‘Earth is the water planet, it looks blue from the deep space’ my friend was telling me with great curiosity, reciting whatever she heard & seen on the Discovery Channel last night. While we both together were filling carefully every drop of water trickling down from the rusted municipal water pipeline behind our respective homes at four O’clock in the early morning. Our husbands had taken great trouble in digging the soil below the ‘T’ opening the supply line which should otherwise carry our share of water inside our home. But it doesn’t in eight out of twelve months of the year, during rainy season as such we can not go out to collect the trickle since rain god is blessing us with his showers which we collect before they meet mother earth.
I’d made it very clear to my father that I must not be married in the place where water is scarce. I don’t mind if my husband earns less but can’t compromise with less water than requirement. Bowing to my persistence my father had taken me to my would be husbands’ house to make it clear that the home is delivered with continuous water supply. I married my husband despite he was not all that great looking yet his main plus point was his home was water surplus though money wasn’t. In the first year of our marriage itself the ward was rearranged. During the municipal elections the party which came to power our new corporator elected belong to that party. So all the water went to our adjutant ward which was lead by the independent corporate. How on earth any ruling party can afford to deprive of anything of independent supporting corporator? Since then we’ve water just enough to drink daily, just enough to take our bath on weekly, just enough to wash our cloths monthly & just …. While I traveled all those days & years in memory lane & mine & all my friends’ husbands were sleeping tight with our kids perhaps those corporators too.
‘Why water is so scarce to us?’ I innocently asked my ever paper reading or TV watching husband, if he is at home. He smiled in his moustache, I thought he found my question rather amusing but he didn’t open his same moustache covered lip for next two minutes. I gauged he was reading something more amusing in the paper & my question never fell on his ears. ‘But see, XXX was telling me her nephew gets enough water even to take bath daily, water their garden, wash their vehicles even every morning & evening they wet their surrounding with pressured water hose’ I persisted while holding his hand & trying to snatch his remote attention. ‘Look you are worried of water for your home I’m reading & worried about the whole state of Tamilnadu. Their water has caught fire & you ….’ He chose to keep mum & made me sink in shame. My husband is worried of the whole state whilst I was disturbing him of our home of nine hundred square feet carpet area. ‘Look at this, the Sardar Sarovar in Gujarat, shifting manufacturing units due to scarcity of water, ….’ He just kept talking unstoppable while I’d to rush inside to clear my doubt on paying heed to kitchen noise of perhaps my daughter tumbled her full filled glass of the same precious water.
‘Don’t worry sweetheart, I registered our grievances with the water supply department & yes due to global warming just in a century or two the polar ice caps are going to melt, so any way we are bound to get ample water’. He held me close & tight in his arms that night typical of any husband since that is when they remember their wives & talk as sweet as any body from male kingdom can. Same with wives too, it is their turn to yield most from otherwise non yielding or non listening husbands. To reduce my labour in the early hours daily, he promised me to get a quarter hp water pump.
I saw a very nice & soothing dream that night I swear! We’d water & plenty of water. All our vessels were filled, I just didn’t pay attention even my daughter fell her glass full of water on the ground. I was seen watering our small kitchen-garden & my husband was washing his scooter with the water hose singing his favorite film song.
At the destined time early in the morning I got up. Perhaps my body clock too got synchronized with the water supply departments’ valve man timing. Again to collect the trickle from the rusted municipal pipeline. I yelled at my early morning friend who was doing her early morning ritual as I was. ‘My husband has written to water supply department for proper water supplies & you know what, the polar ice caps….
By
Vijay Yelmelwar
I’d made it very clear to my father that I must not be married in the place where water is scarce. I don’t mind if my husband earns less but can’t compromise with less water than requirement. Bowing to my persistence my father had taken me to my would be husbands’ house to make it clear that the home is delivered with continuous water supply. I married my husband despite he was not all that great looking yet his main plus point was his home was water surplus though money wasn’t. In the first year of our marriage itself the ward was rearranged. During the municipal elections the party which came to power our new corporator elected belong to that party. So all the water went to our adjutant ward which was lead by the independent corporate. How on earth any ruling party can afford to deprive of anything of independent supporting corporator? Since then we’ve water just enough to drink daily, just enough to take our bath on weekly, just enough to wash our cloths monthly & just …. While I traveled all those days & years in memory lane & mine & all my friends’ husbands were sleeping tight with our kids perhaps those corporators too.
‘Why water is so scarce to us?’ I innocently asked my ever paper reading or TV watching husband, if he is at home. He smiled in his moustache, I thought he found my question rather amusing but he didn’t open his same moustache covered lip for next two minutes. I gauged he was reading something more amusing in the paper & my question never fell on his ears. ‘But see, XXX was telling me her nephew gets enough water even to take bath daily, water their garden, wash their vehicles even every morning & evening they wet their surrounding with pressured water hose’ I persisted while holding his hand & trying to snatch his remote attention. ‘Look you are worried of water for your home I’m reading & worried about the whole state of Tamilnadu. Their water has caught fire & you ….’ He chose to keep mum & made me sink in shame. My husband is worried of the whole state whilst I was disturbing him of our home of nine hundred square feet carpet area. ‘Look at this, the Sardar Sarovar in Gujarat, shifting manufacturing units due to scarcity of water, ….’ He just kept talking unstoppable while I’d to rush inside to clear my doubt on paying heed to kitchen noise of perhaps my daughter tumbled her full filled glass of the same precious water.
‘Don’t worry sweetheart, I registered our grievances with the water supply department & yes due to global warming just in a century or two the polar ice caps are going to melt, so any way we are bound to get ample water’. He held me close & tight in his arms that night typical of any husband since that is when they remember their wives & talk as sweet as any body from male kingdom can. Same with wives too, it is their turn to yield most from otherwise non yielding or non listening husbands. To reduce my labour in the early hours daily, he promised me to get a quarter hp water pump.
I saw a very nice & soothing dream that night I swear! We’d water & plenty of water. All our vessels were filled, I just didn’t pay attention even my daughter fell her glass full of water on the ground. I was seen watering our small kitchen-garden & my husband was washing his scooter with the water hose singing his favorite film song.
At the destined time early in the morning I got up. Perhaps my body clock too got synchronized with the water supply departments’ valve man timing. Again to collect the trickle from the rusted municipal pipeline. I yelled at my early morning friend who was doing her early morning ritual as I was. ‘My husband has written to water supply department for proper water supplies & you know what, the polar ice caps….
By
Vijay Yelmelwar
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