Life in the times of scarcity

THREE FOURTHS of the world is made out of it. About 70 per cent of the human body is made out of it. We have it on three sides of our peninsula. Even the other side of the coast has been troubled with gallons of it pouring from the heavens. And we Chennaiites suddenly find out that drought doesn't spare cities. Well, wells across the city have either dried up or are drying up. Water- table levels are so low that no matter how much you pump, all you get is air.

Clouds treacherously just pass through this concrete village struck with drought without shedding a drop of its weight. And there are no silver linings. Only lines of pots that wait endlessly for the water tanker to arrive and brim up their hopes. The tankers are hardly seen on the roads (they are that fast), the only indication of them having passed that way, is the trail that they leave behind (either an accident or the water lying wasted on the road).

The time they are seen most is, of course, at night, when we hear some neighbour has actually bought a load for some 1500 bucks. Yes, the time has come when almost everybody in the city has to buy water. Pay for the purest part of you. Mineral water has become the order of the day as scores of unregistered bottled water manufacturers make their moolah, canning fishy water from even-God-does-not-know-where. Who cares? Anything goes, in the times of scarcity.

Rationing water is fast becoming a reality in almost every home. Not every home, just those places in the city where the opposition has won, an angry citizen screams. Come on, nobody mixes water and politics (it is another story that the association of local milk-men are up against arms against the government for they no longer get enough water to mix it with milk). Anyway, ideally speaking, nobody should be mixing water and politics. But is that the case? Some film-buffs secretly hope for a possibility to play cricket against a team of politicians, beat them in the game and get water sanctioned for the next three years, obviously inspired by `Lagaan (not that we Indians have a good record of winning when it matters the most). It's not a joke any more, the quest for water does seem that distant a dream.

Somehow or the other, we Chennaiites seem to forget this all (at least temporarily) when we have other things distracting us, endless debates on TV on whether it was a pull; or a push, whether it is revenge or victimisation; and similar rhetoric when every political party called the other dirty.

Not just political parties, everybody is calling the other dirty. Complaints of employees turning up for work without a bath, have raised quite a stink. The buzz in the marketing circles is that deodorants are selling pleasantly well, while soaps and shampoos have registered a sharp decline in sales.

Other issues have taken a backseat. Even as both political parties find themselves in troubled waters, rumours are that Veerappan soon is getting into water-smuggling business for there's more money in it. And there are more issues to keep us worried. Rising prices of fuel for example. Wait a minute, didn't a bloke called Ramar Pillai promise us herbal petrol out of water a few years ago? He might have been in deeper trouble had he said it now. Because, in this drought-stricken land, you get petrol quite easily, the queues are lesser.

Water? You must be joking.

By Sudhish Kamath

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