Water Woes.

          In Tambaram, 1982, I depended on a water-train that came in from Karnataka. In Jodhpur, every trickle, each drop was rescued in a plastic mug, carefully monitored so that it didn’t ever overflow. The moment it was three-fourths full, its contents were poured into a big bucket. But the leaky tap, for some reason, remained unrepaired whilst tenants came and went. The landlord thought it wiser that we learned our lessons the hard way.

In Hyderabad, municipal water ‘came’ once a week. We knew the day, but were never sure of the time it would ‘come’. (In times of uncertainty and power-cuts, books are handy for time-pass. As are chatty neighbours.) A friend gifted me a metal drum, painted white, with a lid. I bought a pipe that linked it to the tap. Didn’t help because the pressure wouldn’t allow it to rise to the height of the drum opening. I had to fill buckets and lift and empty them into the drum. Those with underground tanks found that with erratic electricity supply and scanty input, they had to invest in drums, too. The mug-dip model worked best. There was no need for gym-memberships, building muscles was part of my daily routine.

          Sturdy ‘jerry-cans’ were uncommon and precious. In those days, oil was marketed in square tins/ metal dabbas which were useful for storing daals or growing plants in until they (plants not dabbas) rusted.

Whether in Srinagar, where the temperatures caused pipes to burst when the water inside them froze, or Ghaziabad where mismanagement caused water shortages even when the Yamuna was in flood, I learnt to conserve water…

…By using the bucket-and-mug more than running the tap. By rinsing hands/feet over plants. By putting stones in the old, big flush tanks to use less water. By using the flush with care after a couple of uses of the commode. By throwing ‘pocha’ water on the plants. By not doing daily ‘pocha’. By carefully folding and keeping away clothes worn for only a few hours. By not washing the car daily. When water became really scarce, I did no pocha, and the car (actually, motorcycle for a longer period) wasn’t washed. Living in water-starved areas changes one’s levels of sophistication and ideas of cleanliness. Showers in bathrooms were cruel reminders of disparity. Bathtubs were unknown except in palaces/five-star hotel suites/foreign films.

          The water used for rinsing clean vessels/vegetables/rice/pulses was poured into the plants, or, at times when I lived in a flat, the toilet.

          All creatures – stray dogs, destitute beggars, unwanted cattle and monitor lizards that came to squat in the shade of the gate-pillar to seek respite from the heat—were offered water. At least a palm-full.

          In beautiful, tourist-attracting Ooty, I saw women pushing carts of brightly coloured plastic vessels to and from public hand-pumps. One doesn’t have to go far to see that sight these days, a short drive from Goa to Kolhapur helps. If you want to see how equal the genders are, watch what happens when a water-supplying tanker parks near a water-deprived neighbourhood. Men and women fight orally and physically. Sometimes the latter win, alone or in teams. Thirst knows no political/social correctness. The vicious and the bullying are successful.

          Even in times of plenty, when the monsoons have been kind, it doesn’t strike most people that the water provided by the PWD is processed and therefore expensive and wasteful to be used for non-essential/ornamental flora.

But, as a water-loving, garbage-rich, government-dependent patriot, I think: why do something myself if someone can do it for me? Why should I harvest rainwater? Why should I save water? Let the government do it, no?

Better still, I think: let the government have sponsored/subsidized poojas/yajnas in temples, masses in churches, prayers (with loudspeakers, festoons and hawkers selling plastic toys) in playgrounds, to prompt God to do His holy duty. Like other dutiful homebound wives, and some ailing and elderly, I contribute to national prosperity by chanting special, ancient, enchanted shlokas a couple of times a day to get those clouds moving and dripping. I wear lucky rings, too, studded with coloured stones, to deal with badly behaving planets.

I think India should have a law making it compulsory for citizens to do that.

Shri Husband’s aside: “You’re thinking? Must be the temperature/dehydration.”

When the heat makes me uncomfortable and the news about drought-stricken districts twinges me, I pay day charges to or check into a hotel and have a swim. Does wonders to the sweat glands, muscles and conscience (chilled beverages add to the magic). That swimming-pool water comes from tankers, you see, not connected with the thirsting masses elsewhere. Saves me from accumulating paap that might stain my karma.

