WATER

George Orwell - water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink.. All of us have been REALLY thirsty at least once in our lives. What, at that time have you really wanted to drink? The most expensive champagne on earth? That old rare wine? That energy drink? Coke? Pepsi? Perhaps a fruit juice? The answer will always be a NO. When you are thirsty, theres only one drink you want water. When thirsty, I have drunk water till my stomach bloated & the water tasted sweet to me. Im certain this is what all of us have experienced. It is a given that planet earth will always have oxygen, without which we cannot live. The quality of this oxygen may of course vary, but man will find ways to adapt, whether the ozone layer is thinning or gaping Man can neither manufacture nor produce oxygen & can plant trees at best to improve & add to the quality of air. Water on the other hand, is a direct result of two natural phenomena : Rains & the melting of ice. Thus the origin of Indias major rivers can be traced to such stores of ice in the Himalayan peaks that melt the year through they are therefore also called as Perennial rivers, as these rivers are not fed by seasonal rains & thus run the year through. In fact, the rains during the rainy season, cause these rivers to overflow with disastrous results Floods. Assam & Bihar witnesses such floods regularly, & the Kosi River has rightly been called the Sorrow of Bihar All these rivers head towards the seas & oceans. This is where they ultimately rest. Anyone who has seen a map will see a bit of green & brown in a sea of blue. The brown of course represents land & the water the deep seas & oceans. Thus, we can see that the globe is a huge mass of water SEA water. This water which houses numerous lives & indeed huge stores of energy under its bed, is unfortunately not compatible to mans biological system. Thus, many ship wrecked sailors who are stranded at sea, often die of thirst, not starvation or sharks (though I guess the sharks do get them once they become drowsy & weak) We thus have this huge mass of un-drinkable water which surrounds mankind everywhere. More than 60% of the earth is water this un-drinkable water. Man has yet to find a viable way to de-salinate this water & to my knowledge it is only the Bengal tiger that has learnt to adapt its body to drink this sea water. So for the rest of us non-Bengal tiger types, we still need fresh water to drink & survive. Therefore, since time immemorial, man learnt to store this life giving water in various ways. He stored them in empty bottle gourds, then learnt to store them in clay pots & jars; as he discovered the agrarian lifestyle which has since made him live in non-mobile, settled communities, he even learnt to build tanks & then canals, where vast quantities of water could be stored for ready use. The ever innovative man learnt to dig for water & wells came about. In the end, traces of man anywhere, was always found to be around a sustainable source of water. Even the Bushmen of the Kalahari deserts, cannot survive without water & indeed hunt for it below the ground by some method not clearly known to the rest of us. It, in short involves finding a succulent fluid rich tuber, which has a

clearly deceptive dry twig or so on the surface or not even that; this is fiercely dug up & the fluid squeezed out & consumed by these Bushmen. The cacti are of course a source of water to them. Other African communities travel for days on camels usually 3 or 4 days, in a large group, with all the containers they can carry, find a water source & carry as much water as they can back home. I doubt if they use bath tubs on a regular basis something thats a heinous crime to them Im sure.

To most of us in the so called civilized world (whatever that means), we turn on taps of water for use & drink clean, treated water, stored handily in bottles. As global warming increases & the ozone layer thins, we know that the weathers becoming erratic & that the sea levels are rising. Every year, the land mass gets lesser & lesser as the islands we live in become smaller & smaller. And as we become more & more populous, the struggle to survive can only become tougher & tougher. When we have depleted most of our water reserves, then it will be the fittest who will rule those who have water. I wont be surprised if we will one day live in cities built on water. This is a very real eventuality. With land becoming scarcer & scarcer & thus costlier & costlier the day will come when building a city on water will be cheaper. At this time it will be the far thinking nations who will have this wealth with them. If its Black Gold today, its going to be Blue Gold tomorrow. Life, like fashion, is a cycle. If we had the Ice Age then, we have the phenomenon of Global Warming now. When land was worth nothing, we fought for cows, which were the currency then, if not wealth, in the days when we had not yet seen money. Then, with the spread of agriculture, land became a much wanted commodity, & it still is. As mans love for comforts grew, oil became the most wanted commodity & many say this black gold is

being carefully rationed to maintain its demand. Whatever it is, the fall & rise of mighty dynasties have been dictated by the humble water. Thus it was because of floods that the Indus Valley died out. The Grand Canyons in the U.S were once huge reserves of water. Today, these lands are deserted. All deserts have only two things in common a lack of water & a lack of people.

Look around you! Even in this lifetime, I see how the supply of water has not been able to meet the demand for water. Not a single leader will be spared who cannot provide his people this precious water. Indeed leaders will arise from those who can give water to their people, much as it is already is now in Africa from where all life began. And then, what will we do with all the lands that have no use & thus no value? Pakistan then will be ready to throw Kashmir at us for 100 liters of water & they will be refused. Borders will have no meaning, just as they did when we lived in the jungles, before we became Civilised & began to farm. What then are we fighting so much for? For land that will have no meaning for us tomorrow? The most die-hard lover of a land will leave it if it is flooded with water. Let us be wise & read the writing on the wall. No land belongs to anyone. All the land in the world is just some soil. Yes, we get attached to things, but let us not be so attached to things, that we lose sight of whats important to us. Today, we are ready to die for a God weve never seen, land that doesnt really belong to anyone other than mother earth who will take it back. What a waste. What a pity. Not even one life lost is worth all these intangibles. What use are our nuclear bombs, our guns when we have no water? Whats the

point in buying a Rolls Royce with all your money & then some when you dont have a house to call your own? Here, I would like to mention that almost all the hill communities, know the value of water & that most hills including my humble home-state of Mizoram in Northeast India, have mastered the art of collecting & saving water. Traditionally, almost all houses had sliced pipes running around the border of their slanted asbestos roofs that collected rain water. This was stored in a drum outside the house. All houses had huge tanks near their kitchens to store water, which was & indeed is used sparingly. Then there are the tuikhurs or small openings on hillsides from where water slowly trickles out from the hills. To date many travel to these tiny ponds, mug out water & collect it in buckets which are carried back to houses for use. For many, this is a daily morning routine. For those who refuse to hear reason, at least use your heart can you still honestly splash water around criminally while there are millions who walk for days and days in search of water? Do you not feel at least an ounce of hurt, a pinch of sympathy for these your fellow beings who are dying because while some of us drink atrociously priced mineral water, which really is nothing but water, millions die every day for lack of clean drinking water? So then, let fools fight for land. We, who know better MUST make it imperative to set Rainwater Harvesting Rules & enforce them with an iron hand, with an urgency that will filter down to the simplest & the lowest that Water is a precious commodity, to be respected.