“When will the water reach our fields?”
It was a question that had been asked in the village for as long as anyone could remember. It came up during conversations at the tea stall, in the fields, at Panchayat meetings and sometimes in the middle of an ordinary afternoon when someone looked towards the dry stretch of land beyond the village.
The Banas River flowed about sixty kilometres from the village. Every monsoon, the river carried more water than the village could use, while the farmers here waited for rain and watched their fields depend on the mercy of the clouds.
People had grown accustomed to this contradiction. They had learned to plan their crops around uncertain rainfall, borrow water from neighbours and make do with whatever the season offered.
Then Devendra Pratap returned.
He had spent fifteen years abroad. He had seen different cities, worked with different people and experienced a life that most villagers had only heard about. He spoke confidently, knew how to hold a gathering and had a way of making complicated things sound possible.
He was also from the village. His family had lived there for generations, and people remembered him as one of their own.
At his first public gathering, he spoke about the Banas. “Our ancestors have heard the story of Bhagirath. Through his determination, he brought Ganga ji from Swarga to the earth. If Bhagirath could bring Ganga ji down, why can’t we bring the waters of Banas to our fields? The distance is only sixty kilometres.”
The comparison stayed with people. It was no longer just a proposal for an irrigation canal. It had become a collective dream.
Devendra spoke of a project worth nearly a hundred crore rupees. He said it would take five years to complete, and that the village could expect water by the fourth year. People listened. Some were sceptical, but most wanted to believe him.
When the Panchayat elections came, Devendra was elected Sarpanch.
His first tenure was full of activity. There were visits to district offices, meetings with engineers, trips to the state capital and delegations of villagers accompanying him to meet officials. Politicians and government representatives visited the village. Surveys were conducted. Maps were discussed. Photographs were taken.
Eventually, a foundation stone was laid. There were speeches, sweets and promises. The village had never seen such attention around a single project. For a while, it felt as though something significant had finally begun.
The canal work started, but progress was slow. There were technical clearances, land issues, contractor delays and administrative approvals. Each obstacle had an explanation. Devendra returned from the city with updates and fresh assurances.
He spoke of how difficult it was to get things done in government offices and how much effort it took to keep a project of this scale moving.
The villagers waited. The first five years passed. The water did not arrive.
Devendra was elected for a second tenure.
This time, he had another important promise for the village. It was about the school. He often spoke about education. He said that a village could not progress if its children had to grow up with limited opportunities. The old school building was in poor condition, and the children needed better classrooms. A new school building would be constructed, he announced. It would give the next generation a better start.
The announcement was welcomed. Parents were hopeful. Even those who had doubts about the canal felt that a school was something everyone could understand and support.
After some time, construction began. Eventually, two rooms came up. They were built at a cost that people later heard was considerably higher than they had expected. There was no electricity connection, and the building looked rather modest compared with what had been promised.
Still, these two rooms were the village’s new school building. Then came the question of teachers.
Two young women had started teaching the children. They were very young, and people initially assumed they were newly appointed teachers. It was only later that some parents discovered that they were not appointed teachers at all. The actual teacher, it turned out, had asked them to take the classes on her behalf.
Someone raised the matter with Devendra. He listened and explained that the arrangement had been made with his permission. When someone asked how the actual teacher could be absent, he replied quite casually:
“Arre, ladki kahaan se shehar se roz aavegi? Itni door se aana aasaan hai kya? Apne bachhon ko ek ke badle do teacher mil gaye.”
The response left little room for further discussion. The parents had asked for a proper school and qualified teachers. They had received two rooms without electricity and two young women who were not the appointed teachers. Yet the arrangement was presented as an additional benefit.
There was no dramatic argument. Some parents continued sending their children because there was nowhere else nearby. Others began making their own arrangements whenever they could.
Devendra moved on to the next development proposal. The school had been built, the teachers were taking classes, and as far as the official discussion was concerned, the matter had been addressed.
There were other changes too. Devendra had never been unfamiliar with money or a comfortable life. His years abroad had given him a taste for convenience, and he saw no reason to give that up while serving the village. His trips to the city, which had once been made by bus, were now usually in private cabs. It saved time, he explained, especially when several meetings had to be attended.
The Panchayat Bhawan was also upgraded. It had an air-conditioned meeting room and a generator to ensure that official meetings could continue during power cuts. Devendra felt that visiting officers and guests should be received in a proper environment. The village needed to project a certain image if it wanted to attract attention and investment.
The annual village development day grew larger each year. There were decorated stages, sound systems, invited ministers and officials, elaborate meals and long speeches. Photographs were taken, reports were prepared and the event was described as a celebration of the village’s progress.
People enjoyed the gathering. Children looked forward to the food and festivities. Some villagers were genuinely proud to see their Panchayat Bhawan and village events receiving attention.
But outside the building, summer afternoons remained difficult. Electricity shortages continued. Children sat in hot classrooms, the health centre struggled through power cuts, and farmers waited for electricity to run their pumps.
Nobody raised these differences in the middle of the celebrations. There were always explanations for why certain arrangements were necessary. And the canal was still coming.