Law-makers who can and did (over a weekend approximately a month ago) ban 344 fixed drug combinations which give relief and save lives, find it hard to tackle water shortages. Manufacturers of light plastic bottles and those marketing ‘drinking’ water have bank accounts that soak in profits.

I saw something once, four years ago, in Meghalaya. Cheerapunji (locally known as Sohra), a place that gets nearly as much rain as the Amazon forest, suffered from ‘no water’. All the rain that formed majestic cataracts and bubbly streams flowed down the gentle eastern Himalayan slopes bordering Bangladesh, to the plains. From there, it was pumped into tankers that smoked and growled their way up the ghats back to Cheerapunji to be sold to the locals. Commerce is fascinating.

Naturally, water shortages are a boon, if you know what I mean. Through the dry summer afternoons and in between filling up vessels with the rationed trickle that’s coming through the PWD line, I’m planning to read P Sainath’s ‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’.

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At 47 deg Celsius.

          If you hear a hawker shouting “naram mulayam kuckdee…” you know you are in Haryana/ UP/ Delhi in summer. Kuckdee describes a long, ribbed, slender cucumber not seen hereabouts. Our thick, seedy tausali are closer to what north Indians call kheera. (Dear Hindi-challenged friends, a kheera has nothing to do with milk-sugar-rice-pudding.) Neighbouring Maharashtrians call the kheera ‘kaakdee’. Kuckdee and kaakdee are similar-sounding but different members of the family cucurbitae. Muddle my already fuddled brain, these names.

These cucurbitae (along with the melons kharboozey, tarboozey) are life-savers when you’re living in degrees Celsius higher than 45, with humidity in the teens. Don’t know what this Celsius-humidity stuff means? Pre-heat your oven to those temperatures and shove your head inside. Stay like that for days, nights, weeks, months, till the rains come. Ghaziabad, Ludhiana, Bareilly summers feel like that. I’ve been there, done that (lived in those places, I mean, not put my head in the oven).

My salty-sweat oozing Goan skin had looked like dried camel bladder (they make fancy translucent lamp-shades of it). When people go visiting, even before the greetings are done, tumblers of water are thrust at the guests. Lest the latter drop dead. People do, when they walk/ stand in the sun, after temperatures cross 42.

In Goa, we politely confirm, during water-shortage periods: “udak peonach bhair sarley distaa.” In banks and government offices here, on every table stands a colourful plastic ‘water-bottle’ owned and used by the staffer manning it. We always carry a water-bottle in our purse/vehicle, don’t we? And our temperatures barely touch 38.

          Near the Thar, in Jodhpur, sandstorms drive house-proud wives and camels crazy. The former fret around shutting and sealing windows when dust clouds attack and the latter shut their eyelids, fold their legs and sit down meditatively. The khejri and the neem rule the scape along with the cacti. No mango trees, no bananas, pineapples, or jackfruits. Even the palms look strange. Tchshay men, all sand and no sea.

I owned a solar-cooker: used it to boil daal, bake cakes, roast brinjals and make toop. Four black aluminium vessels inside a square wooden box with a thick glass cover. The sun’s rays were reflected off a mirror fitted to the lid of the box, then intensified by the glass.  Result: mazho gas-cylinder khubb dis chaltalon.

And a ‘water-cooler’: a metal cube-frame that clung to our window. The side that opened into our room had a fan that pushed in air cooled by constantly wetted khus-grass curtains which covered the other three sides of the cube-frame. (The Brits called such curtains tattees, a name still in use, unrelated to undigested food.)

In Goans’ second home, the Middle East, the same temperatures/ dryness are tackled with 24-hour central air-conditioning everywhere, and packaged water. The cities look cool (pun!) because no matter how purple and gold the interiors might be, all buildings are a uniform white or pale beige outside. Maybe psychological, but even when it’s shimmering and horridly hot, it looks soothing, feels better. Everything is aesthetically controlled.

Could we try that in India?

