In the nick of time

every monsoon, heavy showers beating onto the Aravalli hills of eastern Rajasthan turn into fast-flowing torrents that invade the fields in the surrounding broad valleys. Should these streams be left unhindered, they would reduce these fields to vast wastelands. For hundreds of years the Meos, a farming community in the Mewat region of the state had been successfully taming the downpour by constructing paal s