Meet the young architect who is reviving wells in rural Tamil Nadu

Like most architects, Madhu Manjari was designing bungalows and farmhouses for an elite urban clientele. After working in architecture firms for three years, she realised that her heart lay elsewhere. Around the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, 27-year-old Manjari decided to leave architecture and turned to conservation. 

Manjari started volunteering at Cuckoo Forest School, a not-for-profit group of agriculturists, environmentalists, and journalists, in Singarapettai near Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu.

Manjari says, “I resonated with a whole bunch of youngsters at Cuckoo that the first step towards conservation we would take would be with water.” 

The team started visiting neighbouring villages where they found people walking close to six kilometres to fetch water. As per government records, Tamil Nadu has only two districts–Ranipet and Kanchipuram–that have 100% tap water supply in rural households. 

Manjari and her team of 15 volunteers at Cuckoo Forest School have revived at least 15 defunct public wells in villages across Tamil Nadu where access to water is negligible.   

Revival of wells helps with the permeation of rainwater and raises the water table to become a sustainable source of water in villages even through the harshest of summer months.

Reviving wells

Manjari’s network of volunteers is growing in multiple ways, and the community of young crusaders are actively working to restore public wells in villages. Volunteers and conservationists also find their work on social media; friends of the group bring in more people to spread and strengthen the movement. 

The volunteers first identify defunct wells filled with mud or construction debris. Then they dewater and desilt the wells and open up the aquifers (a body of saturated rock through which water can move, which in the case of defunct wells remains closed for years).

Next, they remove the foliage and trash accumulated in the outer periphery of the well and construct a parapet wall and install pulleys inside. Finally, a small motor and water tank are installed outside, which makes it easier to fetch water.

“It may take anywhere between a month to three months to revive a well depending on the state we find it in,” says Manjari. “All our revival projects have been crowdfunded by volunteers and well-wishers.” 

As part of the Public Well Revival Project, the team has restored wells in villages across places in Tamil Nadu such as Tiruvannamalai, Kallakurichi, Dharmapuri, Erode, Krishnagiri, and Tiruchengode. 

Wells with stories

The team recently revived a well that was atop Andiyur hills in Krishnagiri, which was destroyed in landslides. 

“The kids playing around it every day said this village was called their village’s Ganga,” says Manjari. “We cleaned out almost 25 feet of mud and slush that had accommodated and hardened inside.”

Manjari and her team found a well at the village of Nayakkanur near Tiruvannamalai that had been closed following a caste conflict 40 years ago.

“When we approached the village head and residents with the idea to revive it, they had all kinds of inhibitions. First of all, they didn’t believe they could find water as it had been dead for a long time. And then, some said they didn’t want anything to do with a well that had been ostracised,” says Manjari. 

“To take a community back to its roots also requires wading through and resolving a lot of social and cultural reservations,” she adds. 

At another village, the team found an elderly man who visited the working site every day to check how many feet they had dug. And the day he learned that they had dug 25 feet, he knew instantly they would find water.

“It so happened that, 40 years ago, he was the one who had dug out the well we were in the process of reviving,” says Manjari. “We are astounded by the conservation insight and knowledge of some of the older natives and community elders.” 

Manjari now has a home in every village she and her team have worked in. “The villagers have made us one of their own,” she says. 

To mark the Tamil festival of Aadi Perukku (celebrating the onset of the monsoons and the rivers and waterbodies that sustain villages) earlier this week, the village communities in Anthiyur and parts of Tiruvannamalai honoured the newly-revived wells with worship, art, and music.   

“For the community, it’s about working in tandem with nature and reclaiming what has always been available to them,” she says.