Article Category: Road Less Travelled

Source: Frits Ahlefeldt

Water is the elixir of life, and almost ⅗th of the surface of earth is covered with seawater. A small part of seawater reaches our lands by means of clouds, which are generated by the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface. The formation of clouds, their movement and dispersal through the Earth’s atmosphere are very complex and interwoven phenomena, and armies of scientists, satellites, instruments and radars are devoted to their study. This is “skywater” – the source of all groundwater in the form of rivers and lakes and underground water that has leaked into the Earth’s surface. The origin of all skywater is the oceans and the clouds that carry it in the Earth’s atmosphere. A very small fraction, less than 3%, of this flowing skywater reaches land in the form ofrain and snowfall. The techniques of cloud seeding are concerned with extracting the optimum amount of rainfall or snowfall by injecting the clouds with certain chemicals that act as catalysts. The commonly-used chemicals are silver iodide in the case of cold clouds and sodium chloride and magnesium chloride in the case of warm clouds.

The transport of these chemicals to the clouds to the height of 1 km to 6 km is done by means of aircrafts, rockets or indirectly through thermal means on the ground. Maha Varun Holi Tantra is a simple low-cost ground-based cloud seeding technique suitable for Indian monsoon conditions which consist of mostly warm clouds, and sometimes warm cold clouds. The technique consists of simply making a fire, spreading on the fire twigs of latex-bearing plants such as vad and pipal, and sprinkling common salt in a continuous way.

The formation of clouds, their movement and dispersal through the Earth’s atmosphere are very complex and interwoven phenomena, and armies of scientists, satellites, instruments and radars are devoted to their study.

Material required for each Holi Tantra Prayog: You will require a ton (10 quintals) of dry biomass such as wood, bio-briquettes etc. For samidha: about 100 kg of wet twigs of latex-bearing plants such as vad, pipal, rui, umbar, etc., any of them will do. You will also require around 200 kg of common salt (NaCl). The approximate cost of each prayog is Rs.10,000 including labour and transport

Holi Enclosure Construction: A holi enclosure can be constructed by making around 16’ diameter circular structure on the ground. It requires about 600 bricks or 300 cement blocks. The structure has ventilation holes and a passage to enter or exit.

Holi Enclosure Location: Pick a spot where, if possible, there is natural or man-made protection from wind like a school ground or river basin, or inside a dry lake or pond.It should not be set up on hilltops (with the mistaken belief that it will be near the clouds!) but at the base of hills where up currents can carry salt vapours upwards and not sideways.

Timing for Holi Tantra:  There should be good dark cloud cover in about 70 to 80 % of the sky.High relative humidity and very little wind, with temperature below approximately 28⁰C. If there are Cumulonimbus clouds (shape of cauliflower) around, that is very good. A good time is around 7 AM or any time when the above conditions are present. Not effective at night when the thermals are absent.The experience of the past 4 years indicates that this results in a good rainfall over 5 km x 5 km area in 2 to 48 hours. A Doppler weather radar will be able to advise on the correct time at each location.

Tantra of Maha Varun Holi:  Arrange a ton of wood inside the Holi Kund in a circular shape with small twigs below. Cover the wood with samidhas of twigs of latex-bearing plants such as vad, pipal, umbar, rui. Start the fire around 7 AM or during the day when the cloud cover is good.Let the fire continue until all the wood is exhausted. May even take a day and night. The remaining salt-containing ash, after it is cooled, should be removed and can be used for the subsequent experiments.

How many times and where? The Varun Holi Tantra should be continuously done for a period of 3 days or until the rain starts. It is more effective if it is done simultaneously at several locations spread 5 km apart. You should cover the samidhas with salt in an even manner. The number of locations can be 10, 100 or even 1000! The simultaneous performance increases the salt content in atmosphere and can even create clouds in humid conditions.The common salt is quite harmless and has no environmental side effects.

