From the sky, the Thar Desert unfurls like silks woven in ochre and gold, its surface etched with delicate strokes that shimmer in the sun like veins of silver. These are the ancient waterways of Rajasthan – thousands of hand-carved channels, stepwells, and sandstone dams that stretch across the landscape in defiance of the heat. From high above, they appear only faintly, until, with the tilt of my plane, they reveal themselves at once, stretching for hundreds of miles and swerving out across the desert in a vast, glinting web.

Coming into Jaisalmer, a village tucked deep in Rajasthan’s western reaches, the descent feels more like an initiation than an arrival, a crossing into sacred ground, where water is worshiped and every site tells a story of human devotion. I had come to northern India to follow these lines, to walk their course through cumin fields and mango orchards, desert shrines and sunken wells, and to understand how, even now, they nourish the spirit of a land that refuses to forget how to care for itself.

When I arrived to Moolsagar, the royal family of Jaisalmer’s summer palace grounds, I found Chaitanya Raj Singh standing in a field of cumin, thickets of feathery green parted slightly around him like a river around a stone. The air carried the subtle scent of spice, and just beyond him lay a sand-dusted stepwell, its carved latticework catching the heavy afternoon sun. These deep, symmetrical structures are designed to harvest monsoon rains and store them in stone-lined reservoirs, with tiered steps that allow villagers to access water as the levels rise and fall. Singh stood at its edge, peering into its cool depths. The millennia-old water systems, he explained, were being restored to reawaken the ancient food and water security systems that had once sustained the desert’s fragile abundance.

Once the capital of a princely state, Jaisalmer, a 38,000-square-kilometer sweep of sunbaked land home to nearly 900,000 people, is Singh’s to govern. At just twenty-eight years old, he became the 44th Maharawal of the region. Now, at thirty-one, he carries a profound sense of responsibility – overseeing the restoration of crucial waterways, championing legal protections for sacred landscapes, and advocating for thoughtful restructuring in place of rural modernization. (He told me, following a photo request from a local teenager, that for the sake of the younger generation, he wished cellphone towers had never been built outside of Delhi.) He’s equally committed to sustaining the community’s spiritual values and rituals as he is to their ecological welfare, ensuring nothing he oversees is lost to the tide of technology.

Perhaps his most urgent work lies in protecting the waterways that run through orans, Rajasthan’s sacred, community-conserved landscapes – a lifeline in a region where groundwater often carries excessive fluoride that wears down teeth and joints, and at times turns so saline it can lacerate the tongue. These sanctuaries, gathered around a natural spring or rivulet, are composed of grazing pastures, fruiting orchards, and shrines weathered soft by generations of prayer. They serve as habitat for indigenous species such as vultures, desert foxes, and Indian gazelles, corridors for livestock, and living blueprints of agroecological knowledge passed through generations. In a region where monsoon rains are fleeting and erratic, restoration of the orans’ wells is vital: a forty-foot hand-dug shaft can yield 100,000 liters of water in one season, while adjoining sandstone dams channel runoff into lush garden plots.

Despite the endurance of these centuries-old systems, orans remain vulnerable, threatened by stone mining, private land grabs, and the unchecked spread of wind and solar farms. While vital to India’s climate goals, Rajasthan’s 37 gigawatts of annual clean energy often comes at the cost of ecologically sensitive land. At one of the largest orans within Singh’s domain, Veer Aalaji Ka, once alive with 150 species of wildlife and thousands of livestock, wind turbines now spin above desolate ground. Machinery compacted the soil, livestock fled degraded grazing fields, and birdlife suffered fatal collisions with overhead power lines. “It’s not the technology,” Singh said, “but the way it’s imposed, with no understanding of what’s being lost.”

With the setting sun at our backs, our utility vehicle traced the winding lines of ancient roads and dry-season waterways east, the path unfurling beneath the glow of distant energy towers. Alongside us, a flock of birds dipped and wove through the irrigated land, and all eyes scanned the flatlands for the critically endangered great Indian bustard – a resident of the orans and a local symbol of resiliency. Though these birds now appear only rarely, it was easy to imagine one lifting from the low shrubland, its spotted wings catching the day’s last light, floating in tandem with the vehicle’s pace.

