Muna- The journey of the elixirs

The journey of the Elixirs

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Ahmedabad, 2030 2

The City A water crisis has unfolded that is unlike any other that occurred in the past decades. All the surface water has evaporated. The Sabarmati is bone dry. The Kankaria is dried up as well. The groundwater table has gone low beyond repair, which was the only source that once quenched the thirst of the city. The borewells also started giving in, coughing up nothing but dust. Privileged families were receiving water from trucks that only inconsistently arrived once a week. There was no patch of green in sight. The landscape is surrounded by constructions of buildings. High level of pollution was choking a population whose size was not manageable. Pirana now holds the record for being the tallest garbage mound in the country. The whole city is now aware that extinction is inevitable.

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Muna and her Baima’s stories Muna is a 10-year-old girl from a middle-class Ahmedabad family. She lives with her mother (Ma) and great grandmother(Baima). She grew up listening to her Baima’s childhood stories. As in the recent times, the city has been struck with serious water scarcity, Baima often tells stories about how she and her friends used to go to a nearby stepwell to fetch water, take a bath and generally to play. Baima would describe the intricate beauty of the stepwell and its surprising potential of providing water to a whole village. Muna becomes excited whenever Baima mentions about the stepwell.

Muna has never seen a stepwell in real, as they are long gone and buried under the constructions above them.

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Mother’s Struggle Muna has been observing her mother’s struggle to sustain the family, amidst the water scarcity. Also she gets very curious about where all the water has gone and why people are struggling. She wants to help her mother as well as feed her curiosity.

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Quest for water

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‘Muna sets on a quest to find water in the bone dry city’

The borewell farm During her quest, Muna hears a strange sound. The sound is very distinct from other noises around her and is coming from a certain direction. Muna starts walking towards the direction of the sound, which leads her to an abandoned borewell farm. There are a number of borewells scattered all over. The sound is now strong and it is from one of the borewell, Muna understands. She gets excited that the sound might be a sign of the presence of water. She starts peeking into the borewells one by one, trying her luck.

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The Portal The sound becomes louder and unbearable as Muna nears a particular borewell. Though Muna feels like her ear drums are going to explode, she gathers all her strength and peeks inside. In no time, Muna gets sucked inside the borewell, which takes her back in time.

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The borewell takes Muna to the past, to ‘The Village’

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The Village

In middle of a sandstorm The hot arid wind forces little Muna to open her eyelids slowly. She cannot open her eyes properly because there is sand hurling at her from all directions. She can feel its sharp brushes against her face and hands. She peeks a little and finds that she is in a desert.

But her sense of direction is lost and there is only so little that is visible in the distance.

Muna is unsure of where and how she ended up where she is.

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The disorientation slowly subsides and she suddenly realises that she needs to go back home. She is frightened and her mind is racing all over the place. Under all her instinctive feelings of fright and longing, there is a curious voice within her that beckons her to step forth and explore the strange new landscape. She realises that she does not have any other option but to go onward. Muna starts her journey along the heaps of sand.

Hope in the distance The sand hindered everything in sight for Muna. As she struggled to see in the distance, she saw something of interest.

Afar, it looked like a settlement. She tries to increase the pace and trudges through the intensifying sandstorm. As she nears the settlement, she notices forms resembling huts and people who seemed to approach her. She finally felt safe and calm.

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The sand statues- A shocking sight Muna approaches people. She feels her throat go dry in shock. She notices that the people are actually sand statues that are eroding fast due to the harsh winds. Muna is horrified by the sight and can’t believe her eyes. The statues posture seemed like they were frozen right when they were evacuating the place. Muna walks further and finds that trees, animals and all signs of life have become sand statues. The entire village is dying.

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The Oracle As a petrified Muna tries to process what she is witnessing, a bright light appears out of nowhere. It is an Oracle! Muna looks at the entity with great curiosity. The Oracle serenely starts to move and a voice rings from it. The voice explains what lies around Muna. The Oracle says that the dying of life here started years ago and has now snowballed to the current state. The Oracle also reveals that Muna’s place of origin is the hand behind the tragedy that is unfolding around her. The Oracle is still leading Muna through the landscape and insists that deeds have to be done before all of life perishes. The Oracle fades after conveying the message and Muna finds herself in a new place. She can see something in the distance.

