Life lines: water, life and the Indian experience -cultural meanings, social significance and literary implications

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to examine the socio-cultural significance and the imaginary implications of water-as vital element, aesthetic metaphor, image as well as symbol. Very much like its fluidity and reflective transparency, this vital element plays a significant role in human imagination, and socially constructed reality alike. As one of the most significant primordial elements, water on this planet exists in a variety of forms, volatile and static alike-river and lake, glacier and ice, rain and groundwater. At almost every point in human history the presence of water or the absence of it has played a vital role. Metaphorically, it conceals and reveals at the same time. Bereft of water there is no life, however, too much of it hastens human casualty. Cultural and historical dissimilarities in the approach and response to water are not so evident on the physical and biological planes, however, in its symbolic and spiritual dimension water acquires a variety of meanings over the globe.