Waiting for the Fragrance of Rice to Return

(A Professor's Lament for His Native Village)

Prof Jeevan Dhar

ddhar19@gmail.com

The fertile paddy fields of my native village in Dachhan, Kishtwar, once nourished by a historic irrigation canal constructed by our ancestors during the reign of Maharaja Pratap Singh. These emerald fields, surrounded by the majestic Himalayas, symbolize the prosperity, culture, and self-reliance that sustained generations of villagers. Today, many of these fields stand barren following the destruction of the canal during road construction.

After many years of teaching in the capital city, I finally returned to my native village in Dachhan during the summer vacation.

The Tata Sumo slowly climbed the narrow and winding Himalayan road. As I sat by the window, watching the mountains draw closer, my heart raced with anticipation.I was not merely travelling to a village; I was returning to my childhood, to the land that had shaped my identity, to the valley where every stone, every tree, every stream carried a memory.

Ironically, even today there is no regular bus service to my native village. The very road for which our historic irrigation canal was sacrificed has failed to provide the connectivity that was once promised. Like countless villagers, I too had to complete my journey in a Tata Sumo, the lifeline of transportation in these remote mountains.

As the vehicle climbed higher through the rugged terrain, I closed my eyes and could almost hear the familiar sounds of the past-the laughter of children running through lush paddy fields, the rhythmic songs of women transplanting rice seedlings, the bells of the ancient Devraj, Virat Mata and Raghunath Temple echoing through the mountains, and above all, the gentle murmur of water flowing through the historic irrigation canals that had nourished our village for generations.

My native village was once a paradise nestled in the lap of the Himalayas. Home to nearly 20 thousand people, it was a place where nature and humanity lived in harmony. Surrounded by majestic mountains and dense forests, the village was known for its fertile terraced paddy fields and its indigenous aromatic brown rice-a treasured crop that sustained generations and filled every household with pride.

The paddy fields were not merely a source of livelihood; they were the heart of our culture, our economy, and our collective identity.

One of the most cherished traditions of the village was Foolbakur, a centuries-old community ritual observed every year during the cultivation season. Villagers from every household contributed money according to their means. Together they purchased a buck, which was ceremonially offered in honour of the local deity. The ritual symbolized the collective prayer of the community that the deity would protect the paddy fields from locusts, insects, diseases, hailstorms, and other calamities.

For us children, Foolbakur was more than a ritual-it was a festival of hope. The village pathways echoed with laughter. Elders prayed for abundant harvests. Farmers looked upon the green fields with confidence, knowing that their prosperity depended upon the blessings of nature and the unity of the community.

Today, Foolbakur survives mostly in memory.

When the fields died, a part of our culture died with them.

But when I arrived, the village I loved was nowhere to be found.

My native village stood before me.

Yet its soul seemed to have departed.

The green paddy fields of my childhood had vanished. The valley that once resembled an emerald carpet now looked like a wounded landscape. Dry soil, weeds, and abandoned terraces stretched before my eyes.

For a few moments, I stood frozen.

I felt like a stranger in my own birthplace.

The pain became unbearable when I walked toward the old irrigation canal.

This was no ordinary canal.

It was our inheritance.

Village elders often told us how our ancestors had constructed it during the reign of Maharaja Pratap Singh of Jammu and Kashmir. With primitive tools, unwavering determination, and collective labour, they carved a three-kilometre canal through unforgiving mountain slopes, bringing life-giving water to the fields below.

Every grain of rice produced in our village carried the blessing of that canal.

Every household owed its prosperity to its waters.

As a child, I would sit beside the flowing stream and watch sparkling water rush joyfully toward the fields. At that age, I never imagined that one day I would return to find it dead.

When I finally reached its course, my heart sank. I remembered how, during summer afternoons, we children would race along the canal banks, splashing our feet in its cold waters. We would build tiny dams with pebbles, float leaves like boats, and dream about the future without ever imagining that the stream before us would one day disappear. The canal was not merely water; it was our playground, our classroom, and our companion.

The canal no longer existed.

It lay buried beneath rocks, debris, and the scars left behind by road construction.

I bent down and picked up a stone from its ruined bed.

My hands trembled.

It felt as though I was touching the broken bones of my ancestors.

I remembered my grandfather's words:

"As long as this water flows, our village will never go hungry."

Today the water has stopped flowing.

And my native village is hungry.

Hungry for justice.

Hungry for dignity.

Hungry for the return of its lost identity.

The villagers told me how the canal had been destroyed during the construction of a motorable road undertaken in the name of development. The mountains were cut open, forests were scarred, ancient vegetation disappeared, and heaps of debris swallowed the canal that had sustained our lives for generations.

What pains the villagers most is the feeling that their simplicity and trust were betrayed. Believing the promises of development and influenced by political assurances, they welcomed the project with open hearts. They never imagined that the very lifeline of their existence would become its greatest casualty.

Many elders still recall how the excavated debris, which should have been disposed of at designated dumping sites in accordance with the Detailed Project Report (DPR) and established guidelines, was instead dumped carelessly along the slopes and near the canal. Day after day, they watched helplessly as earth and stones accumulated over the channel that had nourished their fields for centuries.

No one listened when they raised their voices.

No one stopped the damage.

No one understood what the canal truly meant to the people.

For outsiders, it may have appeared to be a narrow water channel.

For us, it was history flowing through the mountains.

It was the sweat of our ancestors.

It was the source of our rice, our festivals, our traditions, and our dignity.