We were driving to Bada Bagh, a rise of stone-carved memorials that overlook a basin of gnarled mango trees. The 18th-century pavillions, whose name translates to “grand garden,” hold the remains of Singh’s royal ancestors. He had brought me here to witness what he considered pure synergy – an example of an oran where tradition, spirituality, and innovation converge.

Along the edges of the several-acre plot, Singh’s team steadily removes invasive trees planted during colonial rule and unearths long-buried agricultural structures. At its center is a 16th-century dam, its scalloped walls adorned with carvings of elephants and horses that mark flood levels during the heavy rains between July and September. When water arrives, it’s captured and guided through a network of hand-carved channels to fill stepwells and water mango groves before spilling into grazing land and vegetable gardens on the other side.

In the soft hours of evening, the land felt alive. Livestock wandered between rows of fodder crops, and farmers tended to produce, while visitors drifted among the shrines and peacocks flashed their colors. Many orans operate with a similar hum, where, in the absence of rising waters, teenagers take to the sweeping dry plains to play cricket in view of a temple perched atop dormant gardens.

Further inland, Gadisar Lake – a 12th-century reservoir once said to have sustained an entire desert village – boasts a unique social rhythm. Once revered with the sanctity of the Ganges, the lake is now contaminated. As we neared its banks, vendors called out from beneath colorful parasols, their stalls stacked with lacquered bangles that glitter like beetle shells in the sun, the air thick with the syrupy smell of sweets made with ghee and cardamom. Couples drifted by in paddle boats while families in bright saris and collared school uniforms gathered along the shore, licking sticky fingers and sipping sugary tea from paper cups.

We enjoyed the view from a shaded balcony while Singh shared his concerns for the families around us. He told me that each year, without a cohesive channel system to this lake, the water line retreats a little farther, though the paddle boats keep circling.

A few years ago, after public outcry over dwindling water, the Indian government built modern canals across Jaisalmer to divert water from reservoirs like Gadisar to farms and nearby homes. Singh pointed out, quietly amused, that they are all now full of mud. The engineers hadn’t accounted for the realities of the desert, the shifting sandbanks, and heavy silt, so these new waterways quickly fell into disuse. Without proper groundwater distribution, many locals have been forced to abandon farming – Jaisalmer’s preferred livelihood – for harsh alternatives like brick kiln labor. This, Singh said, is why he fights for the restoration of the ancient systems already in place – those dug by hand, shaped by centuries of climate knowledge, and that nourish the land with efficiency.

Although conservation partners play a role in advocating for the orans, their continued survival is due to the unwavering commitment of the villages that surround them. Stewarding the land is not a policy but a deeply rooted cultural value, evident in areas like Bada Bagh where teenagers carry home native fruits with the dignity of those raised to tend what they revere.

Much to Singh’s relief, the Supreme Court of India declared all orans “deemed forests” in February 2024, granting them greater legal protection. The decision hinged on two arguments: that orans form a vital, climate-positive network essential to the ecological integrity of the region; and that they embody a remarkable model of human-wildlife coexistence.

Singh continues to partner with scientists and philanthropists to uphold Rajasthan’s traditions and amplify the wisdom already in place. A pilot initiative with one of his recent collaborators, the I Love Foundation, has built farm ponds as dedicated watering systems for family farmers, with thousands set to take shape in the years ahead. Through their I Love Jaisalmer campaign, they revived a 500-year-old oran-centric water system and installed purifiers and rainwater harvesting networks across 25 government schools – all part of Singh’s vision of fusing heritage, human potential, and technology in service of self-sufficiency without sacrifice.

He spoke of his plans for the future while we stood in the Moolsagar fields, soft, green stalks brushing at our knees. A well-dressed footman appeared silently, balancing a silver tray with two small glasses of piping hot chai. Singh took one without looking, his eyes fixed on a brood of birds fluttering in the distant treetops. He spoke softly about the home he hoped to build in the field for his family one day – among the cumin, beneath the low, unrelenting sun. “We just have to protect them,” he said, “but the answers are already here.”

This story was originally published in The Ranchlands Review, Edition 03: Lines.