Value of water

Cliche but true: You realise the importance of something only when you loose it. The same happened with me last week in a very realistic and practical manner. For a background I live in a rented room set in Noida. Everything was running smooth until one fine evening after returning from office I went into the washroom to freshen up and to my utter surprise there was no water. I tried to console myself by taking it as a temporary issue and following that I went outside to check with other people. No one was on the same page with me.

I started to panic a little bit as my landlord departed to Kolkata for eight days on previous day. Motor to lift water in the tank on terrace had only one switch which was behind the locked doors. Now I needed a lifesaving arrangement. Good two hours I tried everything but no avail. When I was returning to my place one of the guards told that municipal water comes from six to nine every morning and evening . Next day I woke up at seven and took two buckets to that tap and filled them. While walking back with heavily filled buckets I got acquainted with the problems of people who on the very daily basis suffered due to shortage of water. I bathed myself and used the water for daily chores and again went to the tap to fill the buckets to reserve for the rest of the day.

Now its third day in a row and I think I have adjusted myself for the condition. I think its not a big deal because I know it is temporary and in couple of days everything will be fine but I can’t imagine how people adjust to these problems for the whole life. These three days taught me how and why water is life.

I, on a very small scale, pledged to myself that I will not waste water in future.  After little bit of research I got to know that more than 2.8 billion people are affected due to water crisis for a period of a month in a year. Leave alone shortage of water , availability of potable water is a different story altogether.

To my surprise when I entered my place today and randomly checked the tap of my room, life was there. I felt relieved and thanked god. Mystery behind that is still in dark though.