Standing before its ruins, I felt an unbearable grief. It seemed as though the collective labour of generations had been buried beneath those heaps of debris. The canal did not die alone. Along with it perished fertile fields, fading traditions, and the dreams of countless villagers who had believed that development would improve their lives, not destroy the very foundation upon which those lives had been built.

The road was supposed to bring prosperity.

Instead, it took away the very foundation of our prosperity.

The road remains.

The promises remain.

But the canal is gone.

As I listened to the villagers, another painful story emerged-one that revealed that the tragedy was not confined to a single canal alone. In the North-Eastern part of my native village flowed the historic Nagar Kool, another irrigation channel that had once sustained vast stretches of paddy fields. For generations, its waters nourished the land and supported countless families.

Today, however, Nagar Kool is little more than a memory.

Its waters have long since disappeared.

Its channel lies neglected.

Its paddy fields have vanished.

Where golden harvests once swayed in the mountain breeze, only barren patches of land remain.

The most heartbreaking aspect of this tragedy is that the suffering is neither unknown nor undocumented. Over the years, plan after plan has been announced for the restoration of Nagar Kool. Surveys have been conducted. Proposals have been drafted. Reports have been prepared by the concerned departments. Assurances have been repeatedly given to the villagers.

Yet the water never returned.

The files moved.

The promises multiplied.

The meetings were held.

The papers were signed.

But the canal remained dry.

Standing before those abandoned fields, I could not help but wonder how many more generations would be asked to wait. The elders who once cultivated those lands have grown old. Some have passed away carrying unfulfilled hopes in their hearts. The younger generation, seeing no future in agriculture, has gradually drifted away from the village.

Today, when I look at the dry bed of Nagar Kool and the ruined course of our historic irrigation canal, I see more than neglected infrastructure. I see the silent collapse of an entire agricultural heritage. I see fields waiting for water, farmers waiting for justice, and a village waiting for promises to be honoured.

The tragedy of my native village is not that water disappeared.

The tragedy is that hope is slowly disappearing with it.

The first year after its destruction, the harvest declined sharply.

The second year, much of the land remained uncultivated.

By the third year, the paddy fields had become barren.

As water vanished, so did hope.

For centuries, the people of my native village survived on their own aromatic brown rice. Its fragrance announced the arrival of harvest long before one entered the village. Every home stored it. Every festival celebrated it. Every child grew up eating it.

Today that cherished rice survives only in stories.

One evening, I sat beside an elderly farmer who had known me since childhood. In his trembling hands was a piece of maize flour bread.

He looked at me and smiled sadly.

"Professor Sahib, there was a time when our homes smelled of our own fragrant rice. Today we eat maize bread because our fields have forgotten water."

His words pierced my heart.

I could not respond.

The old man quietly ate his meal.

I quietly wiped away my tears.

A few steps away sat an elderly woman, her face lined by age and hardship. Looking towards the barren fields, she whispered, "When these fields were green, our homes were full. Today the fields are empty, and our children have left." Her words carried neither anger nor complaint-only a quiet sorrow that seemed heavier than the mountains around us.

At that moment, I realised that the destruction of the canal had taken away much more than water.

It had stolen pride from hardworking farmers.

It had uprooted families from ancestral homes.

It had erased traditions that had survived for generations.

It had silenced folk songs that once echoed across the valley.

It had transformed self-reliant cultivators into helpless spectators of their own decline.

Many families migrated.

Many houses were abandoned.

The laughter of children faded from the village paths.

The songs of farmers disappeared from the fields.

Even the wind seemed to carry sorrow.

As evening descended, I climbed a small hill overlooking the village.

The Deeraj Temple stood silently amidst barren fields.

The setting sun painted the mountains in shades of gold and crimson.

For a brief moment, I imagined the village of my childhood.

I saw green fields dancing in the wind.

I heard women singing folk songs.

I saw children chasing one another through muddy terraces.

I heard the laughter of farmers returning home after a successful day's work.

And then I heard the sound of flowing water.

Sweet.

Gentle.

Alive.

I opened my eyes.

There was no water.

Only silence.

A silence so deep that it seemed to echo through the mountains themselves.

That night, sleep did not come easily.

The image of the ruined canal haunted me.

How could a canal that survived floods, storms, harsh winters, political upheavals, and more than a century of history be destroyed in a few careless days?

How could a structure built by the sweat of our ancestors be sacrificed so casually in the name of development?

Before leaving the village, I visited the ruins one final time.

I placed my hand upon a stone from the old canal and made a silent promise to my ancestors.

I will keep their story alive.

Because, villages do not die when canals break.

Villages die when nobody remembers them.

Today, after dedicating the greater part of my life to the service of education and the Government, I seek no award, no honour, and no privilege.As retirement slowly approaches, I have only one humble wish.I appeal to the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to restore the historic irrigation canal of my native village.

Let the waters flow again.

Let the paddy fields turn green again.

Let the fragrance of our indigenous rice return to the valley.

Let the farmers reclaim their dignity.

Let abandoned homes witness the return of their children.

Until that day arrives, I shall continue to carry the pain of my native village in my heart. The story of this lost paradise is not merely a story of one village; it is a reminder that development must never come at the cost of heritage, livelihood, and human dignity. For me, it will remain the most enduring lesson of my life-and the most heartfelt plea of my retirement years.

(The author is an Associate Professor of Political Science and a native of the Himalayan region of Dachhan in District Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir.)