River Dolphins and Baoli - The Passing of an Era

Originally published 8/12/07 on Desicritics.org http://desicritics.org/2007/08/12/002214.php
Commented on August 22, 2007 by http://www.anotherchancetosee.com/2007/08/susu-ganges-river-dolphin.html

At the age of twelve, the Jumna River flowing in the foothills of the Himalayas, a day's hike from Mussoorie, looked forbidding. I stood with my toes in the water and watched the swift, clear water pass by me, crashing against rocks in mid-stream. My bath was short, the water was freezing.

As an adult I stood in the shade of large Neem trees alongside the Indus River near Sukkur and the water was warm, brown and turbid. Boats were pulled up along the bank to the south side of the Ayub Railway Bridge. I was informed that these belonged to the Mohana boat people, who one man said were probably descendants of soldiers who had accompanied Alexander the Great. (You know, grey eyes, fair skin.)

I watched the boatmen ply their boats on the brown surface of the water and wondered how in the world any fish could see the bait on the lines that they put over the side. A man next to me explained that they were catching catfish and that they used the fat of the bhulan as bait. I had no idea what that was and so he drew a picture in the sand of what looked like a dolphin, except that it had a long snout. He assured me that it was a fine animal to eat, it had red meat, and, he laughed, even a penis. The thick layer of fat of the creature, he said, was irresistible to catfish because they could smell it in the muddy water.

Well! That started a treasure hunt. Over the years I have learned more about the habits of this strange creature, a dolphin which swims in the Indus and is blind in the usual sense of the word, though some authorities say it can perceive light. It does its hunting by emitting sounds and finds its prey by echo-location. They are attractive grey creatures with long beak-like noses and eyes that look small and clouded. Adults weigh between 180 to 200 lbs. and can grow as long as eight feet. Local fishermen told me the bhulan fishes on its side on the bottom of the river or even in more shallow tributaries where it can effectively catch its prey of small fish and crustaceans.

This is a whale of a story! A cetacean, or a member of the order of whales, swimming way up the Indus River, going blind in the process because of muddy water, yet surviving some ten million years of evolution, re-birth, in the waters that ran into the sea. But it has been a long, long time since the Indus ran happily into the sea with sufficient flow to support a small whale swimming into it. Then to top it all off, during the last half century these creatures got stranded in the Indus because barrages or bridges were built which limited how far they could go. Many got trapped between construction projects. One report I read said they went all the way to Nepal. But I will get to that later.

How many of these rare, wonderful creatures are left? I poured over the literature and sadly have to report that only four to six hundred of these blind river dolphins exist in the Indus and that their numbers are diminishing rapidly because of a number of factors. Over fishing, dam construction, navigation projects, pollution, habitat destruction and increasing food needs of a fast growing human population have all but made this animal extinct.
So what? Why in the world bring up this matter to readers? For a number of reasons. The words extinction, re-birth, evolution, pollution were mentioned above for a reason. This is a matter of great importance for action, for doing something.

You may recall the man Gaius Plinius Secondus, (23-AD to 79 AD) known more affectionately as Pliny the Elder in your history books. Well, imagine this, he wrote about the river dolphin way back then and listed it among many of the special animals of the part of the world which we now call India and Pakistan. His book, "Naturalis Historia" gave press to our dear friends the bhulan. Asked why he wrote about such things he gave a great answer. "True glory consists of doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read."

The Pakistan government is doing things to help the blind river dolphin, such as prohibitions against catching them, fines for doing so and declarations about their near extinct status to literate populations. However, few local people who happen to get a river dolphin caught in their fishing net will simply throw it back, because it is dead, drowned. Of course not, they will eat it. Knowing that its fat is excellent catfish bait doesn't help, because many river dolphins will be caught for that reason alone. Hunger drives people and necessity is truly the mother of invention; dolphin as catfish bait! Dams on the river have isolated small groups of these creatures thus putting them into danger of inbreeding. It does not look very hopeful for this creature. It may be only a few more years and all of them will disappear. And it has happened before, very recently.

