Women carry water to the venue of the puja in the Sunderbans on Monday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Jeliakhali (South 24-Parganas), Aug. 17: Buffeted by Cyclone Aila last year, parched Sunderbans is praying for rain this time.

More than 10,000 people from across the Sunderbans descended on the Jeliakhali island yesterday to pray to Lord Indra for rain, the first time such a ritual has been organised at the ecological biosphere reserve.

Since June, Gopal Mridha has been going to his 1.5-bigha farmland at Jeliakhali with his cows and plough everyday, only to return within hours without doing any work.

“It has not rained for the past one week. Rain has been so sporadic this season that I can count the days we had showers. We have not been able to carry out transplantation (planting of rice saplings) this year. The seedbed is already ruined for want of water. Only Lord Indra (the god of rain) can help us,” Mridha said, summing up the situation in the Sunderbans.

Yesterday, the farmer was one of the thousands who had gathered on the Gulmuli para ground in the heart of Jeliakhali to seek divine intervention. The Sunderbans had been ravaged by Aila in May last year. The cyclone had destroyed 778km of the 2,500km embankment in the area. However, a year on, it is faced with a drought-like situation.

In a place where more than 85 per cent of the population depends on agriculture, even a slight fluctuation in rainfall affects the livelihood of thousands. The situation is almost the same in all the 20 blocks of the Sunderbans spread across North and South 24-Parganas.

“It’s double blow for us. No paddy will grow this year. On top of that, we will have to buy food items at double the price because they will have to be brought to our markets from other places. How will we feed our children?” said Ananda Mondal, who took part in the ritual. The 52-year-old had travelled more than 20km from Satjelia Island to Jeliakhali to participate in the Indra puja.

He had also joined the others to plough the ground as part of the ritual to appease the rain god. The residents of Jeliakhali had pooled in Rs 18,000 to organise the mahayagna.

After the Aila, water from the overflowing Raimongol had destroyed Mondal’s crops. His farmland was also destroyed, the water adding salt to the already saline soil. This year, the rain god has turned his back on Mondal and thousands of farmers in the Sunderbans.

According to the district agricultural department, the Sunderbans has a little over 3.1 lakh hectares of agricultural land. Of this, only a single crop can be cultivated on almost 80 per cent of the land annually because of the soil’s high saline content.