One sixth of India’s population  lives in Uttar Pradesh, where for 150 years men and women  of the cow belt have  struggled  to establish a productive country side with canals, barrages, and roadways.

It is a densely populated river belt is soluble states  of water, mud, dirt, dust, dirty and atmosphere  – and cultural state 0f village, town, city, nation, festival and harvests.

The growing scarcity of fresh water , the lunacity  of weather cycles, reveal the preciousness of water variation Then the monsoon onslaught transforms  parched aridity to gelatinous wet.

The Ganges, Yamuna and natural aquifers are a supersurface of hydrological architecture , a  fertile meeting of religion, culture and agriculture where culture and ideology are bound by seasonal rains. Where once the vicissitudes of harsh weather  bound distribution famine and civil unrest.

Then came monumental rural infrastructure: post 1947,  and soviet inspired 5 year plans . The 1960’s,  tube wells and portable water pumping mechanisms , GM seeds and the green revolution.

But a Monsoon dependant land depends on transient cultivated soil , and water absorption rates   Instead, much water is now diverted by pavers, concrete roofs and agriculture fields.

UP is no more just a typography of ground cover.

Image: Varanasiby Runfox <http://fav.me/d5w79v7&gt;