Diaspora Speaks

Dreaming in Color*- Prakasam Tata, Ph.D., QEP

Genesis of a Dream

In the 1940s, as a little boy living in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, I wondered why my aunt had legs like those of an elephant and not like those of Marylin Monroe. Often times, I heard my relatives and others commenting that it was her karma. It appears as though that there are many in Vizianagaram born with similar karma, because, they also suffer from the same malady. It was not until I went to the Maharajah College High school, Vizianagaram, which is located next to a ~170-acre manmade lake (popularly known as Pedda Cheruvu), that I learnt from my science teacher that Culex mosquitoes are the vectors that transmit a parasite known as Wucheraria bancrofti, that causes elephant legs or filariasis in humans. Pedda Cheruvu has gained its notoriety as the breeding water body for these mosquitoes and for the fowl odors that it emanates during summer. We used to get bad weather holidays because of the unbearable Pedda Cheruvu stench that filled the nostrils of the teachers and students and the poor and rich alike! This is one common phenomenon that we all endured, regardless what we ate or wore, and how much money we had or did have in our pockets. Although, we had beautiful sunsets, they were often masked by huge swarms of these critters flying out of their nests in Pedda Cheruvu. Often times, passengers disembarking at the Vizianagaram railway station and others experience the horror of these gingerly flying hummers when they enter through the nasal passages and exit through the oral cavities of these folks when they inhale and exhale as they walk by this otherwise good looking water body! Students who came from other towns to study in Vizianagaram used to taunt us not to serve them any preparations made with eggplant when they were invited for dinner. This is due to the fear of losing the shape of their beautiful legs to the wrath of the sleek filarial parasite. Obviously, some one conveniently found a correlation between eating eggplant preparations and elephant legs! Perhaps it is a conspiracy by some aggressive vendors to kill the eggplant market of Vizianagaram to promote selling their own non-eggplant produce! 

The elephant legs and the stench, let alone the enteric diseases that are more or less endemic to Vizianagaram, have been a constant botheration to me. It has been one of my dreams ever since my childhood whether something could be done to improve public health in Vizianagaram by ameliorating the nuisance conditions of Pedda Cheruvu and to provide a better environment around its historical centers, namely the fort, music college, clock tower, arts and science college, and the park housing the tombs of the maharajas.

Dreaming Continues

With a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry in hand at the age of 19 with a dream to change the environment of Vizianagaram, I was whiling away my time every day with one of my cousins. My daily chores included thumbing through the Situations Vacant column of all the newspapers subscribed by the Wenlock library and watching movies sitting on the backless benches of the cheapest class of various theatres in Vizianagaram. 

A reply postcard in response to a vacant situation mailed to Prof. Frederick Erickson of the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Calcutta, brought me a response to attend an interview for a research position to work on rural sanitation problems of West Bengal. In the interview, instead of telling me about the job, he started narrating how I could change the environment in India and eradicate water-borne diseases, if I learnt the fundamentals of environmental science and engineering. . Although, I did not understand at the time half of what the tall and lanky American said, because of his accent, I could clearly discern his molars covered with gold leaf whenever he smiled and threw a lot of gestures! He was highly inspirational. Although I did not know at that time what environmental science and engineering entailed, his inspiration, my dream about doing something about the grotesque elephantiasis and endemic waterborne disease prevalent in Vizianagaram, and my fascination for Sarat Chandra Bose description of rural West Bengal in his novels, drew me to accept the job when it was offered to me. 

It was during the next seven years in India working in villages on their sanitation and water supply problems that I gained a grasp of the problems associated with water and air pollution, my chosen field of study for the rest of my career. It is clear in my mind how simple the Pedda Cheruvu problem is, and how complex it is to solve it. The solution is complex and difficult not because of the lack of an affordable and appropriate technolo- gical solution, but because of the recalcitrance and apathy of the municipality and the administrators. Although Vizianagaram boasts and eruditely sings of its cultural, educational, and artistic past, it is paradoxical that a lack of the current community resolve that is accentuated with a why-bother, we-just-can -do-it, or what-is-in-it-for-me attitude by many living in the town or associated with its administration further exacerbates the underdevelopment of this otherwise culturally advance-ed town. . 

