A Dichotomy of Water Degradation as Represented in Rabindranath Tagore’s Muktadhara and Suryaganthan’s Sons of the Red Soil

Abstract

Water is an essential component for every living being to sustain in life. Moreover, our earth’s surface is water-covered for about 71 percent and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of water. Moreover, Water has a unique feature of holding the shape in which it finds place. In India, people worship holy rivers and its tributaries for being the source of life and salvation. The spectrum of life of a human begins with the water in the womb, amniotic fluid and ends with the final rites and rituals near the rivers. Water has a dichotomy of irony of face depicting the serene nature and the arrogant face of the environment. As a result of the ruthless act of the humans towards their milieu, the mankind has to face the unprecedented challenges across the world. The curated information regarding the scarcity of water and the construction of dam to arrest the current of water are discussed exhaustively by the erudite writers of India, Rabindranath Tagore and Suryaganthan. The former being the writer of Bengal and the latter, the regional writer of Tamil Nadu. In the poignant tale of Muktadhara, Tagore records the fatal history of people behind the bars of the dam construction and emanates the compassionate voice for the oppressed people. Nonetheless, Suryaganthan weaves the intricate tapestry of the mundane life of Kongu region where the locale faced the unthinkable water famine nearly for five years making the field crops to wither. The present paper attempts to compare the regional writer of literature, Suryaganthan with the iconic writer and the Nobel-Prize winner of India, Rabindranath Tagore, in order to elevate the regional writing to the international standard.