H2O and the Waters of Forgetfulness
by Ivan Illich
South Asian Edition with a Foreword by Ashis Nandy

Sweeping changes to our cityscape, water bodies and commons have taken place in less than two decades. It is in this context that it became important for the Centre for Vernacular Architecture to publish this edition. The urban landscape being fundamentally transformed into something completely unrelated to culture, climate or traditions of this part of the world, has made this book written more than two decades ago, most relevant today. This hubris of post industrial destruction and violence that civilizations outside the west face today has also produced a veritable crescendo of voices, concerns and protests that resonate with Illich´s comment made many years ago – Modernity cherishes most what it destroys. It is this paradox that has been one of Illich´s life long concerns. In many ways this book explores this in the context of water.

….. this lecture, on what might be called an applied philosophy of water, by an European turned South American to an American audience, tends to have strange resonances in this corner of the world. In this essay, histories of waste, slum and sewage converge with the imagination of purity, cleanliness and civility. Illich reminds us of our responsibility towards water as a constituent of a cultural mythos – a la Raimundo Panikkar – and speaks of water outside the reach of technocratic rationality, water that that defines us while being defined by us. I assure the readers that they will not emerge from the book without being challenged, provoked and enriched…

… Ashis Nandy

©Ivan Illich 1986
Special Indian Price: Rs 100

First published in Great Britain in 1986 by Marion Boyars Publishers, 24 Lacy Road, London SW15INL