Death by Drowning

FOR a site that had environmentalists, agitationists, bloggers and bleeding hearts up in arms for years, Tehri is singularly lacking in dram...

FOR a site that had environmentalists, agitationists, bloggers and bleeding hearts up in arms for years, Tehri is singularly lacking in drama. Curled up in the warmth of the soporific late-November sun, a cross between an ancient Buddhist stupa and a 20th-century superstructure, the rock-fill dam is waiting for the water that will make it come to life.

Some 30 km above it, in the settlement that was known as Baurari before it was redesignated New Tehri, retired schoolteacher B N Semwal, too, is waiting for water. His family relocated from the valley to high up in the mountains in 1997, when it became evident that Tehri would drown. 8216;8216;Sab kuch hain yahaan par, bas ek paani ke siva,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;All our women trek down to the tanker every day for water. The pipeline water is unpredictable.8217;8217;

Water, then, is the constant hum in these mountains. Around Purani Tehri, the waters of a stagnant Bhagirathi swamp the highest bits of the old town, lapping at the foot of the clock tower that still stands tall. At the other end, human faeces and families of content pigs float around, unbothered by the ghoulish hordes come to watch a town in slow death.

8216;8216;Is paani ke neeche thi hamari market. Bahut hi unique market thi,8217;8217; the bespectacled Vachaspati Kothari tells his wife Sangeeta. Kothari studied in the Badrinath Mahavidyalaya in Purani Tehri, majoring in Sanskrit and astrology, and lives in Chamba. Standing on the rubble mound that marks the end of the road to Tehri, he can8217;t resist showing off: 8216;8216;The upper castes frequented the market in the morning. The afternoon was for the middle-rung people. And in the evening, the others took over. All that8217;s history now.8217;8217;

In more ways than one. Because, when Tehri began relocating, the population dispersed8212;and doubled. New Tehri, by local estimates, has a headcount of 40,000; the original town had just half that number. Compensation was generous, and claimants were reportedly not questioned too closely. So a grand

gurdwara dominates the skyline up in the hills, though the strength of the Sikh community has dwindled drastically.

Gone, too, are the intangibles, the sights and smells, quirks and curiosities that accrue to a town after years of habitation. Purani Tehri, located near the confluence of the Bhilangana and the Bhagirathi, dates back some 200 years and, even from a dun-coloured distance, exudes more character than a single brick in the shoebox houses8212;Pete Seeger8217;s 8216;8216;little boxes8217;8217;, coloured blue, yellow and pink at geometric intervals8212;in its relocated counterpart.

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FOR all the occasional breast-beating, though, there8217;s a buzz about New Tehri. The town is shorn of pretensions and wears its recent history lightly. Seated across a smoking heap of peanuts, stealthily stealing its warmth, three ageless men gossip about the latest wedding in the town. The two strangers in their midst raise not an eyebrow; the media has obviously been here, done that too many times.

They8217;d rather talk about the schoolteacher8217;s mother-in-law, who8217;s refusing to leave her solitary cow in one of the threatened villages near Tehri and come up to live with her daughter. Or a grand-daughter, who8217;s doing well in the relocated Pratap Inter-College, the same one her father graduated from. Or the upstart dhaba-owner, who8217;s remodelled himself into a restaurateur selling 8216;8216;chopsy8217;8217; and 8216;8216;choumin8217;8217;. Or even the taxi-drivers, who do roaring business ferrying locals down to Dopata, near the Old Tehri bus-stand, or further down to Dehra Dun.

8216;8216;Desh ke hit mein yeh to hona hi tha,8217;8217; a phlegmatic Chandan Singh Kharola, 45, tries to sum up the mood at Dopata. The hardware businessman moved out of Tehri when the waters began rising, but has seen enough years8212;and success8212;in between for the edge to wear thin.

A few kilometers away, Bansi, an entrepreneur a third his age, cuts the frills. As in Dopata, passing cars have come to a halt at a bend in the road to allow people a long look at 8216;8216;the emerging tourist spot8217;8217;, as a ramshackle board describes the earth-and-rockfill structure, and Bansi8217;s busy filling his paper twists with roasted peanuts. 8216;8216;I noticed people converging here a week ago. I8217;ve been bringing my cart here everyday,8217;8217; he says with a shy smile.

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Going by the mounds of cracked shells at his feet, business is booming. In Bansi8217;s book, at least, the dam8217;s doing good.