Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25253
In India, the traditional practice of giving water to the thirsty is disappearing. For thousands of years, water was offered as a gift at piyaos, roadsides, temples and marketplaces. Earthen pots known as ghadas and surais cooled the water during the summer for the thirsty, who would drink from their cupped hands. These pots have been replaced by plastic bottles, and the gift economy has been supplanted by the water market. Even the president of India laments this misfortune, "The elite guzzle bottles of aerated drinks while the poor have to make do with a handful of muddied water." In Kerala, the restriction of water to the rich led a local organization to launch a campaign to boycott Coca-Cola. Residents of the coconut-rich state Kerala ("kera" means coconut in Malayalam) adopted the slogan, "Goodbye Cola, Welcome Tender Coconut."-vANDANA SHIVA In October 1999, a killer cyclone hit the eastern part of the Indian state of Orissa. The cyclone, one of the most devastating human disasters ever experienced, damaged 1.83 million houses and 1.8 million acres of paddy crops in 12 coastal districts. More than 300,000 cattle perished and 1,500 fishermen and fisherwomen lost their entire source of livelihood. While there is no official number of the human casualties, independent observers and local workers estimate the toll to be about 20,000. Coastal mangroves in Orissa are being destroyed to develop shrimp aqua-farms; this loss has greatly reduced the buffer capacity of coastal ecosystems and allowed storm surges and cyclonic winds to wreak havoc on the region. Increasingly scientists are linking anomalies in the Earth's weather pattern to global warming and natural disasters are being viewed as mainly man-made ecological crises. -VAN DANA SHIVA 58