I read in the papers that in Bengal, Mamtarani said: painting all building exteriors blue would “lift Kolkata’s spirits”. The Mayor’s council agreed to waive property tax on those who complied with that wish. If this happens in Goa, half our population will want yellow stripes, others will paint red spots in protest, traditionalists won’t paint their houses at all (their ancestors didn’t) but pay the tax instead. Orthodox Hindus might want saffron, Muslims green, Christians whatever their local priest chose, Parsis, Jews, Sikhs and others would go into wait-and-watch mode. There would be interpretations of ‘what is white’: grey, ivory, cream, bluish, pinkish, brownish… ai saiba, ami Goemkar can’t agree on such matters. Our weather makes us like that. It’s hot after the sun rises and until it sets. Anything above 27 degs affects us. The high humidity aggravates matters.

Last week Delhi had no electricity. Delhites could not pump water into the overhead tanks. Had they done that, the water would have been hot; pipes at 47 deg C are ‘untouchable’. 

Goa’s skies have darkened. Looking at the clouds, I do what any self-respecting Goan woman does: fan myself with a paper or dupatta, roll my tongue, make a ‘ssssss’ sound, shake my head and complainingly whine, “shee baba, kitle gazgazta, vaaz ailo saamko garmicho”.

Then thank my stars our air is never so hot or as dry as in the arid zones.

         

About a Thousand Bucks

(2 Mar ’08)

            D’you know, until now, it was much cheaper to get a chap to wash a car in Mumbai than in Goa. Nearly half. In Goa we used to pay some 350 for a Maruti, here we pay 200. That was till last Thursday. What happened on that day was the Municipal people came and charged us 1000 rupees because our car was being washed on the road. We don’t have a compound, hence parking always means playing musical spaces, going round and round the lanes until there’s a slot seen, possibly half a kilometer from home. But that’s a different story.

            These people refused to listen to the fact that the water was the same that they’d supplied through our taps. They didn’t believe that come monsoons, all the roads would be full of water that can’t be measured in buckets. Then who were they going to fine? God?  Didn’t work. I knew that an under-the-table-paid receipt-less system was what would work, but I’m married to a type that believes in following the law no matter how ridiculous it might be. So we paid. Then the officials told us, that if, instead of using a bucket and mug, one used only a bucket and cloth (wrung out so that it’s damp, not wet), there’d be no fine. More importantly, if they didn’t SEE anyone do it, they couldn’t fine because no one could get caught. So if one washed one’s car in the middle of the night, no matter how much mess one made, it didn’t matter.

            In spite of the fact that we were short by a grand, that we were impressed that the Municipal Corporation was serious about cleaning up its act and the city, many questions were left unanswered. If my half bucket of water was mucking up that six square feet of public land, what about the two busy restaurants behind my building that dump loads, piles, hillocks of rotting garbage night after night right onto the road? It’s visible, it’s smellable, and causes disease. My half bucket will breed mosquito larvae only until the sun comes up, when they will die….of laughter, possibly, at the silliness of things here. Worse, what about biomedical waste from hospitals? I’d urge Goan journalists to do a story (I’d done one many years ago, with shocking findings) on how hospitals in Goa dispose of their garbage. It’d also be a treat to find out how our sewage is treated.

            Right now, in Mumbai, there’s a battle gearing up to fine ‘spitters’. Wonderful idea, for I hate people who spit. But would it be practical to catch each ‘spitter’? What about the squatters? And the arguments that would definitely ensue would involve waste of man-minutes? No? Would it not be wiser (and certainly a better way to make legitimate money for the Corporation) to actually fine, and fine hard, the real offenders like the restaurants I’ve mentioned above? Never mind the garbage, they’re cooking in a residential building, in a covered compound area, quite illegal, am sure, with their staff living on the tin roof in terrible conditions. It’s quite easily seen, nothing secret about it. I wish we hadn’t paid the fine. If those people won’t pay for a definite crime, why must we for a wishy-washy (literally) one? Actually the answer lies in the fact that people like me don’t get into politics. We don’t want to ‘dirty our hands’, we don’t like the rough and tumble and we crib that things have gone beyond control. The need of the day, if we want to weed out corruption and have a better life, is for more seedha-saadhas to get into politics and outnumber the baddies. Sometimes, baddies make good administrators (check the IAS) and we can’t do without them, but at least there will be a balance. “Good” professionals don’t make good politicians or statesmen (the state of Goa –literally and metaphorically--- will vouch for that), but in the long run, there would be a change. So, readers, if you’re inclined, go sign up and be a member of the party (no pun intended) of your choice.