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A procession in hope Muna reaches a path. A long line of women carrying ‘Matkas’ who were turned into sand statues. They were frozen while in the act of walking towards a general direction. Their expressions were that of anguish, longing and desperation. Clawing thin air in the desperate hope of getting saved.

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Towards a pavilion Muna follows the trail of women that led her far from the settlement. She trudges onto a large elevated patch of ground and notices something. Buried in the mounds of sand, what resembled a large chunk of an ancient ruin of sort. Could it have been a part of an old building, pavilion or a landmark. Muna climbs the mound further.

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Something is waiting!

Muna nears the pavilion and a gushing sound from the other side reaches her ears. Muna is excited and bubbling with anticipation. She trudges faster across the mounds, approaching the pavilion.

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A majestic sight!

Muna was experiencing something so other-worldly and surreal that even she knew she could not have possibly dreamed or imagined any of this. In front of her, is a massive octagonal stepwell, ‘The Grand Octagon’. Muna felt puny and fragile in the face of this structure.

Even in her very sophisticated hometown, she has not seen a structure this huge. For a moment, this unreal structure filled her vision and blocked everything else out of sight. Muna takes a moment to get back to her senses and walks towards the well.

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The elixir!

As she walks, another beautiful sight lies ahead. She finds water! The sole purpose for which Muna took upon this quest. Much to Muna’s surprise, the water did not look normal. Words can not come close to describing it. It appeared to be glowing! If one were to imagine what Elixir would be like, this would be it. It is exactly what one would imagine when the word Elixir is uttered.

Interestingly though, the water was not still but rather flowing constantly into a whirlpool. It appeared as if an entire waterfall was contained in a bucket and whirling in it.

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The chase for water Muna climbs down to reach the water.

As she nears to touch it, to her astonishment, it immediately repels.

Muna swiftly tries to reach out again, but the water escapes much just as quick.

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‘A descending chase for the water begins.’

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A moment of marvel The water picks up pace as if the well had a sink stopper in the bottom which got suddenly removed. That reveals the beautiful architecture which was submerged under the water. Muna is intrigued by the stunning architecture of the Well. She boosts herself to continue her pursuit.

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The Guardians During the chase to attain the water, Muna stumbles upon various characters. They are the guardians of the well. On a normal day, these guardians would be found living contently in the submerged niches within the walls of the well. But now even they are helpless and desperate as the raging

chaos of scarcity is beyond what they could expect in their otherwise peaceful and lively world. However, Muna’s arrival symbolizes a new hope for them. Hence they bestow powers upon Muna in the hope that she will use them to save the dying village and restore peace.

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The quake

Escape

Muna is curious to exercise and find out what powers lie within her. But before she can, her world shakes under her feet. The ground trembles violently. The place oddly begins to become dark very fast.

The stepwell starts to disintegrate and perish just like the village above.

The water has receded too far now and more than pursuing the receding water, Muna has only one goal and that is to save herself.

Degrading well The grand octagon is now slowly dissolving into nothing. The roofs of the pavilion give in and disintegrate, thus baring the columns. The columns too now begin to perish. The cracks and niches in the walls lose their beauty and become lifeless.

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A moment of grief

The quake returns

The tremors subside soon. Large chunks of the well have disappeared, leaving behind only the pedestals of the columns. The site looked like a freshly stripped patch of forest that once had majestic trees and flora.

The whole site was filled with deafening silence. For a moment, time slows down, the dust, the air, everything slowed down for a brief moment.

It's the tremors again and this time, the floor and the stairs under Muna’s feet begin to tremble. Muna has to act much faster and find footing as the floor too starts to dissolve. The ground cracks and evaporates into nothing. Muna has to reach the distant bottom of the well which is the only thing visible in the quickly darkening surroundings. Muna swiftly vaults across the pieces of the floor that were still intact.

Muna has to be careful and alert, as the whole site was extremely sensitive, fragile and dangerous. Anything could be dislodged with the slightest touch.

