Vasant Ramchandra Medhi, or Medhi Kaka, is the resident water seeker for scores of builders in the developing suburbs between Domblivli and Karjat.

All Kaka seemingly has to do is hold the coconut horizontally on his palm with its tip pointed outwards and walk about on the stretch of land in which water is to be found. "If there is water, the coconut rises in its own," he says, and sure enough, this reporter sees the coconut twitching. ``Chhan, paani laagla ho!', beams the seventy-year-old.

``If it weren't for him I would have to rely on costlier technical experts,'' gushed Pawar. ``After he was recommended to me six years ago, I have been using his services for all my orders.'' Adds developer Ram Hebbali ofAmbernath, for whom Kaka found water last March: ``Initially, I disbelieved him and decided to play along, thinking that it would be worth a good laugh when he failed to find water.'' However, when Hebbali and his friends saw the technique work with ``their own eyes,'' they joined the band of converts.

``He is a divine person,'' declares builder Rajabhau Patkar from Dombivli. But Kaka is quick to assert that his method has more to do with principles of science than arcane mumbo-jumbo. ``If that were the case, why would I allow others to try out or even witness the technique? Not for nothing is shrifal (coconut) given so much importance. The water inside the kernel has special powers.'' he says, adding, ``Many of our traditions that are pooh-poohed actually have a firm footing in science. We should patent them before the West bests us to it.'' A receptacle of traditional solutions, Kaka also dishes out easy remedies for ailments like acute migraine, short sight, unwanted moles andhair loss.

Pointed out Professor D Chandrashekhar, who works in the field of ground water exploration at the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Powai, ``Unless this technique is scientifically proven, it will have few takers in the scientific community.'' `Water dosing', as it is known, has countless followers the world over, he added. ``While some use forked iron rods or pendulums, others rely on their own bodies, claiming that their bodies produce a biological reaction in the proximity of water,'' he explained. ``Science however has still to accept these techniques.''

Kaka began tapping the earth's surface for water 31 long years ago. Till then, he was a salesperson with the Associated Cement Company. In 1947, he fell in with the then chairperson of the company, C M Chatterjee, who initiated him into the esoteric world of palmistry, astrology and water seeking. After moonlighting with water seeking for a while, Kaka bid his job goodbye in 1971 and took the plungefull-time.

Kaka may represent a wellspring of profits for developers and builders; yet, his own income is as unreliable as is the location of water. Payment hangs entirely on the largesse of clients. But Kaka, keeping with his belief that knowledge is not to be misused, also refuses to haggle for a few rupees more. A widower - he lost his wife six months ago - with four children, he says he subsists on faith in the One Above. ``A frail man of my age needs very little food, which I get from the homes of those I visit." he says. ``It is my fortune that I lived in a joint family, so my wife and children never suffered.''