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The Tap Has Not Come

                 Halfway through the humming of the washing-machine that was churning and shredding the linen, Kind Neighbour informed me “udok naa.” To me that was worse news than a CM resigning in Delhi. We had a good monsoon, I started to say. Kind Neighbour read my mind: “…it’s not really a shortage, it’s a broken pipe,” she said soothingly. Then advised: “Don’t put on the pump, the sump might be empty and something might happen to it.”

          “Something might happen” is usually said when death is possible. Don’t drink and swim in the monsoons, something might happen. Don’t attempt to taste strange liquids, like phenol, however nice they smell, something might happen. Don’t play with fire… don’t pump the sump when it’s dry…

          The pipe on Chogm road had broken at an inconvenient time. We had just returned from a long road trip. Thirsty plants had been given respite, stuff in the fridge had been sorted, dals/rice washed and soaked for making polley. The Man had splashed a capful of shampoo over the car, lathered it up to remove grit and grime, then hosed it down and rubbed it off to give the glass and metal a sparkle. Unpacking over, we had checked our mails and smses, dusted curios, unpacked sweaty clothes, discovered (killed and thrown away) an audacious not-so-little ‘roach, opened the windows to let the fresh air counter the mustiness … the perfect closure to a fun weekend, or so we thought until an empty overhead taanki stood (literally) aamchyaa maatyaar.

          Apparently, Chogm road was (is) being widened to allow an extra lane of cars to and from Porvorim-Calangute. The fact that they will all clog up at Saligao, where there’s just enough space at certain places for water-tankers to kiss whilst crossing, is something the planners will deal with later. Right now, since 31 March is within tickling distance, everyone’s in the have-money-will-spend mood.

          None will ever know who broke the pipe. The Minister will ask the departmental officers who will check with the supervisors who will question the contractor whose boss-on-site will find out from the labourers who will look accusingly at the stray dogs who aren’t barking anyone anything.

          After several trips and phone-calls to the PWD office, we were told the pipe repair zaalaan. Our joy lived as long as it takes from Mapusa to Ponda by bus. We were told on our next two visits to the PWD office that the same pipe was now broken in two new places. Same plot, different film.

          I’m not deterred by living within a taambyo of udok per day. I’d never known the words null aylo naa in the Bombay I grew up in. Memories of Goa, at Palolem, on vacation with the grandparents, are studded with images of a brimming sweet-water well. Marriage took me to UP where I discovered that tapping a switch or swivelling a tap didn’t mean one could get electricity or water. Winters in Srinagar taught me that frozen water could burst pipes. In Tambaram, in the days (1982) when Tamil Nadu brought in trains of water into Chennai, we threw a pebble into our well every morning. If we heard a splash, we worked the pump. If it didn’t, we dipped into our ‘store’, a 500 litre drum. That drum gave us comfort in semi-arid Hyderabad, and later in the Thar, where the weekly supply was regular, but scarce. In all these places, Nature was cruel. Water had to be conserved. Whilst washing clothes, it was white clothes first; into the same liquid went the coloured lot and they were kept aside to make way for the dirty rags. Rinsing followed the same schedule. No water went down the drain without being used multiple times. Even bath-water was channelized into plants. We put stones into flush tanks so that with less volume of water, the level still reached the lever.

          But Nature is kind here. Would that make a difference? Goa might suffer from the Chirapunji syndrome. The place famous for the world’s heaviest rainfall ironically buys its water from the plains. No one can build a dam/ lake there to trap so many hundred inches of rainfall, because then the tanker mafia won’t make money.

          By the time this goes into print, the pipe may get repaired. We may use our pumps, sumps and forget about the discomfort caused by null aiylo naa. Practical folks used this opportunity to get their tanks cleaned. No one cribbed because the tankers ‘came free’. Nothing has gone of anyone’s father. Ogee maatyaa traas kityak karoon ghevap?