Source: <https://unsplash.com/>

Background: How was this technique arrived at? I did a Partnership Farming Project in village Sujlegaon, district Nanded of Maharashtra in June 2009. But there were no rains until 10th August 2009. The villagers approached me as a scientist and asked if I could do anything about the situation. I did some research on artificial rainmaking techniques and in the process contacted Prof Shivaji Rao through the Internet and he sent me his book “Cloud seeding for India – An effective weapon to fight drought”.

After going through the book, I got the inspiration from James P. Espy’s suggestion in 1839 to burn large blocks of wood to create clouds. In desperation to save the crops, I made a bonfire on 19th August 2009 in Sujlegaon and sprinkled salt on flames. To my utter surprise, in about 2 hours rainfall started and we got 5 mm of rain. That saved the crops! And what was interesting was that the rainfall was restricted to about 3 surrounding villages covering an area of about 5 sq km. As the news spread quickly in the villages, another farmer Shri Deshpande from a nearby village of Navandi performed similar experiment in his village and that too resulted in rainfall. The same result was achieved in village Rudrur of nearby Nizamabad district after a couple of days. This quick succession of three results motivated me to try this technique on a larger scale in the surrounding areas.After its discovery in August 2009 in Nanded district, more than 100 experiments were done in 2009 in Nanded, Hingoli and Latur district. Almost 70% resulted in rainfall within 2 to 48 hours.

To my utter surprise, in about 2 hours rainfall started and we got 5 mm of rain. That saved the crops!

I presented the technique at the Innovation conference conducted by the Pune Chapter of IITB Alumni Association in 2010. Through the Alumni network, I met Shri Prataprao Pawar, Chairman, Sakal group in May 2010 and demonstrated the technique successfully in Lonavla. The Varun Holi Tantra has been extensively popularised in Maharashtra during 2010 monsoon through the Sakal group of publications by the enthusiastic intervention of Shri Prataprao Pawar. In June-July 2010 I made a tour of Maharashtra and have personally conducted more than 100 demonstrations which were carried out in Pune, Satara, Kolhapur and Sangli districts, and the technique received widespread publicity in all Marathi papers such as Sakal, Lokmat, and Agrowon. In 2011 I was interviewed by the Krishidarshan program on Doordarshan and received more than 5000 phone calls. Over 1000 experiments were subsequently done all over Maharashtra. In December 2012 a massive experiment of simultaneous Varun Holi Tantra in 120 villages of Malshiras taluka of Solapur district under Shivamrit Doodh Dairy resulted in 80% villages getting rainfall. Despite this vast amount of awareness in Maharashtra, it is unfortunate that very few farmers are independently using the technique.

The Science of Warm Cloud Seeding: A cloud is a two-phase system containing water vapour and water droplets. It is a viscous medium containing water vapour (size < 1 micron) and water droplets (~ 10 microns). The colour of the clouds is an indication of the water droplet density. If the density is more, less light passes through the cloud, making the cloud blacker. Raindrop size is around 1 to 2 mm. About a million small droplets have to come together to make one raindrop.The process is called Langmuir chain reaction, named after the scientist who discovered it.

Rains: Langmuir Chain Reaction: The water droplets have a random Brownian motion in the clouds.If conditions are favourable, then two drops will stick together (“coalesce”) and a new, bigger drop results.The larger droplets in the viscous condition of clouds fall faster than small droplets (mass grows as cube of radius, cross-section grows the square of radius). Hence terminal velocity of larger drops is higher. This differential rate of descent results in larger drops gobbling up smaller droplets, and becoming bigger and bigger. A chain reaction! The drops of 1 mm to 2 mm diameter reach the ground as rain, smaller droplets evaporate back into the clouds.

Why cloud seeding works: The key principle is to increase the number of drops sticking together (coalescence) when they hit each other (collision).Cloud seeding aids natural processes of rain formation and acts as a catalyst in speeding up the rate of raindrop formation.The droplets are made of ‘distilled’ water evaporated from the seas, and have a neutral electrical field around them. When salt (NaCl) goes into the clouds, it dissolves into the water-forming weak saline solution. As NaCl is an ionic substance, the positive Na ions and negative Cl ions change the electrical field and the water droplets become like electrically-charged balls.Thus when two such droplets run into each other, the chances of their sticking together and becoming bigger increases.

