Sramana Sabnam

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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&quot;This is the third time in
the morning that my gadha is carrying water uphill,&quot; sighed Dali Bada.
&quot;He gets tired and we do not have enough food for him.” 

When I reached 53-year-old Dali
Bada’s house, she was feeding the donkey leftover urad dal
and grass. Her husband, Badaji, was looking to the sky – it was mid-June.
&quot;It will rain, I think,&quot; he said, speaking in the Bagri Rajasthani language. &quot;During
the monsoon, the water gets very dirty and my wife has to walk with our donkey
in the rain to fetch that dirty water.&quot; 

In Pacha Padla, a village of around 1,000 people in Rishabdeo tehsil of Rajasthan’s
Udaipur district, roughly 70 kilometres
from Udaipur city, humans and animals drink water from the same rain-fed stream.
When that dries up, the people dig pits in the ground to draw out water. When
it rains and these large holes get filled with waste material, the people of Padla
dig some more in the hope of coming across clean water. And many families use pet donkeys to carry
drinking water uphill – Padla is referred to by people from other villages as
the place where gadhas
are used to carry water.

The water the donkeys carry is
also used for other household purposes, though most of the time the women try to carry utensils and clothes to wash at the stream or pits. The people
here say the donkey is an investment that gives returns all through the year by
tirelessly carrying water uphill in all months.

Dali and Badaji work as wage
labourers for a local contractor, earning around Rs. 200 a day each when work
is available. Badaji also cultivates urad, tur, maize and vegetables on less than an
acre of patta
land that belongs to the government.

They bought the male donkey – who carries the water – for Rs. 2,500
from another family in 2017. It took them 18 months, they say, to save this
amount. The family – they belong to the Ahari Adivasi community –
also owns a female donkey and a baby male donkey, as well as a goat and a cow.

Dali Bada starts her water
work at 5 a.m. Each trip takes around
30 minutes downhill and an hour uphill. She makes one trip, then does some other
house work, then starts again on the downhill journey with the donkey – this goes
till around 10 a.m., when she leaves for wage work. She fills the water in
plastic jerry cans fitted inside bags which hang on both sides of the donkey –
an estimated 12-15 litres in each can. And also carries a pot on her head. Both
Dali and her donkey get exhausted and take breaks from time to time during the
uphill journey. 

During my visit to their house, Dali,
the donkey and I started walking downhill, along a steep slope, to fetch water.
After 20 minutes, we reached a clearing of pebbles and rocks. Dali Bada said
that the same patch looked different in the monsoon – it was the dry stream,
locally called Jabunala, that we were walking through.

We kept walking till the donkey
stopped; it knew its destination. Dali Bada pulled out a rope, tied it to a
steel ghada (pot) and stood on a branch
fitted above the pit. The water was around 20 feet below. She pulled up the
rope and, with evident joy, showed me the water she had filled. Her face shone
in victory. 

During the scorching summers of
Rajasthan, the water level dips. Dali Bada said that summers are god&#39;s way of
testing people. &quot;But at times I feel that there&#39;s no god, if there were one, why would women like me die filling pots with water?&quot; 

Back at home, Badaji unloaded the donkey. &quot;In no way can this
water be wasted,&quot; he said. Dali Bada did not rest, she went on to find
more empty pots to fill water. Their son, Kuldeep Ahari, 34, was sleeping after
a night&#39;s labour of grinding maize. In the silent house, the only sound was
Badaji drinking from a stainless steel lota full of water.

Fetching water with Dali and her donkey

জলকে চলেন ডালি বাড়া, সঙ্গে দোসর পোষ্য গাধা

ਆਪਣੇ ਗਧੇ 'ਤੇ ਲੱਦ ਪਾਣੀ ਲਿਆਉਂਦੀ ਡਾਲੀ

पाणी भरणाऱ्या डाली आणि त्यांचं गाढव

குடிநீர் தேடி தினமும் ஒரு போராட்டம்

डाली का अपने गधे के साथ पानी लाना

ڈالی کا اپنے گدھے کے ساتھ پانی لانا

থিয় বাটত ডালিয়ে গাধৰে পানী কঢ়িয়ায়

ଡଲି ଏବଂ ତାଙ୍କ ଗଧର ପାଣି ବୁହା

Pacha Padla

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Fetching water with Dali and her donkey

Every day, Dali Bada, an Adivasi wage labourer in Rajasthan’s water-scarce Udaipur district, undertakes exhausting downhill and uphill treks with her donkey to bring water for her family

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