’ of water to the neighbouring state when his own farmers’ requirement of ‘this much cusec’ could not be met adequately puzzled them more.

“What is cusec?” they quizzed among themselves. “Is it the name of the main canal which flows down from Karnataka?” “Is it the name of the inspector of the irrigation canals?” “Is it something sacrosanct, like the holy Gita, whose alteration is a sure blasphemy?” The panchayat members were tightlipped, the village Tamil schoolteacher was an illiterate in this regard, and the menfolk were empty-headed about it. Whatever it might be, although they could not reach at an agreement on the contentious issue, they had one strong common belief – that cusec was a bad omen after all, and a quick decisive action against it was incumbent before their village was doomed.

While the first step of action was under consideration in the domain of the village’s panchayat, Nisha had a dream – a dream which was not ordinary in the true sense of words and which could become the saviour of her village, if proven true. In her dream, an angel appeared on the backyard of their house and said, “If the villagers are really curious about cusec, it’s right here buried deep under 15 feet, 20 feet away on the northern side of the village banyan tree.” The next morning, she told her father Balaji about her dream who further relayed forward to the members of the panchayat who crudely dismissed it as incredulous and just another wild dream of a small village girl.

Undeterred by the demotivating response, Balaji and three of his closest friends with the support of an elderly Brahmin decided to dig the area which, according to their measurement and sensuous belief, was the ground zero as told to Nisha by the angel. They dug the ground with their ploughs and spades; they shattered the layers of soft rocks underneath with their chisels and hammers. They dug, they dug and the work tardily progressed. They reached 12 feet deep by afternoon, but there was nothing peculiar to be seen. And then 14 feet, again they noticed nothing of a cusec. They discovered that the layer beneath the fourteenth feet was crusted with a stratum of hard metamorphic rock. The other three men revolted. “If nothing is seen till now how can we expect a miracle just a foot below” they grumbled. They then gave up. Balaji dared to prove his friends wrong, and had to. He determinedly wielded his chisel on his palm once again and struck the ground; his sweats rolling down to the hammer and chisel, and his exhaustion seen from the gradual declining rhythm of the hammer and chisel. After all his hopes were gone, he gave a last hit to depart from the scene, may be forever, with fuming and furious eyes. And lo! He could not believe his eyes. A spring of silvery water gushed out of the crack. It was in such a sudden and violent outburst that he could hardly manage to clamber up the wall.

An emergency meeting of the village panchayat was summoned that very evening. The sole agenda of the meeting was the cusec. “Let’s plaster the wall and three feet circumference of the well, and dig a nullah up to the main irrigation canal to perennially supply water to our stricken, crocodile-skinned fields” they decided. “And christen the well THE HOLY CUSEC.”