WATER EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE

A 2,400-MILE TREK ACROSS INDIA REVEALS THE MYSTICAL LURE OF ITS SACRED RIVERS—ANDA CRISIS THAT THREATENS A WAY OF LIFE.

- PAUL SALOPEK

‘Do you do magic tricks?’

IT IS THE VILLAGERS OF RAJASTHAN. They watch us pass in the hot light of the Thar Desert. We are unwashed, covered in coarse dust, darkened by sun: charred scarecrows trudging across India with a cargo donkey. Local people mistake us for vagabond performers, traveling quacks, circus nomads. They believe we are sorcerers. The answer to their question is: Yes, of course. We carry magic. But then, so does everyone.

It lies in water.

Human beings are mobile wells of mildly salty water. As every schoolchild knows, our bodies contain roughly the same percentage of water that covers the Earth’s surface. Such harmonies are no mystery. We are water animals born onto a water planet. Water is everywhere and nowhere. It is a restless element—unstill, on the move, always shifting its physical state from gas to liquid to solid and back again.

One oxygen atom. Two atoms of hydrogen.

Water molecules are bent like an arrow tip. Like an elbow. This helps give water a certain polarity, an infinitesimal charge on each end. This is how it collectively shapes our reality. It is the enchanted solvent and glue of our tangible world. It is the compound that both dissolves and binds our brain cells, mountain ranges, the steam wafting from our morning tea, and tectonic plates.

And yet there is so little to drink! The salty oceans hold roughly 97 percent of all the water on the globe. The poles and glaciers, though melting under the effects of climate change, lock up about 2 percent. Only an absurdly small droplet of the world’s total supply, less than one percent, is available for human survival: liquid freshwater. And yet, we squander this treasure like fools lost in a desert.