The film initially documents the collective usage of water and its association with spiritual value. In Varanasi (North India) boatmen have survived for generations through fishing and transporting people and goods. Throughout Chattisgarh (Central India) a network of communal ponds provides water to villages all year round. Village ponds are thus revered and have folk legends connected with them. The film then proceeds to examine different instances of privatisation and the consequences for the concerned local communities. In Tehri (in the Himalayan foothills)) the government of India has constructed a dam, essentially to provide water to the Metropolis of Delhi more than 300km away. The Dam has resulted in the submergence of the historical town of Tehri and more than 150 surrounding villages, leading to a loss of livelihood and community networks. In Chattisgarh a 23.6 km stretch of the famous Sheonath river has been leased to a private water company to supply water to the nearby industrial estate. The company has constructed an anicut and a reservoir. As a result villages downstream have lost their farms and way of life as the river has stopped flowing.

Finally, in Mehendigunj near Varanasi, the film speaks to small-scale farmers whose food crops have suffered as a result of the building of a Coca Cola bottling plant that has depleted the ground water table of the surrounding area.

Vandana Shiva, one of the world’s leading ecologists, comments throughout the film on the privatisation of water and its inherent pitfalls and inequalities, particularly for the rural poor, a group that still constitute the majority of the Indian population.

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Take care.
Daniele