The Kuva Muna with tremendous effort and luck manages to reach The Kuva, the bottom-most part of The Octagon. The rest of The Octagon above her becomes completely annihilated.

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At The Kuva, Muna gets revealed to ‘The Holy Ocean’

The Holy Ocean is the ‘source’ from which The Grand Octagon draws water to provide the whole village, through ‘The Channel’

The Draining Devices

‘The Draining Devices’, scattered all over the Holy ocean and draining the water from it are the reason behind the tragic situation that The Village presently in. They are constantly sucking the water from the ocean and dissipating it upwards.

The Channel

The Holy Ocean

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The Oracle again

The Guardians’ gift

At this moment, the Oracle reappears and urges Muna that the Draining Devices should be destroyed at the earliest. The Oracle also throws a hint about the power she had acquired from the Guardians, earlier.

This allows Muna to finally find out what powers are bestowed upon her. She is bemused to find that she can now, with her thoughts, create and control the elements that make up a stepwell.

Save the water The objective now changes from chasing the water to saving it. She now realizes that she has to use her powers wisely to reach the draining devices and destroy them, thus saving the elixir from being lost upwards.

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The restoration Muna starts building her way through, slowly learning to have control on the power.

Above the rapidly draining Holy Ocean, a bridge/network of hope is been constructed.

Muna reaches the nearest Draining Device, destroys it and proceeds building towards the next one. As she destroys The Draining Devices one by one, The Holy Ocean is revived and regains its life and its contents gradually. A long forsaken channel now gradually rises, flowing towards The Kuva.

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An extraordinary gesture!

When Muna destroys the last of The Draining Devices, a magical incident happens. The Channel which was flowing towards The Kuva, takes a moment, deviates from its course and starts flowing towards Muna, who is left stranded in the middle of The Holy Ocean. As a kind gesture for her great deed, the Channel has bent from its usual nature for a brief time. When it reaches Muna, it slowly coils around her. For the first time in this arduous journey, Muna now finally comes in contact with the water. Actually, it is the water which came to Muna. The elixir felt so soothing on her skin. The Channel gently lifts Muna up, she lets herself float, as The Channel gets back to its actual course and finally bridges to The Kuva strong just how it supposed to be.

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Muna starts to believe that the situation is safe now. She has arrived back to The Kuva and stares at The Grand Octagon above that has now been revived to its former glory. A sight that will remain unforgotten in her mind for many more lifetimes to come. Life is now restored.

The village is also resurrected now and gathers at The Kuva, showering Muna with praises, their hearts filled with joy, gratitude and relief.

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Twist in the tale

Peace and order seemed to be restored.

The people are overjoyed and there was a festive mood at the gathering by The Kuva. But then suddenly something happens. The villagers celebrated too soon and the feeling of dread has returned. The Kuva, which was standing strong even during the previous tremors, now starts to shake dangerously. There is shock and fear in everyone’s eyes.

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The elixir slowly levitates upward from The Kuva and so does Muna. Muna can’t escape and doesn’t understand what’s happening. The people around are dumbfounded too. Before anyone can react to any of this, a strong jet of the elixir shoots upward and Muna is abruptly taken with it.

In the blink of an eye, Muna and the water are thrown upward and out, and this time it was out of a bore well. She was back in her city somehow. She observes a crowd of people who are joyous and frolicking, just like the sight in The Village a few moments ago. A horde of people rush to the bore well site which was now overflowing with water.

Men in uniforms who seemed like guards were trying their best to control the crowd. Everyone was elated, celebrating a rare and pure moment in their livesseeing water flowing from the bore well.

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Muna is not happy though, not in the least bit. There was no joy for her in knowing that she has returned to her world. She didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment, even though she brought an ample amount of water back to her world, which was what the sole purpose of her quest was.

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Her mind and heart were still with the people in The Village down there who were celebrating. She wondered what happened to them. What happened to the people? The Village? The Stepwell? The Guardian beings that lived in the walls? Her questions stay unanswered.

----- The End ? -----

Project by

Britto N

As a part of ‘Steps to Hope’ project, Internship at Living Waters Museum and Graduation Project at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

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