The story goes back to some time in the mid-80s. A young officer from the Ministry of Education, Department of Youth Services, was on his first posting in a village in Rajasthan. The posting seemed no different from the ones his friends and seniors had been to before him and nor was there anything inspirational about the drought-stricken area he was posted to.
His home to be was a small cluster of villages, which like all other villages in the State was on a constant battle for water. For this young man, the eldest among his four siblings, Rajasthan's barren land was a far cry from his own town Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, where no one gave a second thought to water scarcity.
Water here, however, was the constant topic of discussion and worry. And like in any other Indian village setting, here too elders would gather in the afternoon to talk about problems in the village. Water always topped the list. And though the young man and his five friends weren't ever invited to be part of these discussions, the only outsiders, they couldn't remain aloof for long.

And for Rajendra Singh, the young government servant with a passion for social work, just where he stopped being a listener and became one of them, he never knew. The village had opened to him the chance of making a difference. His other friends, however, left, assured that they did not want to waste a lifetime battling the harsh arid condition of the desert.
Speaking now about the miracle he managed to work in the area, Rajendra points out: "What I taught them was water conservation which involved traditionally trapping water where it falls during the short rainy months by constructing a series of small dams and tanks locally called `johads'. These small structures not only provide surface water but also help to recharge precious ground water.''
A decade after he first began work in the village, Rajendra's success story became recognised the world over, he went on to win the Magsaysay award and was also selected "Man of the Year''.
His work in the village became the model of sustainable development the world over, with various communities across the globe replicating it. So much so that Prince Charles of Britain on his recent visit to India spent over three hours in this small village understanding how a group of illiterate farmers of the Alwar district of Rajasthan transformed a barren landscape in western India. Today, long years after he first began work, his NGO Tarun Bharat Sangh has built some 3,500 water-harvesting structures with absolutely no financial support from the Indian government. He also plans to start a Water University, which will travel to people who show interest in learning about water and its conservation.
"Our biggest problems today includes ignorance and over-exploitation of our forests. The day we learn to respect nature our problems will disappear,'' says Rajendra, when asked about what he had learned during his many years of work in the area.