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by Lokubanda Tillakaratne

The 'first time' of certain events and experiences is very special. Holding hands of the girlfriend (or boyfriend depending who is reading this) for the first time; the sight of your new born baby soon after delivery even though it is angry looking and screaming like a jet engine; the stunning shadow of the Adam's Peak stretching across Western Sri Lanka during the Ira Sewaya - Sun Dance in the Dawn - are all memorable sights and events you will remember for the rest of your life.

For the villagers of Maradankalla in Kanadara Korale in the North Central Province, the sight of water gushing over the boulders across the spillway (vaana) of their wewa for the first time after a number of tough dry seasons is a sight unparalleled to any other they have witnessed.

For thousands of years kings in ancient Sri Lanka have worked relentlessly on changing the course of water for the benefit of their subjects. Longing for water is legendary at Nuwara Kalawiya and Thamankaduwa where King Parakramabahu introduced the first ever concept of Savings Banks.

He declared that every single drop of rain should be saved by creating man- made lakes. This was long before the Central Bank, World Bank, and our much talked of Samurdhi Bank.

In the middle of the dry season on the way to Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, you won't miss on either side of the road little irrigation tanks spotted with few water buffaloes. Those are Parakramabahu's Banks still open for business.

One of them is the pride of Maradankalla. It nurtures everything around the village. It is the source of reed to make mats and baskets, of blue water lilies to adorn the temple, and the base for all kinds water recreation - boating on banana limbs and swimming.

Fishing from the lake provides the protein needs of the village and their livestock are camped out on the upper edges of the lake.

Most importantly, it gives water to farm the fields below. Water is the precious commodity the Maradankalla people yearn for everyday.

In the dry season, while hot air vortexes up from the cracked bed of the wewa, the villagers spend the nights sitting in the wattle and daubed houses listening to wild animals approaching the few water holes by the bund to quench their thirst. They leave without making much noise as if not to disturb the sleeping village behind the bund.

This is cohabitation, as we know it in this part of the country.

Just like banks fail, some of Parakramabahu's Banks of the Tanks also failed due to multitude of reasons.

The few small tanks above Maradankalla linked together in the same catchment areas are ruined now for reasons ranging from lack of sufficient rain, disrepair, insufficient population base for sustenance, and mismanagement.

Even though having those tanks made it a good flood control system for the cascades of small and larger irrigation lakes like Mahakanadarawa a few miles down stream, their demise ensured that the stream could deliver its full bounty of monsoon water to Maradankalla wewa unimpeded.

But thanks to El Nino and the Department of Irrigation (again!) that has colluded with El Nino (pun intended), most of the time the rainy season passes without enough water to farm the whole 'Pangu Layisthuwa', the register of paddy fields of Maradankalla.

This wewa is Maradankalla's real life Kiri Muhuda, the mythical Milky Ocean. Legend has it that the Kiri Muhuda delivers good things upon stirring it. This wewa will deliver faithfully if there is enough water. But it has seen more dry days than wet days.

When Mahaveli diversion was in progress, the engineers tinkered with math equations that in effect changed the course of the secondary canals carrying its water away from the Maradankalla wewa.

Now when the near-by H- zone rural tanks are full to the brim even in the height of the dry season, Maradankalla remains bone dry. Only the sun-baked cow dung are scattered across the tank bed.

This is also their Kandy lake. Nevertheless, unlike the Kandy Lake, which was once a stretch of lush paddy fields when the King of Kandy decided to flood it and make a lake ironically called Kiri Muhuda so that his queens could spend evenings feeding fish.

Maradankalla wewa is a tribute to the engineering achievements of ordinary folks. Ancestors with lineage to Parakaramabahu made this wewa by taming a small nameless stream in order to continue their champion's legacy.

Remains of a recently uncovered stupa and stone pillars at the end of the bund suggest the tank's revering history. The dammed stream has a seasonal schedule.

It remains in hibernation for most of the year until the deities Ayyanayake, Minneri and Kadawara receive enough praise from the people of Nuwara Kalawiya and Thamankaduwa to bring rain.

On the contrary, now the weather phenomenon El Nino and the Department of Irrigation get most of the blame for not having enough rain! Sometimes for years the villagers wait in earnest for El Nino or sister La Nina to jump off course the Eastern Pacific and wander into the Bay of Bengal with its reward of monsoon rain. When the monsoon rain comes to Nuwarakalawiya, it is a sight to behold!

Elders of Maradankalla know when the rain is few days away. Before the Meteorological Department invented the daily weather forecast, Nuwarakalawiya and Thamankaduwa people had mastered the predicting of rain.

This mastery helped them begin pre-rain activities for cultivating their farms (goda idam) and paddy fields (mada idam).

If barking of Tomiya is any indication of the arrival of postman, these folks knew what preceded rain. The first sign was the extreme humidity associated with the dead quietness in the air.

The next day, a long patch of altocumulus clouds (parallel or rounded masses of clouds) would appear. A day or two later, the rain cometh!

The stream above Maradankalla springs into life with the first rainstorm. In the first few hours and days of rain, it washes all the devils that lay in its path, dead and alive, and brings and dissolves them in the tank. We now know how this water nourishes the fields below!

The muddy water coming in goes in circles filling up all corners.