With the seed that was laid in me in rural West Bengal, and the follow-up education and training in the USA under my mentors, eminent Profs. H. Heukelekian and Norman Dondero, of Rutgers University in New Jersey that earned me a doctoral degree in 1966, my dream continued with much more clarity. Also, my resolve and that-I-can-do confidence level to remedy the pollution of Pedda Cheruvu have progressively intensified as I made good strides in the field of environmental science and engineering by teaching and conducting research at leading universities such as Cornell and Illinois Institute of Technology, consulting with international agencies such as the United Nations, U. S. Agency for International Development, World Bank, National Academy of Sciences etc., to solve the water pollution problems of other developing countries, and directing the Environmental Monitoring and Research Division of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to work on the problems of wastewater collection and treatment and quality of water in the water bodies of the greater Chicago area.

Sustaining the Dream

It appears that natural occurrences and persistence do play a role in sustaining some dreams. After a lot of persuasion over many years, I was able to convince my mother to come and live with her only son and family in Chicago. Although she came in 1979 from Vizianagaram to live with us, she left the same year because of her continued poor health and her utmost dislike for the cold weather of Chicago. I promised her that I would visit her in Vizianagaram annually. These annual pilgrimages to visit my mother gave me many opportunities to witness the progressive deterioration of the condition of Pedda Cheruvu. As I had plenty of time at my disposal during these visits I met with anybody and organizations such as Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, Lions Club, local colleges etc., whosoever was willing to listen and invited me to talk about how one could go about remediating the pollution of Pedda Cheruvu. While we enjoyed the snacking sessions at the end of each of such meetings, what pained me most were the discouraging comments and unsolicited suggestions by some that I should not waste either my time or money. The assumption of these well-wishing but chronic pessimists was that it would be next to impossible to move the district and municipal administration to do anything with regard to purifying the water in Pedda Cheruvu, because of the lackadaisical attitude and corrupt mentality of the bureaucracy. Such adverse and discouraging comments have challenged me and given me even more of an impetus to tighten my resolve. On occasions, although I received some positive response from an official or two of the Vizianagaram administration, it was difficult to validate their gestures because most of the administrative personnel came and disappeared like Bedouins and autumn clouds due to their unpredictable movements and transfers. Nevertheless, my dream continued to intensify, and many times I even saw the Pedda Cheruvu in glowing color with a couple of romantic snow white swans nimbly making ripples by paddling in the clear and placid water with their webbed yellow feet, and tourists peddling their colorful boats. What a great feeling it was! 

Visualizing the Dream

There is some truth to the old adage, persistence pays off. It was in February 2003, when the United States Asia Environmental Partnership (USAEP) invited me to participate in a workshop on Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems conducted in the four major cities of India. It was during this sojourn that I took the opportunity to meet the very dynamic and mission oriented District Collector of Vizianagaram, Dr. Rajat Kumar. I categorically asked him, that whether he would do something to remediate the pollution of Pedda Cheruvu or that he would also leave Vizianagaram like his predecessors without making a significant impact. I indicated to him that he would be leaving an indelible impression, if he could solve the pollution problem of Pedda Cheruvu, eliminate the mosquito and odor nuisance, and beautify the area. It is as though great minds think alike, that he readily endorsed my suggestion, and commented that it was unfortunate that the eyesore in Vizianagaram, namely the Pedda Cheruvu was never given any attention. It is ironic that more than a century went by after it was first designed supposedly by a French architect and commissioned into operation by the then maharaja of Vizianagaram as a multipurpose water body for recreational and irrigational use and maintenance of water- tables of the wells in its vicinity. With progression of time and increase in population, about one million gallons of sewage per day from about 45,000 people are being continuously polluting this large man-made lake of about 170 acres.

