By Chandan Nandy[1] The torrid afternoon sun is far from setting at Dholavira, one of two Harappan sites on the edge of the shimmering wilderness of Greater Rann of Kutch in northwest Gujarat’s Bachau block. A dirt-and-rocky track originating at Dungarivandh (hamlet), the last human habitation before the in hospitable and hostile aridity takes over, curves its way into an uninhabited pocket where two wells—one large but abandoned and the other relatively small containing life-saving water—and a narrow, 12-feet-long, concrete cattle trough sit among sandy dunes, craggy rocks and cactii. Further inquiry with my interlocutors revealed that the larger well, built with funds from the local panchayat sometime in 2003-04, but now lying in a dilapidated condition and stuffed with rocks and other detritus, is completely unusable. It cost the panchayat Rs 5 lakh to build this ‘well’ in a region that is now reeling in one of the worst droughts in 30 years. Less than 10 metres away is the smaller