Water water everywhere and many drops
to drink.....
It was just yesterday that I read about a thousand odd
children dying everyday because they drink contaminated water.
The UN states that polluted drinking water
claim more lives than all forms of violence, including war and that one
child under the age of five dies every 20 seconds from water-related
diseases. According to the report titled 'Sick Water', the sheer scale of
dirty water means more people now die from contaminated and polluted water
than from all forms of violence including wars.
It was only recently that someone told me
that the wells in Basavanagudi, Bangalore, are getting contaminated by
sewage and that many wells are being filled up to avoid the sewage stench
emanating from them.
It seems people pump out the contents of wells onto the
roads, in Basavanagudi, to prevent the wells overflowing polluted water into
their compounds. Seems like a classic case of "all's well that ends well
away from the well."
The worst offender, I am told, is situated
right outside the Basavanagudi Police Station, on the opposite side of the
road. Rumour has it that the cops tried to book the offender but hard as
they tried they couldn't find an appropriate section of the Indian Penal
Code that referred to the crime of pumping well water on to public roads.
They now turn a blind eye to the problem.
With all this buzzing around in the
subconscious, I recently found myself through a quirk of fate parked right
in front of the Bangalore Water Supply and sewerage Board (BWSSB) office in
Jayanagar 4th Block, in Bangalore.
Within minutes an empty water tanker pulled
up in front of the office. A large hose swung out from within the depths of
the compound of the and soon water was gushing into the tankers innards.
Before one could say "Rama Navami"
(all this happened on the festival day of Rama Navami), two fairly
decently dressed chaps turned up with empty plastic water bottles. They
nonchalantly, and with a proprietary air, opened the valve at the rear
of the tanker and filled their bottles. A moment later, one of them took a
hearty swig of water and refilled the bottle. Apparently the water was
potable. No worry about dying from drinking it. They soon disappeared.
Simultaneously a small queue formed at the
rear of the tanker. People appeared from nowhere with buckets, rapidly
filled them and hastened away. One chap even turned up with a five liter
plastic container which he quickly filled, hefted with some difficulty on to
his shoulders, and rushed off.
The last person in line was a woman with a
child held at an un-natural angle. Is the child ill or drugged? I wondered.
The woman had a small white paint container which she filled with water. She
walked ten feet beyond the water tanker, put the child on the ground and
started washing the child's bum. Aha! The child had dirtied itself and the
free BWSSB water had rushed to the rescue!
All this happened in total silence. Not a
word was exchanged by anyone. No one recognized or spoke to anyone else. It
was as if they were actors in an early 20th Century silent film, turning up
at their cue, doing their act and then vanishing.
Whilst all this was happened, the water
tanker crew smoked a cigarette waiting for the tanker to fill. If they
noticed the unauthorized filching of the water, they didn't show it.
Soon the tanker's engine sprang to life. As
the tanker began inching away into the traffic, a passerby noticed that
water was leaking from the improperly closed valve at the rear. He quickly
tightened the valve even as the tanker was in motion. The tanker soon
zoomed away.
The whole thing probably took less than five
minutes.
All this tells me that the water quality in
Jayanagar is excellent; it meets with public approval.
Judging by the speed at which people appear
as soon as the tanker pulls in, it is very possible that people know the
tanker schedules and are ready with their pails, buckets, bottles, etc.
These people seemingly materialize from nowhere and vanish as quickly as
they come. There is a brisk efficiency about the whole process that I have
not seen elsewhere.
Prakash
26th March 2010