The villagers watch the gradual swelling of the wewa. The cracked wewa ismattha goes under water slowly as the stream pours in more and more water. Next, the community-bathing site - the sandy 'Mankada' gets closed. Then cumulonimbus clouds (towering squall line of clouds) appear in the horizon.

What the villagers now see is the real thing they have been waiting for the last few years - the bulkier stage of monsoon rain.

After a series of severe rain spells in the next few days and weeks, the Maradankalla tank, all of its 150-acre expanse turns into a full-blossomed irrigation marvel just as Great Parakaramabahu envisioned 9 centuries ago. With each rainy day brought better days ahead and visions of green paddy fields. Prosperity is now within reach.

Then one morning the rain dance finally stops. Still adjusting to the first cold air of the season, the villagers climb up to the bund and walk its length back and forth.

They are still cocooned in the sheets to keep the chilly air off but the sight of the diamond sheet of water across the wewa warms their hearts with anticipation.

Though as not as trendy as a walk around the Kandy or Beira lakes, these are walks a naturalist's dreams are made of.

There is electricity in the morning air. Flocks of Seru, Wesak- colored committees of cranes and, little tiseru families uttering their Greek alphabet descend on the steamy waters of Maradankalla wewa.

A family of welimuwo comes out to enjoy the smell of fresh water at the upper reaches of the wewa.

Monkeys hidden in the treetop canopies exchange cracking greetings.

An over zealous teen inspired by the body of water cuts a banana tree and begin boating across the tank using a oar shaped out of a coconut frond.

Guardian of this delightful sight is the half-mile long earthen dam, the wekanda that ends at the spillway. Most tanks have two spillways, but the engineering minds of ancient Maradankalla knew what they were doing and built the wewa with one spillway.

Wekanda can hold enough rainwater to irrigate Maradankalla's paddy lands from 'ihala panguwa'to 'pahala panguwa' and the surrounding 'badu akkara'. While the rain is in progress the Vel Vidane gets busy making frequent trips to the bund to see if the water level is still safe.

If leaks develop in the bund, the villagers get together to plug them with bags full of sand and rice husks. If they fail and the bund breaches, it can trigger a domino effect down stream on the cascades of tanks proving that the link of tanks in Nuwarakalawiya has a symbiotic existence.

In the old days, Vel Vidane also made sure that the sluice tablets were placed atop each other to raise the tube level. He then places a round pot (muttiya) upside down on the top-most tablet and seals it with the tablet with a thick layer of mud.

This is to prevent water running off from the top of the sluice gate.

We must understand that water is still a precious commodity in the Nuwarakalawiya and the villagers' instinct is to stop any loss of it by all means.

This practice is symbolized in the Mutti Newum Mangallaya, the custom where the kapurala (guardian of the deities) conducts the puja wedilla ceremony by of placing a pot on a tripod build on the weakest point of the bund to safeguard it.

Presently though, Vel Vidane can control loss of water by operating the silo-type sluice gate with its sliding door attached to the bottom end of the wrench-operated vertical lever.

On this cold morning if you are attentive enough, you can now hear a hum coming from the direction of the spillway at the end of the wekanda.

Villagers know what this humming sound is. The Maradankalla wewa has crested and begun to overflow across the boulders that make its spillway.

As the news of spilling over of water reaches the gam medda, men, women, the old, young, and children get out and walk to the end of the wekanda to watch the spectacle.

For the Maradankalla folks, or for any villager whose livelihood depends on the village tank, very few sight is thrilling and wholesome than the swollen spillway as it releases the excess water.

Just a few weeks ago, this spillway at the end of the bund was covered with brush after years of drought.

Today it has become a blue river, forcefully but magnificently emptying water creating an instant mini waterfall.

Owe struck people are witnessing their Diyaluma dropping sheets of water over cow-sized boulders. Since Diyaluma to these folks is as far as the Niagara Fall, their elation at seeing the little waterfall is immeasurable.

Down below the spillway where water enter into a small gully and disappear into the forest, some kids are already knee deep in the water, floating, swimming upstream, splashing water at each other. Some adults too are standing in the running water and quietly feeling force of the moment.

Then some kids ring out screams in delight. A few bronze-bellied kawayyas jumps over them and try to swim up stream over the water falling off the boulders. Maradankalla version of the Salmon run has started!

Just as these villagers, the resilient fish that survived for months in the chocolaty water hole are free at last.

In their haste to run around the newfound expanse of water, they get trapped in the fast moving current at the spillway and now trying to get back over the boulders.

Some distance away below the tank, the spilled out water had flooded the empty paddy fields.

In the slow-moving sheet of water in the fields are some stranded fish and kids are already chasing them around.

Irrigation department will claim part of the credit for this year's rain! It will then reluctantly open the books to distribute funds for a few tractor loads of gravel for the Maradankalla bund next dry season. El Nino will stay around for few more weeks and head back to the Pacific Ocean.

Soon on Maradankalla wewa itself kekatiya flowers and nil maanel (blue lilies) will bloom en masse.

Tisera birds will build the nests among them to start families. Villagers will enjoy their Diyaluma for few more days and start the Maha season farming activities soon.

In this manner, as happened and no doubt will continue for countless years to come, the people of Maradankalla in an inconspicuous back country in Sri Lanka will start in January the April New Year with the water ceremony at the spillway of their Kiri Muhuda.

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