Padmashree 2022 – Amai Mahalinga Naik
In 1978, Naik was a laborer on a farm where areca palm and coconut trees were grown. Hardworking and dedicated, he impressed Mahalinga Bhat, the owner of the farm.
“Pleased by my sincerity, the landlord gifted a barren land to me in 1978. However, my dream to raise an areca nut farm atop rocky hills with poor vegetation was initially mocked by all”, recalls Naik
At that time, Naik did not even have a house of his own, and this gift from Bhat was no less than a blessing. The first thing he did was to build a hut for his family. But with no source of water even for his home, let alone a whole farm, Naik needed to find a solution. And instead of spending money that he didn’t have on digging up a well, Naik decided to use his own strength.
“I started to work. I decided to rely on the ancient method of water harvesting, Suranga (tunnel) as there was no water source for irrigation nearby,” he told.
Naik’s house was at the foot of the hill so he started digging horizontally (up the hill, instead of vertically, as in digging a well). Every day, he labored on Bhat’s farm and returned home only to start digging the tunnel all by himself.
“I used to light four or five-wick lamps, and instead of kerosene, I used coconut oil, which releases little to no smoke,” he told.
His first tunnel, of which he had dug about 20 meters, collapsed. So he gave up on that and started digging another. No sign of water, big boulders, and collapsing of tunnels led four of Naik’s tunnels into failure.
However, Naik persevered and struck gold while digging the fifth tunnel. “One fine day, when I reached about 35 meters, I found a spring and my joy knew no bounds,” he says, and for him, this was worth all the hard work he had put in.
By connecting this tunnel to his home, Naik ensured that he received water at his doorstep. “Even during the peak of summer, I get 6,000 liters of water a day which flows to a cement storage tank through gravitational force,” he told.
And then he started to cultivate crops on the land which was previously barren.
Naik truly knows the worth of water, and even as he receives an abundance of it through the natural spring, he does not waste it.