As though it was a God-sent opportunity, during my visit to India in February 2003, the USAEP and the U. S. Trade Development Authority were in the process of sponsoring an orientation visit of a delegation of senior Indian Administrative Service officials to the USA to see water conservation and reuse projects in the arid states of the USA. Vizianagaram was fortunate because Dr. Rajat Kumar was included in this delegation based on my recommendation. Due to his mechanical engineering background and a high level of motivation and quick grasp of technical matters, he gained a good understanding of the issues related to water management and wastewater treatment during his visit to the USA in June 2003, when he traveled through five states including the great state of Illinois. We were captive audiences of each other for five days in Chicago discussing and dreaming on what can be done to improve the environment of Vizianagaram. He promised me that he would readily undertake the mission of cleaning the Pedda Cheruvu and beautifying its surroundings, if I gave him the technical guidance, designs, and an operational and maintenance manual for an appropriate treatment system that I recommend. I am convinced of his commitment and zeal, because he declined financial assistance from any source, when I offered that we should try to get some funds from the US government. He believed that such efforts would only delay the execution of our commitment, and our common dream might not be realized! 

Realizing the Dream

On the shelves of the Visakha Urban Development Authority, there were plans to divert the sewage being discharged to the Pedda Cheruvu to another area and treat it in a highly mechanized sewage treatment plant. I was able to convince this organization and the Vizianagaram administration that this plan was extremely expensive and inappropriate because of its complexity. I indicated that the project can be completed perhaps at one-third the cost by building a more appropriate and effective waste stabilization pond system, which operates on natural forces independent of electric power, which is not dependable in Vizianagaram. Also, technically competent and trained operators are not available to maintain a complex treatment system in Vizianagaram.

In order to keep the promise made to the District Collector, and to realize my dream, I designed the treatment system, got the drawings prepared, and received the approval of the technical advisory committee appointed by the Vizianagaram administration, all in a record time of about three months. Needless to say, numerous e-mails and telephone calls were exchanged in the process, and a couple of trips were made by me to Vizianagaram from the US. 

The design essentially consisted of screening and grit chambers upstream of the Pedda Cheruvu to remove coarse objects like sticks and rags and inert material like sand etc., from the sewage discharged via a large drain into the Pedda Cheruvu. An interceptor sewer was design- ed to connect all the outlets discharging sewage into the Pedda Cheruvu and transport it by gravity into a waste stabilization pond system, which consists of a series of four ponds (facultative pond, high reate algal pond, algae settling pond, and maturation pond) in two parallel trains. The pond system was designed to be built right in the Pedda Cheruvu in about 15 acres of its ~170-acres. 

Although the monsoon of 2003 heavily impacted the construction of the pond system, Dr. Rajat Kumar kept the pressure on the contractors to complete its construction at somewhat less than the estimated cost of Rs. two crores. The previously laid out designs would have costed roughly three times this cost. The treatment system was commissioned on April 15/16, 2004. 

Epilog

It is putative that the genesis of a thought to do something worthwhile when followed by a passionate and persistent regurgitation would culminate in its realization. This has indeed proven to be true in the case of the construction of a wastewater treatment system in Vizianagaram, perhaps one of its kind in Andhra Pradesh. When this system is maintained and operated properly by the municipal administration, it should yield an effluent that meets the irrigation water quality standards, eliminate odors, mosquitoes, and pathogens, and provide an esthetically pleasing environment for recreational activities in and around this precious water body. The stabilized biosolids deposited at the bottom of the first pond of each treatment train can be harvested every ten years and used as an excellent fertilizer and soil conditioner. 

Being an optimist, I am hoping that the waste stabilization pond system will be operated and maintained properly by the municipal administration of Vizianagaram, and the occurrence of elephantiasis and other waterborne diseases will be eradicated.

*Originally published in ATA Souvenier 2004 Article. Re-published at TeluguDiaspora.com with the permission of author.