I watched a disturbing video news report about how the cities will run out of water and quickly went to the bathroom and filled the bathtub.
When my wife returned from work, she took one look at the infinity pool in the washroom and asked whether there was a notice from the housing association shutting off the water supply to clean the overhead tanks.
“We have a water crisis,” I told her. “We are on ground zero as Bengaluru will run dry after Cape Town in South Africa,” I told her trying not to sound hysterical. “We need to start storing water or curtailing usage, I am not sure which of the two is more effective.”
“I know what’s coming next,” I said. “There will be a government ordinance that we should shower only on odd days, flush the toilet on even days and never ever use a washing machine.”
Every morning, we have to listen to radio jingles while driving to work, seeking to raise awareness on the importance of water conservation and the dangers of water wastage.
“We will have to buy a bottle of mineral water on the black market whenever we go visiting or are invited to a dinner,” said my wife, chipping in.
“Hi Din and Deep,” I said, acting out the visit. “This is a vintage bottle only for you guys. It was bottled in 2009, a good year. Don’t show it to the guests. My supplier says he is being watched and does not want too many customers.”
Bath water for cooking
“We can make tea with this water and cook rice. We better start being prudent and be proactive. Please tell the housemaid to use this to fill up the kettle,” I said pointing to the bathtub.
“We may have to give up eating meat and drinking tea,” I said. “I believe it takes 108 gallons of water to brew one gallon of tea and it requires 1,847 gallons of water to get a pound of beef”. (One gallon is 4.5 litres. One pound is 0.453 kg)
I did not understand why my wife had a twinkle in her eye when she told me to tell the housemaid myself to use the bath water for cooking. The lady is a tough woman from the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu who frowns at me and my wife when we walk inside the apartment with our shoes on.
The problem with living in a country that has hundreds of languages and dialects is that by the time you learn one language, you may have to move on to another state and start learning another language, no matter that you are now just a 40-minute flight away from where we were before. But the good thing is that the Brits left us the English language that unifies us, confuses us with its spellings and pronunciation and is sadly bland and not at all poetic, but very practical.
“Cook rice, make tea,” I told to the maid, pointing to the bathtub, forgetting that the washroom has a bad rap in the country. Doing your thing for many people in the villages usually means going out of the house and into the bamboo fields. Many people are still not reconciled to the fact that one has to do such unclean things in a room in your own home.
The maid went and gave an earful to my wife and maybe threatened to quit if she has to cook with bathwater, so my wife rushed up to me and told me urgently that 2030 was still way away and we will not run out of water just yet.
Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi.