Over 1000 experiments were subsequently done all over Maharashtra. In December 2012 a massive experiment of simultaneous Varun Holi Tantra in 120 villages of Malshiras taluka of Solapur district under Shivamrit Doodh Dairy resulted in 80% villages getting rainfall.

Scientific Hypothesis of Varun Holi Tantra:  In the fire, the latex-bearing plants start burning. The salt sticks to the leaves and ash and goes up as smoke. The smoke rises to 50-100 feet by natural convection and gets injected in the base of the naturally occurring thermals in the atmospheric boundary layer.The thermals (like gliders, birds) carry them to 3000 feet at the base of the clouds. The salt reaching the clouds acts in the manner explained earlier.This increases the chances of rain starting, and if started, the rainfall increases.

Concluding Notes: Rain drives the economies of countries like India and China where a large component of agricultural production is determined by the rainfall pattern during the monsoon season. Hence its control should form an important component of national security. The Chinese have taken important steps since 2005 and have set up the Weather Modification Authority of China which employs more than 100,000 scientists and technicians. It also has a nationwide network of Doppler radars and a vast array of airplanes and rockets and a mechanism for their deployment and use.

Alumni Support: It would be helpful if some generous alumni can take some active interest in promoting this technique in India.

Sunder and Sonati with their boys

Sunder was a regular IIT-ian Joe, working in TBL/TUL/T-whatever, post his delayed graduation from IIT-B in Elec. The first life-changing experience occurred when Mots returned from the US, made him quit his coolie job, and whisked him away to Rishi Valley. He lasted just about two terms, but it transformed his already skewed world-view. His next stop was Sumavanam, a year of teaching and solitude, and then Blue Mountain School Ooty, which featured the second LCE in the form of Sonati, an exiled princess from Bodo-land.

They married and settled in Geddai, a coffee-estate in the Nilgiris, where they assisted in running a make-shift break-away school. Soon after Badri was born, the school fell apart (SV has a certain talent for detonating schools — I’ll hand him that). So they were again adrift, finally settling in Thekambattu, near enough to Salem (where SVs folk’s had retired). Varun followed, and the two boys grew up on the land. So it went.

Jogesh Motwani

The title credit for this post goes to Pankaj, who has made a great film Apna Aloo Bazaar Becha. The rant credits go to me and the insight credits to Sonati. Yesterday, it came viscerally home to Sonati and me that the Economy Rules OK!

We have always sympathised with our farmer neighbours about their being trapped in the brokers’ clutches. One memory that stays is Govindraj and his young machan (brother-in-law), barely bigger than Badri Baba at that time, some 12 years ago: he was hawking tomatoes door-to-door at Rs 3 a kg; the retail price in Karumandurai was Rs15; and he said that he was not going to get more than Rs 1 a kg in Karumandurai. So he spent about three hours a day carrying his day’s pickings around the villages for some six or seven weeks!

Farmers need every encouragement to grow food, not cash.

I remember Unnamalai from Gundiyapattu pleading with a broker to give her 5 paise per lemon more than he was willing to give: eventually she had to take the offer of Rs 20 for 100 lemons.

Yesterday, I sold lemons for a rupee a piece, and I suspect I got a “good rate” because the broker was Jothi, my vegetable-wallah. Just last week I had heard him say that there was no way he could charge less than Rs 5 a lemon because he was buying them for Rs 4.

Till this year we have never sold lemons: we have pickled them, gifted plenty (once even carting a couple of hundred to Bombay to gift away: half my luggage), and generally made merry with nimbu pani, lemon cakes and what-not. This year, too, we have gifted lots: it was a real pleasure to see the usually zombie-like Easparan’s face beam when, just as he was diffidently asking me for a few lemons (“My wife told me to ask you”), Sonati emerged with a bagful!

And of course we have received gifts aplenty throughout our stay here of a variety of things. Pumpkins, coconuts, rice, what-have-you. In fact all these lemons are from trees grown from seed of lemons gifted to us by “Lemon” Annamalai.