At the tea stall, however, conversations occasionally turned to these things. Someone would mention the generator at the Panchayat Bhawan. Someone else would talk about the annual day expenses. Another would ask when the road to his field would be repaired.
The conversations rarely went very far. The Panchayat had gradually become a close circle of people around Devendra. Meetings continued, resolutions were passed and discussions took place, but many decisions seemed to have been settled before everyone arrived. Other elected members would sometimes hear that something had already been discussed with Pradhan ji.
Devendra listened patiently when people offered suggestions. He rarely interrupted. He would nod, ask a question or two and explain why a different approach might work better. The conversation would eventually return to the plan he had already chosen.
He believed that leadership required taking decisions. Too much discussion, he often said, only delayed development. When something went well, he spoke of how the Panchayat had managed to get it done. When something failed, there was usually a contractor, an officer or a committee that had not performed as expected.
He remained courteous. He remembered people’s families, asked about their crops and greeted everyone warmly. There was no dramatic change in his manner. Yet, slowly, fewer people found a reason to bring their own ideas to him.
Among those who had attended the very first meeting was a farmer named Raghu. He had shown the officials his fields and explained how much difference irrigation water would make to his family. For years, he had planned his crops around the promised canal. He had waited through monsoons, arranged pumps when possible and made whatever adjustments he could.
Raghu eventually passed away, leaving his land to his two sons. Neither son had travelled much beyond the nearby town. The elder had studied up to the tenth grade. They were ordinary farmers, occupied with their land, their families and the familiar uncertainty of each growing season.
One evening, the elder son was watching videos on YouTube when he came across farmers from another state discussing a farm pond initiative. They were collecting rainwater, storing it on their own land and using it to support cultivation. The idea was simple enough to understand, though putting it into practice would require some work.
He showed the videos to his younger brother. They discussed it for a few days. Then they decided to try.
They identified a low-lying patch of their land where rainwater naturally collected and began digging a pond. They shaped small channels to guide the runoff towards it. There was no government grant, no formal announcement and no foundation stone. They used their own resources and whatever help they could arrange.
Some neighbours laughed. A few asked whether they were planning to become fish sellers. Others wondered how a small pond could possibly make a difference when the village had been waiting for a hundred-crore canal.
Devendra heard about it too. At one gathering, he made a passing remark that such individual efforts were useful, but could never replace a proper irrigation project. The village needed large infrastructure, he said, not small experiments.
The brothers did not argue. They knew a canal would be useful. They also knew that their fields could not wait indefinitely. The first monsoon did not fill the pond as they had hoped. Some water escaped, and the channels did not work as expected. They watched where the rain flowed, made adjustments and tried again.
Over the next seasons, they improved the pond and expanded their efforts. They learned about slopes, soil and water storage from videos, other farmers and their own mistakes. They experimented with fish farming as well. It took time, and not everything worked the first time.
But gradually, the stored water began to make a difference to their fields. They could plan some irrigation more confidently. The fish provided an additional source of income. Where the local soil and conditions allowed, the additional water storage also helped improve water availability around their land.
A few neighbouring farmers began visiting them. They asked questions, looked at the channels and discussed how a similar arrangement might work on their own fields. The brothers showed them what they had learned.
There was no formal village meeting. Nobody invited a minister. There were no speeches or photographs. One farmer started digging a pond, another modified an existing water collection area, and someone else began exploring what could be done with the runoff from his land.
The idea spread slowly, through conversations and visits to the fields. By then, Devendra was serving his third tenure.
The canal was still not delivering water to the village. Some stretches had been constructed, but the last-mile connections and distribution arrangements remained unfinished. Every now and then, there would be another announcement, another visit by officials or another assurance that the work was nearing completion.
Devendra, however, had not lost his enthusiasm. He continued travelling to the city, meeting officials and speaking about the project. Sometimes he returned frustrated with the bureaucracy. Sometimes he spoke about contractors who had failed to deliver, officers who did not understand the urgency, or a system that made even the simplest things unnecessarily difficult.
He had a new explanation for every delay and a new promise for every gathering. The village, meanwhile, had changed in small ways.
There were more ponds in the fields now. Farmers had started sharing what they had learned about collecting rainwater, improving irrigation and choosing crops suited to the water available. Some had begun experimenting with better seeds and farming practices. The two brothers from Raghu’s family had become familiar faces among farmers from nearby villages who came to see their ponds.
One afternoon, Devendra met Raghu’s elder son near the fields.
“Arre, is saal nehar aa jayegi. Dekha, meri mehnat ka kamaal? Pandrah saal lage, magar le aayenge. Bade kaam samay lekar hi hote hain. Bhagirath ji ko bhi kitne saal tapasya karni padi thi.”
He said it with the same excitement he had shown at the first gathering fifteen years ago.
Raghu’s son smiled.
“Pradhan ji, talaab mein paani hai. Is baar fasal achhi hogi. Agriculture University ke professor sahab keh rahe the, jab unse beej lene gaye the.”
