Oneness with Nature

 Our office cum residence is in Indore on the Malwa plateau while our farm is in the Nimar plains below. Indore city is part of the Ganga basin and it initially drains into the River Chambal which originates near it. Whereas the Nimar plains are in the Narmada basin. Therefore, a trip to our farm from our house in Indore involves crossing a ridgeline between the two basins which is atop the Vindhya hill ranges. Yesterday with my off-roader friend Subhasis Basu, I made such an inter basin trip in his Mahindra Thar. Beginning with a magnificent view of the Nimar plains from the edge of the Malwa plateau we descended through the forested Vindhyas, which being dry deciduous are mostly brown at this time of the year and eventually reached the River Narmada at Omkareshwar after a brief stop at our farm which is at the bottom of the Vindhyas at the beginning of the Nimar plains.

The Narmada and Chambal are both perennial rivers despite not being snow fed as they have heavily forested catchments. Even though a lot of deforestation has taken place, there is still considerable amount of forest cover which enhances natural recharge and so even if the base flow has decreased it is still there. Artificial recharge has also been undertaken through small tanks and earthen dams. Some of these tanks and dams too have water in this dry summer because of the underlying hydrogeology favouring retention of water in the shallow aquifer. We too have dammed a seasonal stream that used to pass through our farm but the pond so created does not hold water beyond winter as its underlying hydrogeology does not favour water retention. In fact, the dug well on our farm is one of the deepest in the area at 20 meters with water level going down to 12 meters below ground level in summer despite extensive soil and water conservation work on our farm.
The River Narmada has been dammed at Omkareshwar just upstream of the famed Shiva temple which is situated on the Mandhata island in the river there. The saint Adi Shankaracharya who revived Hinduism in the eighth century with his non-dual philosophical interpretation of the Vedas and Upanishads is said to have interned in Omkareshwar as a young boy pursuing religious studies. So now next to the temple a statue has been built of the saint named “Statue of Oneness”. However, a considerable number of trees have been cut down and a large area of forests has been cleared for this and an accompanying memorial and study centre. The dam too has submerged considerable forest area in its reservoir. So there is a question as to whether these developments are one with nature or not.