It was difficult to tell whether it was animated by imperceptible compressions of his palms or it spun spontaneously. At any rate Sankar was very focussed and intense as he followed me.

We went clockwise from the NE corner and soon there was a sweet spot. Sankar stopped and zeroed in. He kept coming to the point from various directions and picked the centre where rotation was the most. He said, “You will hit water here, 8 yards down but have to blast through granite”. We moved on after marking it. Soon there was another spot also in the northern half of the property. It was in a sandy bed where a stream runs during rains. Not so good he said, but there were less rocks here.

We moved uphill. There is a point close to the foothills, where three trees stand entwined – a banyan, a neem and a palmyra. Sankar stood there, the vee rotating rapidly. He was excited. “This is the best spot. You can have a well that will be the talk of villages for miles around. It’s a grand source. But you have to cut these trees down and dig where they stand,” he said. I am glad my response was instantaneous: “No way. I shall not begin my reclamation project by first cutting trees. Besides they seem to so belong here.” Instead, I smeared turmeric on the banyan’s trunk, lit a camphor and prostrated in front of it, facing the hill. The moment seemed to demand that.

Sankar moved on and picked another spot about 50′ uphill of the tree, but was not very enthusiastic. Then moving downhill back to the trees, he seemed to picked some underground current and was fairly racing towards a point about 200′ NE of the trees. He stopped within 20 feet of my fence and said very excitedly: “Dig here – almost as good as the trees-point. You have water at 12 yards deep and if you dig another 8 yds deeper from there, you will have a perennial pool. It’s not too rocky here. Start with 18′ diameter, keep that size till the soil is soft and then narrow it to 10′ diameter through soft rock”.

We stood there, everyone talking simultaneously with excitement and marked the spot. I looked around in a state of deep reflection. Just uphill to SW the three trees stood grandly. The whole space felt very good all over my body and mind. A well here can supply a small storage uphill, from where water can flow by gravity throughout the property. The first spot we had picked can have a smaller well to raise field crops nearby.

I had the water system for pointReturn clearly laid out in my mind’s canvas.

…
Sankaralingam, lives in Peyrambakkam a village between Chithamur and Acharapakkam on the Grand Southern Trunk Road between Chennai and Trichy. Phone: 044- 27544509