In
all the last few decades, it’s this year:they say is the heaviest drought in
Maharashtra
My
taps & my washbasins however have a lot of water
Some
I brush my teeth with, twice a Day. With some I take bath with exotic shower
gels
And
the rest flows out, non-stop & free-flow: as I talk on phone or one of the
other 100 reasons
Now,
if I can afford, why do I care? Anyways ‘water day’ and environment are all
mere tokenisms...
The
maid who comes to my place lives in one of those slums that dot the entire city
And
every day she fills a bottle of water that she’ll carry back home.
(Her slum does not have regular water
supply & some such story she’d said once)
My
maid, the old and fragile lady we lovingly call ‘Bai’, often says ‘Babu don’t
waste so much water’
And
I teasingly reply ‘Bai, don’t be jealous. Take back as much water you want’
She
doesn’t reply , smiles slightly and proceeds to other household chores...
But
that day she said something very scary.
Her
son works as a ward-boy in a large city-hospital
An
insignificant job-profile, a meagre salary but he is learning a lot on the job
she says.
A
very rich man was admitted to the hospital...
And
as he was breathing his last one night, my old and fragile Bai’s son was the
only one by his side.
‘Get
me a little water’ ‘Get me a little water’: the rich man kept panting
The
last voice he heard before death was cold and unaffected
‘Sorry
Sir, today the hospital has run out of the last drop of water’
These
days I wake up at midnight, thirsty, sweating- hangover of a nightmare
As
I drink a glassful, I get up. Check my taps and washbasins again, seal them
tighter
Don’t
know the water that I’ve started saving now: where it goes and who stores it?
But
all that I know is:
Soon
I will be old & senile and I will be dying.
And
I don’t want to go to the same hospital, that same ward: the same
‘insignificant’ ward-boy.
