It’s been said of the area around Ramanagara that the gods played marbles here leading to the dramatic rock formations that you see in this region. Our farm sits nestled among such giant granite rocks. Wherever uncultivated the vegetation is mostly dry-deciduous and these rocks don’t see too much rain. According to the Köppen classification this area falls under the Tropical-Savannah climate which is characterized by pronounced dry seasons. The fully grown mango trees that mostly dot our farm cope with extended dry spells pretty well. In fact, there is a prevailing - but unvalidated - belief that says mangoes turn out sweeter when the pre-summer months are dry. However, the newer saplings that we’ve planted in the last couple of years take a real beating in the dry months. We’ve managed with short term solutions so far, such as bringing in water through tankers but we knew at some point that we had to find a more robust solution. This year we decided to dig a borewell.
For the kind of proliferation of borewells that we’ve seen in these parts there’s surprisingly little organised information available about the process of checking a land for the feasibility of groundwater. With a little asking around we narrowed down on Mr. SCK, an elderly gentleman, now retired, who had served as a geologist in various state departments. We fixed an appointment with him one sunny Sunday morning. When we went to pick him up early in the morning Mr. SCK was at the appointed place and hour and had that countenance that told me that he would have been cross if we were even a minute late. He was neatly dressed, tucked in t-shirt and, like any self-respecting south indian male of that age would, had his trousers begin at the belly. He had some large maps in hand. Despite the voluntary nature of this consultation, he was not going to be cavalier about this task. Something told me this was going to be an interesting day.
An hour into the journey, we left the madness of the Mysore highway behind as we took the turn into the country roads that lead to the farm. As man-made constructions thinned out and the rocky features peculiar to this district exposed themselves Mr SCK came into his own. Very soon we realized that this gentleman’s tenure at the various state departments had been no sinecure. He talked about the rocks like they were family. He regaled us with stories of the seismic events that had shaped this land. I learned a great deal about the rocks in our area and it turns out that the gods had not played marbles after all. A granite formation, nearly 400 kms long but only 30km across, known as the Closepet Granites, broke through the deccan plateau nearly 200 million years ago creating the dramatic rocks that you see along the NH4, all the way up to Hospet. As we drove along, he explained how the various alignment of the features in these parts made the river Arkavathy take the course that she does. When we reached the farm he continued the geo-forensics, using the hints on the ground to glean what lay below the soil. Every single thing he noticed - the density of the foliage, the dried up ridges that become streams only during the monsoons, the height of the trees, the nature of the rocks sticking out - served as hints to understand the unseen features below us.
Source: Wikimedia
In the end, he came to the conclusion that our farm is a really a thin layer of top soil sitting on very large rock whose thickness could be hard to determine. He said, rather bluntly, that there would be very little chance of finding water in this place. While pointing out two or three places that may hold some promise, he also cautioned us to get this scientifically tested before we start digging.
Not finding water in this land would severely limit our plans for this farm in the future. At some point we had been planning to live on a little house here, and without a predictable source of water that plan would have to be abandoned. On our drive back there was a pall of gloom in the car as we reconciled with the dashed hopes. Meanwhile, Mr. SCK didn’t help the mood much with his subsequent choice of topics. He was describing all the corruption he had seen during his tenure at the geological society. He attributed our lack of planning, and in cases connivance, to the decline of our storied land. The Arkavathy, for instance, shows up as a blue line on the map not far from our property, but in reality it is a near-dry valley carrying some sewage from the last town it passed through. Stories after stories had the same theme, of how humanity’s short-sightedness was transforming the land faster than is good for us. Yet, it was a strange experience that despite the cynicism in our conversation I was simultaneously fascinated by the intimacy of knowledge and concern that Mr. SCK exuded. We dropped him off at his house, and he signed off with a disclaimer that no person, and not even the most advanced techniques, can guarantee the outcome when it comes to digging a borewell. We can only improve probabilities. Those words didn’t quell my pessimism, but our short time with him had still counted as one of my most memorable experiences. I came off feeling like I understood my own land a little better.