A similar creature called the baiji once flourished in the Yangtze River in China. In 1997 a survey was performed to count how many remained. Only thirteen were sighted. I looked up information about the baiji in the National Geographic News, 2007 and the CBS News of August 10, 2007, 11:20 a.m. and saw the sad words. "The Chinese blind river dolphin is extinct!"
One writer said it is the first cetacean that has become extinct directly because of humans. One reporter said that when he read the news he wept. Twenty million years of birth and re-birth of this creature has been going on, and in 2007 it is no more! Why did it become extinct? For all the same reasons mentioned above. River traffic has increased; populations have exploded with concomitant hunger which drove this animal to extinction.

But India is safe! Right? Is Bangladesh spared? Does Nepal have problems with the blind dolphins? In the Ganges this creature is called the Susu. If you are interested you can go online and watch a video of a Susu leaping out of the water and hear its whistle-like call. It is wonderful to see. Only about six hundred of them still exist in an area of heavy human population which uses their fat, you guessed it, for catching catfish. In the Brahmaputra River, scientists estimate that three to four hundred of the Hihu remain. In Nepal, in isolated sections of rivers a few may still exist.

Now we come to the fate of the baoli. For those who have not had the fun of visiting a step-well, that is what it is, a baoli. And it is really fun. As a child, in Pre-partition India I visited step wells. There was one in Delhi in the Red Fort. It was a 14th Century step-well that existed in a 17th Century building, according to some, built by Tughlaks, who constructed many baoli in Delhi.
Now, for all you Indian history teachers, a wonderful research project for your students could be called "Delhi Baoli". The need for drinking water and bathing water has always been an important part of the life of the common servant, slave or even the emperor of the day. The baoli was a vital part of this history. Has a survey with GPS accuracy been performed mapping defunct step-wells of India as well as currently operating ones? This sounds like a wonderful doctoral dissertation. Pliny the Elder suggested, "True glory consists of doing what deserves to be written..."

My own limited research revealed a sad fact about Indian and Pakistani step wells. Many are neglected and in disrepair. Yet these fantastic structures represent the "life water" of civilizations. Simply for the sake of our precious heritage these treasures need to be preserved so that our grandchildren can do as I did on an outing. Walk down the 84 steps of a baoli, touch the water and look up at the sky from deep within the well. Feel the damp bricks, breathe the moist air, mop a sweating brow and marvel!

Yes, I have seen the Taj Mahal and many, many Mughal ruins. None have stirred me as much as the baoli! Permit me to say Amin to Fauzia Qureshi's Conserving Pakistan's Built Heritage, 1994 in which he, happily, includes a section on step-wells and the neglect of these historical buildings, these underground monuments. I visited the Baoli Sahib Gurdwara, Lahore, near the Dabbi Bazaar to rekindle the flame of awe I felt as a child when I visited various baoli in the Punjab. Even the monuments that stick out above the ground are in sad disrepair and those that tunnel deep into the ground are either a bit dangerous to enter or are in neglect due to lack of funds. The Rohtas Fort in Pakistan, said to be built by the Afghan King, Sher Shah Suri, was an amalgamation of Puchtun and Hindu architecture. There are three wells there and the Main Baoli has 148 steps leading down to water!

Tourism! Sorry I mentioned it. Yet, tourism may in fact help to bring back and preserve India's treasures. Imagine a Baoli advertisement. But why?It matters. Humans are good at destruction, building atomic bombs that can obliterate civilizations. I may ask, but why? We are not good at holding on to our little treasures, even preserving the divine life-line of the little blind bhulan. A blogger, who called himself "stevenga777", wrote these words in 2006. "Thinking that I get to see these dolphins in heaven makes me happy..." What a nice idea, heavenly 'blind' dolphins.
I am thinking that I would like to encourage my grand kids to visit Pakistan and India. Dip their toes in the cool water of a half dozen baoli and search for the little blind water dolphin, the elusive and rare bhulan.