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By:

Rajeev Kejriwal

26 April 2026 at 1:28:42 pm

The forgotten music of water

Every civilization has a sound. We hear it every day. Perhaps that is why we have forgotten to listen. Some announce themselves with the clang of industry, the whistle of trains, the restless murmur of cities that never seem to sleep. Some are remembered through the songs they sang or the monuments they left behind. Yet beneath every anthem composed by human hands flows an older music that is quieter, gentler, eternal. It is the music of water. It begins as rain, knocking softly upon...

The forgotten music of water

Every civilization has a sound. We hear it every day. Perhaps that is why we have forgotten to listen. Some announce themselves with the clang of industry, the whistle of trains, the restless murmur of cities that never seem to sleep. Some are remembered through the songs they sang or the monuments they left behind. Yet beneath every anthem composed by human hands flows an older music that is quieter, gentler, eternal. It is the music of water. It begins as rain, knocking softly upon waiting roofs, each drop carrying the scent of a thirsty earth and the promise of another season. It laughs through mountain streams with the impatience of childhood, gathers dignity as rivers widen, and then slips beneath the soil like an old sage choosing silence over speech. Before a single drop reaches the tap in our homes, it has wandered through wandering clouds, embraced forests, carved valleys, filled lakes, rested in reservoirs, surrendered itself to treatment plants, and travelled patiently through miles of unseen pipelines. By the time it reaches our hands, it has already lived an entire lifetime. The tap is not its beginning. It is merely the last note of a song that began in the sky. But every melody carries the shadow of a discord. A leaking tap keeps singing like, drop... drop... drop... not as water escaping, but as time dissolving. An overflowing tank hums no hymn of abundance; it whispers of abundance mistaken for entitlement. Beneath the asphalt, forgotten pipelines breathe their tired breath until, one day, they simply give way. And then arrives the most haunting music of all, the music that contains no sound. The silence of a dry hand pump. Its handle rises. Its handle fails , and again, and again, and again. Few silences weigh as heavily as that one. It is the silence of rivers shrinking into memories, of aquifers emptied one unnoticed season at a time, of monsoons growing uncertain, of promises postponed until tomorrow becomes too late. Sometimes the loudest warning a civilization receives is not a crashing flood, nor a roaring storm, but the unbearable absence of a single drop. We must not merely use water. We need to listen to it as well. Somewhere, amid the speed of progress and the comfort of convenience, we stopped listening. We began hearing only the click of a tap, forgetting the symphony that preceded it. Today, as rivers rewrite their courses, glaciers retreat, cities stretch beyond their thirst, and every summer grows a little longer than the last, listening is no longer an act of poetry. It is an act of survival. The future will not belong to those who extract the most water. It will belong to those who understand its rhythm, honour its journey, and protect its music. Perhaps, years from now, history will ask us only this ” What did water sound like in your time? The answer will never live entirely in reports, budgets or speeches. It will live in the music we chose to preserve. Like rivers still singing beneath ancient bridges...,like monsoon rain welcomed with open palms...,like every child turning a tap with quiet certainty Or like relentless leaks...forgotten lakes... or wells that answered every prayer with silence. For when the song of water begins to fade, it is never water alone that disappears. A river loses its voice and a civilization, almost without noticing, begins to lose the rhythm of its own heartbeat. (The writer is a bilingual author with five published titles to his credit. Views personal.)

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Lateral upgrade to ailing annihilation

Being the first person from the private sector to be appointed as chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as part of the government’s lateral initiative, Madhabi Puri Buch also holds the honour of being the first woman to hold the top post as capital market regulator.

But the laurels that the former private sector banker enjoyed in her earlier stint with ICICI Bank, was marred with allegations that she and her husband were having a stake in offshore entities, which were used to artificially inflate shares of Adani group companies.

Terming the allegation as `character assassination, Buch clarified that all disclosures have already been furnished and the fund in question did not invest in any securities involving the Adani group.

When it rains, it pours. This allegation was subsequently followed by Congress Party allegation that Buch had received salary and post-retirement benefits from ICICI Bank after she quit the private sector bank.

In its clarification to the stock exchanges, ICICI Bank asserted that the payments made to Buch were purely retirement benefits after her exit from the bank and they were neither salary nor employee stock options.

Prior to these allegations, Buch tenure at SEBI was all about bringing in quick reforms on operational issues by changing the format of consultation paper to bring in larger responses digitally. Being data savvy, the rationale of her decisions were democratic based on big data analysis derived from the responses received to the consultation papers.

Further she bifurcated the duties of the SEBI staff between operations and enforcement, which were done by the same persons earlier. Having worked for the private sector in the capital market domain space, Buch had a better understanding of the subject compared to officers from the administrative service in the past that reflected even in her orders as a whole-time director at SEBI before becoming the chairperson. As a whole time director at SEBI, her orders on adjudication issues were more directional to the capital market space, according to experts in the compliance space. She was also quick to revamp the old provisions of the 90s at SEBI.

Being tech and data savvy, Buch enhanced regulatory surveillance and detection of market manipulation, insider trading and fraud while also emphasizing on strengthening corporate governance by introducing stricter rules for independent directors and enhancing disclosures for related-party transactions.

To put in perspective, the annual report of the capital market regulator in the just concluded financial year revealed that the number of investigations related to insider trading jumped to 175 in 2023-24 from 85 in the preceding year while probes related to front running jumped over three times to 83 from 24 in the preceding year.

Transparency in mutual funds by implementing measures to protect retail investors along with tightening norms for initial public offers, particularly in the SME platforms were some of her other positive initiatives including confirmation of denial of any market rumours within 24 hours for the top 100 listed companies which will be extended to top 250 companies from December 1. However increased transparency and compliance with tightening regulations led to increased operational costs for the market participants and hence faced resistance from certain quarters. Born in 1966, Buch completed her primary education in Mumbai and graduated with specialization in Mathematics from Delhi and later obtained a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In between, she got engaged to Dhawal Buch, a director at a consumer goods multinational at the age of eighteen and got married at the age of 21.

Besides ICICI Bank, Buch also worked as a lecturer at a college in England, worked at Greater Pacific Capital in Singapore and ICICI Securities as its CEO. She also worked as executive director on several private sector companies and as a consultant for New Development Bank (Brics Bank).

What now remains to be seen, is whether Buch, who survived the 26/11 terror attack when she along with her husband, was attending a meeting at Taj, be able to overcome the current ordeal. Keeping fingers crossed for the times to come.

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