I am Hirakud Dam.
My birth is from river and ambition.Born of stone ,concrete, and the dreams of a free India.
The most competent engineers and technicians completed making me in 1957, on the mighty river, the Mahanadi.
I stretch six kilometres wide, with my veins filled with sluice gates,turbines and lots of hope.I cover more than twenty six kilometres with the dykes .I am long and strong.I am one of the longest dams in the world.
My birth was cheered.They sang my name as I would stop the floods that once swallowed fields and lives.
I believed them.
Decades went by.I controlled the monsoons well.The reservoir of mine drank all the rains and I gave back life in the form of power , hydro electricity, and prosperity.Access to new resources and opportunity brought happiness.
But Time …,it’s great. It changes all things.
The skies behave in different ways these days.Now there is weather change.Why the weather has got unpredictable and why the clouds are so angry? They forgot mercy.And , my bad.This year 2025 ,the rains came early and it didn’t stop.The monsoon poured and poured batch by batch.Cyclones spun fury .Then for ten days and nights, the rains didn’t stop.The Mahanadi started swelling and reached the level beyond memory.
I tried.
I tried my best.
Dont blame me.
Warning sirens I gave and opened my gates.All the 64 of them.Tremors of fear ran through my spine.The information of a deluge from the satelite was terrifying.
I knew she was coming.Yes ,the DELUSE came.
The waters gurged.Downstream , I could hear the cries.Villages were swallowed.Fields and lives went under brown water.To save the land I stood firm,cracked but unbroken.I may be ancient but I stood unyielding.Do you know what I underwent in the situation?I wept through my spillways, I gorged through my sluices.
I am not a God.I am not a villain.I am simply a dam.But in a situation like this can you curse me? Some said me absolete and some said I had failed, but they forgot it was not I who called the rains? the thunderous clouds ?It was not me who ignored the warnings?
You people deforest the earth.In the name of developments, you build concrete jungles.Who told you to build houses on drains?It was not me, but you all forgot the rhythm of rivers.I stood strong.I didn’t fail.I held.
Thank God, the rains finally ceased. The weather cleared.And the sun cast it’s golden rays over the swollen wet muddy land.Rehabilitation started with rebuilding with help from government and others.Laughter heard from homes,children went to school.I felt relaxed and relieved.Normalcy came back.
For more than seventy years I have stood sentinel.Holding back fury,holding back grief.
So kindly remember me not just as a wall of stone ,brick and cement,but as a guardian who have borne many storms, so that you all could rebuild again.
Post Script, the breadth,length and numbers of gates of Hirakud Dam are collected from Google.
