Lifting a curse

How Gangabai Rajput helped her water-scarce village in Madhya Pradesh let go of superstition and revive an ancient waterbody

- BHAGIRATH

FOR MORE than four decades, Choudharykhera village in Madhya Pradesh struggled for access to water. Located in Chhatarpur district, a part of the Bundelkhand region, the village typically sees scanty rainfall. It does have Baba talab, a pond believed to exist since the Chandel era (between the 9th and 13th centuries), but its 30-m-long embankment had been breached for as long as residents could remember. This meant that even if the pond got filled with some rainwater, most of it flowed away. Even the handpumps remained dry.

“To get water, our options were to walk some kilometres away to smaller waterbodies, or borrow from residents of other villages who have borewells,” recalls resident Gangabai Rajput. “We knew the solution to the crisis was to repair the breached embankment of