Monsoon Magic and Water Woes

The first spell of the southwest monsoon (ver. 2010) rains hit South India a few days ago. Mira Nair made this very special season famous with her heartwarming movie "Monsoon Wedding" - but nothing beats the experience of being caught in a downpour for the very first time after a scorching, unforgiving summer! The earth comes back to life with a heady fragrance of the raindrops hitting the dry mud. Birds chirp away: the cuckoo bird, the mayna bird, the parakeet, all vying for attention as SK and I sip our morning tea on the terrace. Leaves glisten in the sunlight while squirrels run up and down on the tree trunks chasing each other and steering clear of the stray kitty hiding in the bushes. Then there's monsoon food (naturally). Kanda bhajees (for all Punekars out there, atop Sinhagad where the best ones are to be had!) and piping hot momos with thukpa, at Dilli Haat in Dilli. Also, romantic bread-wine-cheese evenings indoors listening to soothing strains of melodious music while watching the rain fall. Or outdoors grabbing a quick bite at the hastily put up food stall with hard-to-resist samosas and jalebis! 'Nuff said.

Last month, I hopped over to Guwahati in Assam, where the northeast monsoon had already started. I don't know anything about this region except what I studied in geography class way back in high school but just the drive from the airport made me want to move there. Lush green landscapes, misty skies, lofty mountain tops and genuinely cool breeze. Little rivers of fresh rainwater were being formed all around me. Its then that I wondered, what happens to it? Do we just allow it to drain off into the soil? Although the northeast gets a got deal of rain every year, paradoxically, it faces a severe clean water shortage, I was told. Not surprisingly then, I saw houses with pipes running across the lengths of their roofs collecting rainwater and emptying it in tubs below for future consumption. How do we go from being a state of want to a state of plenty? What we need is a change in our mindset and a change in our behavior as well, i.e. to save when we have plenty so we aren't caught scrambling in times of dire need.

What is unacceptable is that while parts of our country are flooded annually, there are vast areas which go without water for years on end. Even more criminal is seeing utter wastage of water during transportation - more often than not, water tankers in Delhi have ill-fitting or no caps. As a result, you could practically give yourself a good hose-down if you manage to ride behind one of these tankers as they make their way on somewhat-bumpy roads to quench the thirst of thousands of denizens who queue for hours for a single bucketful of water. Just the sight of children and the elderly all lined up in the afternoon heat should be enough to make us demand that we have better maintained tankers and better enforcement of water utilization. But how many of us bother to get our private water tanks serviced regularly so that they don’t overflow from the morning water supply provided by the authorities? How many of us pay our water bills on time, if at all? Do we care, even for minute, if we don’t face the problem? The pervasive culture in Delhi (and I suspect across many cities in India) is to avoid paying the government even a penny wherever possible and yet complain about the lack of public utilities in the system. Making a large purchase (consumer durables / jewellery / others) and then insisting on a fake receipt or a cash payment – so we don’t pay VAT and the shopkeeper is only too happy to comply since he / she doesn’t need to get books audited and can in turn pay lower taxes. Do we have any justification for complaining about bad roads if we don’t pay road taxes? Ditto with water and electricity consumption.

On a larger scale, we need ways to use (and harvest) water more efficiently. I’ve read that notable efforts (water harvesting, recycling) are already being undertaken by various stakeholders, including large hotel chains and corporations. In the agriculture sector, one such example is SRI or the system of rice intensification methodology for increasing the productivity of irrigated rice cultivation by changing the management of plants, soil, water and nutrients, in turn leading to major water savings.

This is the biggest investment we can make for ourselves and future generations. Save a drop today for an ocean tomorrow.