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Several decades ago, when TV was a baby, townfolk would cluster together under a "Raccha-Banda" - the local meeting place, to watch performers enact scenes from the Ancient Epics: the Mahabharata, the Ramayana or the Puranas. Folk Art skills were traditionally handed down from parent to child, but with the advent of TV, these artists have lost their livelihoods, and their children have now taken jobs outside of their parents professions.

As the older generation ages, much of their skills and their way of life is in danger of being lost forever. A chronicle of it, is therefore a must.

Water was once so pure that it used to be referred to in places as "Pala-dhara" and "Pancha-dhara" - milk and sugar. Now-a-days though, in places such as the villages downstream of Hyderabad on the river Musi, it is so polluted, that women folk's anklets rust from walking daily in its shallows.

Worse yet, it is so scarce and the water table has fallen so low, that when a Monsoon fails to appear, farmers committing suicide is anything but uncommon.