The Tale of Bottled Water.

          Shri Husband, Bai Goanna and I rarely eat out. This week we decided to treat ourselves at a fancy restaurant in the by-lanes of Fontainhas. Great food. 

The kind of places we usually go to, both lower end and starred, offer un-bottled water on arrival, free and unlimited. Young men in loose uniforms hang around with jug, and cloth to wipe spills on tables. We are given a choice of buying bottled water if we’re unsure of the quality of the ‘plain’ liquid.

Here, we had to ask for the aqua when thirst beckoned. The bottle he put on the table was made of thick glass, not crackly plastic. Environment-friendly designer bottle, with parallel circles protruding along its length. The label indicated that the water was sourced from a lake between Mumbai and Pune. Nice.

Then I saw the price and yelled “a hundred bucks”.

SFW (Sad-Faced Waiter), in perfectly fitting attire, behaved like he was announcing bad news. His body language and facial expression gave his thoughts away. He echoed: “yes, ma’am, one hundred rupees”. Before I could ask him whether the bottle, once emptied, was then our property, Bai Goanna reacted: “Get us another brand, something common, don’t want far-off lake-water. Get something cheaper.”

          SFW owned up: “Don’t have any other brand.”

          I kindly instructed him to get plain water, preferably filtered. SFW now developed a smirk and some confidence: “Don’t have filter.”

          Shri Husband asked him what he (SFW, not Shri Husband) drank on duty. “Tap water,” he confessed.

          “Get us tap water,” the three of us chorused.

          “Not allowed.” So our arm-twisted choice was to either buy water at the price quoted or stay thirsty.

My year-end resolution is: I won’t sit in any restaurant, unless I’m comfortable with the water I’ll be provided/ buying.

(Like, I always check whether there’s Service Charge in the bill. If there is, no tip is the rule.)

I still don’t know whether, once paid for and seal broken, the fancy bottle belongs to the customer.

I’m surprised that tourist-friendly, tourism-dependent, waste-management aware Goans who are so vocal when it comes to taxi-fares, look the other way at the accumulation of plastic water-bottles clogging drains and ruining the look of neighbourhoods/ beaches/ temples. I’m equally surprised that voices raised against lack of parking-spaces don’t whimper about non-availability of treated, potable water.

Most times I carry water from home to live by the mantra of reduce-reuse-recycle. It’s also a habit carried over from the eras when bottled water on sale wasn’t even a figment in someone’s imagination. In those days, soft-drinks (for some reason called ‘cold’-drinks) were drunk by the elite, not the aam junta. Another reason I carry along ‘home-water’ is because I don’t trust what is sold in the plastic containers. Just because the liquid in them is transparent, doesn’t mean it’s free of pathogens. (Pathogens = disease-causing micro-organisms = bad bacteria/ viruses.)

This was my first experience of a commercial eating-place refusing to provide ordinary, un-bottled tap-water, filtered or otherwise. If SFW is to be believed, no one else has complained.

“He’s lying,” I presumed.

“Or perhaps you are mistaken,” Shri Husband said. “There are people who really don’t mind getting fleeced, whose logic is convoluted. Remember our old friend, YZ Prabhu?”

“What about him?” Bai Goanna asked.

“When Delhi’s air got unbearably polluted and the government decided to take steps, he was irked by the odd-even formula.”

“What’s an odd-even formula?” Bai Goanna is out of sync with what’s happening in the world/ country.

“Delhi-government said odd number-plates and even ones could ply the roads on alternate days to reduce the number of cars and therefore keep pollution levels at 50% of what they are.”

“What was YZ Prabhu’s take?”

“His solution was to own two air-conditioned cars, one with an odd and the other with an even number.”

“You mean he preferred to own two cars rather than breathe fresh, safe air?”

“Exactly. He values his cars more than his lungs.”

“Takes all kinds to make a world,” sighed Bai Goanna. “I guess the manufacturers of air-purifying gadgets are making a lot of money.”

“The bottled-water guys have been doing just that for some decades now,” said Shri Husband. “Who knows, in the near future we might carry along personal portable water-filters and germ-eliminators.”

“Or,” I added, “instant water-manufacturing machines.”

“That’s a bit far-fetched,” said Bai Goanna. “But possible. There is a chap who’s invented a water-making unit for Indian farmers. And air-water manufacturing factories have been around in Andhra since early this century. You know…”

Before she could complete her sentence, Shri Husband interrupted: “Perhaps we could spark a change by checking before entering restaurants what water they serve and avoid those that force you to buy something you don’t want.”

Thus he spoke before walking out of the room.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in