Water Water Everywhere... Is it?

One of my neighbors had a tough morning today. He got up to realize that his submersible pump was no longer throwing water. And it is not something new. It has been a long time now that everybody has been crying about the level of water going down and rivers, lakes, ponds, wells dying a slow death. How exactly do we feel when we keep the tap running while brushing our teeth, when we throw away half a glass of water which either we were unable to drink or which was kept for sometime, while washing our vehicles? Or should I ask, do we feel anything at all?
For those of us residing in the gifted cities or localities might not even know what water shortage means. Out of a world population of roughly 6.1 billion, more than 1 billion lack access to portable water. According to World Health Organization, half of the entire world population has one of the following six diseases – diarrhea, schistosomiasis, trachoma, infestation with ascaris, guinea worm or hookworm – associated with poor drinking water and inadequate sanitation. About 5 million people die every year due to poor drinking water, poor sanitation or a dirty home environment.
While Shiela Dixit seems to be filing a petition to Lord Vishnu for providing another river for Delhi, queues continue to get longer for residents who struggle hard for a few buckets of water every morning. The river levels have been going down day by day and it is not just another Indian government problem. We very well walk into a mall, buy our food grains and walk out with heavy bags. It really doesn’t matter how we get the stuff to fill those bags. Lesser water, more of Vidarbha-like suicidal cases of farmers, lesser agricultural land, lesser cattle, lesser eatables…. And the chain finally hits you, doesn’t it? Now you want to import eatables, of course, for those of you who can afford. But is it really an Indian problem?

China, with 1.26 billion people, is an area where water table is dropping one meter per year due to overpumping and the Chinese admit that 300 cities are running short. They are diverting water from agriculture and farmers are going out of business. Some Chinese rivers are so polluted with heavy metals that they can’t be used for irrigation. As farmers go out of business, China will have to import more food. In India, with 1.003 billion people, key sources of water are being over pumped and the soil is growing saltier through contamination with irrigation water.
The regular fights over river water in the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana are not merely a local phenomena. International Water politics play a role in Southwestern United States, where Colorado River is shared by many states before its dregs trickle into Mexico. All along the river, water is diverted for irrigation and urban water – with Arizona and California being the biggest users. The dribble of water that finally reaches Mexico is used mainly for irrigation; hence virtually nothing reaches the river’s parched and polluted delta on the Sea of Cortez. The Colorado may be completely allocated, but the Southwest continues booming. According to one estimate, five of the ten fastest-growing U.S. States are in the river’s drainage. The water the newcomers drink is likely to come from farmers who now receive subsidized river water.
Egypt, which might touch population of 97 million by 2025, essentially gets no rainfall. All agriculture is irrigated by seasonal floods from the Nile River, and from water stored behind the Aswan High Dam. Any interference with water flow by Sudan or Ethiopia could starve Egypt.
It is a serious issue but how many of us are even thinking about it, let alone doing something. A guy has set up a rain harvesting and purification system in Portland, Oregon, USA. He set up the entire system at an expense of USD 1500. He now captures an average 27000 gallons of water per year. Although it is true that Portland receives 3 to 4 feet of annual rainfall, but it is a possible way of at least elongating the process of getting completely drained out. ( http://www.rwh.in/ )
The big question is what should we do… or may be what can we do? Will it be our mere dependence upon Lord Vishnu for providing us an alternative or is there something which our law makers, researchers and scientists are going to wake up to? Should we be proactively concerned about it or shall we let ourselves become the generation which saw the transition of rivers into parched lands into large multiplexes? I heard someone saying that the fourth World War would be fought with bows and arrows… I wonder if Third World War is going to be fought for water.

Our Pay-rents...oops, I mean Our Parents

The pace of progress has been rampant over the past few years in the “not-so-big” cities of India. With the way development crept into the smaller cities, the price has been paid by the soul of the city. Every step closer to the development has been at the cost of our environment, culture, peace, and most important of all, humanity.
I came across several youngsters who have created a world of their own, outside their families. Parents don’t even seem to know where their kids are. Freedom, space, independence, call it what you may, I believe it is the modernization, or should I say Americanization of Indians. Rate with which old age homes have sprung up in country may be good news for some youngsters, but I would call it alarming. Probably there were parents who packed their love and affection and handed it over their kids on their birthdays. But what about those parents who spent and even sacrificed their happiness, and some even their careers to give a better future to their children. I have come across so many of them who have restricted themselves to the same field, same location, same position, just so that it may not hamper their kids future.
This is the time where I am forced to think what is it that guides or motivates the parents to work so hard for their kids? Everyday we hear cases where the parents are turned out from their homes to old age homes, sometimes even killed by their own people for property. So many times the kid turns out to be a shame for the parents. In spite of knowing all that, what makes the parents so selflessly dedicated to the child. For the mother to take so much pain to bring the kid into this world, for the father to take an extra shift so that he can send the child to a better school, for the mother to keep up the entire night while the child sleeps suffering through fever. There is so much done by them during the age when a child can’t even realize what their parents have done for them. I swear I have not seen any mother or father maintaining an excel file to let their kids know what all they have done for them, and I am not talking about just monetary acts.
We work so hard for our qualifications, for our jobs, and one fine day, we leave for an outstation job, leaving our parents back at home. Is it enough to hand over our salary to them? Money is really everything, isn't it? That is how we would evaluate our parents, would we? Our parents never really threw us out of our house simply because we failed in the exam or had bad handwriting. They accepted us as we were, no adjustments, they were happy to have us as we were, did everything to make us a better person. One of my neighbours had three sons, two of them in US and one in Canada, none is able to adjust with their parents at their home. Hence their father still lives alone in Lucknow so that their children can live happily, ever after. It so seems that all the love and affection we have for our parents is wrapped up and handed over to our mother on a Mother’s day or to our father on Father’s Day, and consider our liabilities fulfilled. They spent on us, so we spent on them, deal is square.
I wouldn’t stretch it too far but just like to end it with a note. I was very young, can’t be very specific about the age but I can say it is something which I clearly remember. My father used to drive a Bajaj Ltd. 150. I used to stand in front of the driver’s seat while he drove. Whenever there was a lot of dust on the road, he would ask me to close my eyes until he said to open them back. I used to follow orders. Once I just thought, “What if I didn’t close my eyes?”. So once on our way to some place, my father asked me to close my eyes. I closed my eyes, but to peek, I just opened one of my eyes, and I saw my father had his palm over my eyes, and was driving with one hand. After some time he removed his hand and said, “Now you can open your eyes”.
Do I really need a “Father’s Day” to love him or say thanks to him?