But this year it became a problem of plenty. Brokers started accosting me with offers of 50 paise per lemon (just imagine, saar: Rs 50 for 100). They would of course strip the trees if we let them and then we, who haven’t bought a lemon for many years, may have been reduced to even that! A certain sense of entitlement also crept into those who received our lemons: “Anyway, if they are free, why not ask for more?”

The long and the short of it was that there were a bit too many to handle.So yesterday, when I was going shopping, I carried 100 lemons and asked Jothi if he wanted them for his shop. He enthusiastically took them and after having made out my vegetable bill, he finessed any attempt at bargaining (which in any case I never indulge in with him) by saying, “It’s OK Anna, the lemons have paid your bill”.

And it came home to me that I had sold our lemons at Rs1 apiece. Which was quite appalling.

(An aside: Amma in Salem says that the shop makes more out of her coconuts than she does; Aseem says that Penguin makes more out of his book than he does; Russell says that an agent would make more out of his paintings than he does; only he doesn’t use an agent; and hence makes less money than he would otherwise. But I digress.)

And this is the trap that the farmer falls into. More so, if it is a cash crop. I mean, I can gift lemons away almost indefinitely, but any takers for sugarcane? tapioca? The system ensures that the buyer calls the shots and the seller has no choice but not to grow tapioca for the market.

But that too is a phantom choice. If you grow ragi for a few years in fields surrounded by tapioca, you will find that all the neighbours’ rats migrate to your ragi field. And to add insult to injury, when you do finally harvest whatever ragi the rats have spared, your neighbours will say, “Saar, your rats have come to our fields”. Been there, done that.

The countryside is no longer a place to come home to; it is a place to leave. That needs to be turned around.

We have seen the landscape change in front of our eyes, literally. When we came here 14 years ago, 80% of the rain-fed fields we saw were food crops: ragi, samai, kambu, nellu.

Now no one grows rain-fed food crops. Farmers have moved to the cultivation of tapioca to the exclusion of virtually everything else.

The upshot is that since the aim is to make money, all our neighbours’ kids have turned to some form of brokering to add to their income. If you look at the statistics, India’s pulse production is steadily declining. Not surprising at all. Anything which requires care throughout the year is given up for low-maintenance tapioca. The menfolk can then go earn money in Tiruppur, Coimbatore, Kerala (or of course for the gamblers, there is Red-Sanders smuggling in Andhra).

I can say that here in Thekambattu, at any rate, most of the younger generation have stopped thinking like farmers. And who can blame them? And it is likely that “No longer farmers in the mind” is the rule rather than the exception all over the country. And if we lose our farmers, who will feed us?

I will end this section with a quote from Oliver Goldsmith’s Deserted Village:

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; 
A breath can make them as a breath has made.

But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

…and an invitation to drop in for some nimbu paani.

Apna Nimbu: Kahaan Pahunchega?

Since there has been a lot of back and forth about our lemons, on Facebook, on our blog and in e-mails to us, we thought we should clarify/consolidate, and carry on the conversation.

If a solution was required to our personal lemon problem, then e-commerce or organic marmalade would have provided one. Even so, we strongly feel that surely these lemons should be consumed locally, by our neighbours and others from nearby who need lemons to pickle or juice or…

But the problem is not a personal one but rather a systemic one: which is that primary producers of all hues seem to be trapped by a broker mafia into becoming sweat shops for faraway customers who outsource their every requirement (and responsibility).

So perhaps I need to say, with Wendell Berry, “All you who eat; eat thoughtfully”. Eating is a political act. Where you get your food, where it is cooked and who cooks it, and how you eat it: all of this contributes to the solution.

Farmers need every encouragement to grow food, not cash. As things stand, what Wendell Berry writes about 60’s America is true for India now: If you can get into a profession; why, then you must not be a farmer. If you can move to the city, why then you must leave the country. If you can work the “miracle” of industrial progress, then you must do so, even if it means the theft of energy from posterity. (Posterity can’t complain!)

The countryside is no longer a place to come home to; it is a place to leave. That needs to be turned around.