Who are playing water and me?

 

Amit
I am 24 years old and I’ve always lived in Ludhiana. I went to Sacred Heart Convent, it’s one of the best schools around here. I wasn’t really interested in studying -- my parents arranged all sorts of tuition, but I was always more keen on playing cricket. My mother would keep running after me with a plate of food to ensure I was well-fed! Dad wanted me to become a doctor or engineer but I said nah! I’ll help with the family business Dad -- after all, I’m your only son. I did a BA, but It’s expanding our business that I’m more interested in. 

At present we have two clothing showrooms -- I want us to have more, and to expand to other cities. So rather than studying, I’m busy nurturing friendships of the right kind -- I have quite a few friends who are politicians' sons or businessmen themselves.  We live in a middle-income area, in a  three-storey house, which is our ancestral property (the original house was built by my great-grandfather). My parents live on the ground floor. I live on the top floor. Some years ago, the pressure of the corporation water in our taps began to reduce and the water flow wouldn’t fill up our two overhead tanks. So my dad talked to someone and I heard about a suitcase being delivered. Hey presto! We had a pump installed in no time, and our tanks would fill up fast every day since then. 

I get my car washed every day by a part-time car washer, whom I pay monthly -- you know, I even pay for the days he doesn’t come. Oh don't be surprised, it isn't much -- a fraction of the amount that I spend when eating out with friends. I always like to pay when we go out, you know, it keeps them happy -- and it might make me much happier in the future. I eat with my parents when I’m home -- it keeps the family bonds strong. My mother does my laundry -- it’s women’s work after all ! Mummyji has a washing machine, but mostly I think she gets the clothes washed by Sunita, one of the maids. Can’t say I know anything about Sunita, even though she washes my clothes and does a lot of my other errands -- I've never really noticed her, and the only time I talk to her is to give her instructions on what I want done.

Binoy
I’m 30 years old. I’m from a Dalit background, an illegal immigrant in Venice - living here for over three years now. I am gay, but nobody back home knows about it. I sell fake jewellery and other trinkets on the streets near the tourist attractions of the city. I learnt to speak Italian very quickly -- it wasn't difficult at all. I speak Bengali of course and I’m learning English by talking to the tourists here. I send money back to my family whenever I can. My family live in the Sunderbans area. My father has asthma and my mother has rheumatism, and neither is able to work. The nearest public health facility is about 50km away. Cyclone Amphan badly damaged our home some years ago, and we still haven't put together all the money needed to repair it. 

I live with 20 other illegal immigrants here in a small two-bed house in the poorest part of Venice. There is just one toilet and bathroom in the house for all of us, and we have to queue up for our turn.  I only manage to bathe once every three days. The tap water still doesn’t ‘look’ good to me, despite drinking it for three years! I cannot afford to buy bottled water - no way! I sometimes worry about catching something after drinking the water as I am reminded of my close childhood friend, Shyam, who passed away from cholera when we were young.

I also ‘work’ as part of the septic tank cleaning team locally. I’m just on a verbal sub-contract with the person who is supposed to be doing it, Juan Carlos. Juan engages me on an ad-hoc basis and pays me half the minimum wage per hour for my help - he knows he can get away with it because I don't have any documentation and desperately need the work. Juan took me on when I was wandering around looking for work and noticed their team was struggling to clear a blocked septic tank. I said I know how to sort that -- I just used my hands and cleared the muck. I know all about this, because I used to hear about it from my brother, Piyush, who had migrated to Delhi and worked as a manual scavenger for the municipal corporation there. But one day Piyush went down a sewer and never came up again. Juan Carlos at least cares about me coming back alive  
I avoid thinking about my childhood days when I was a carefree young lad... school, friends ... we jumped in the water without a care in the world in my lovely home in the Sunderbans. Yeah! I would love to go back home. I seem to be spending more than saving -- Venice isn’t the cheapest place to live! But what else can I do? 

Leela
I am a 10-year-old girl and I live with my invalid grandfather in a single-room tenement next to a very polluted canal. I work as a rag picker in the town. I went to school till class 3. I liked school, made many friends there. But then both my parents died in a train accident. They were on their way back from a family wedding when their train derailed due to faultily repaired train tracks. Since then, I have been living with my grandfather. We didn’t even get any compensation from the government or the Railways for my parents' death. My grandfather used to work as a daily labourer in the asbestos factory nearby. But the constant asbestos exposure damaged his lungs, and he starts panting even if he walks a little. He can’t work now. So I had to leave school to work and earn money.

My grandfather tells me that when he and my grandmother first moved to this colony, they used to get their water from the canal for cooking and drinking. But now the canal is a sewage dump for the middle-class houses and hotels upstream, which empty their sewage directly into the canal. Even the few houses in the colony that have bathrooms empty their pipes directly into the canal.
I miss my family a lot. But more than my parents, I miss my twin sister Meera. She made the mistake of drinking the canal water when we were 5 years old and visiting my grandparents. It proved fatal. I was so sad. I wish she were here to keep me company.

My day begins by going to fetch water, sometimes this can take up to two hours as we can’t afford to pay the water tanker that comes near the colony. I walk to a hand pump which is a few kilometres away, and bring one bucket of water each day, with great difficulty. I hope to grow up quickly so that I can carry two or more buckets every day. 

Mary
I am 35 years old and I work as a bank teller in State Bank of India. I live with my husband, Thomas, and two children, in the Andheri Railway Colony in Mumbai, where several buildings have been declared unsafe. I worry, but I don’t know what else to do -- where else will we live? I just ignore these news stories. I see the notices on the buildings, but I walk past them hurriedly. I studied at a local government school here, and my children attend the same school now. I did my BA at the local government college. It was all right -- all we had to do was take notes, learn them by heart, and just reproduce them in the exam. I passed okay and then I got this job in the government bank -- what more can a person want? Both my husband and I are government employees.

Our children study in the local municipal school, the teachers aren't interested in the students' future, so we spend a lot getting private tuition for them. We thought, even if we send our children to a private school and pay more fees, we would still need to pay extra for private tuitions. So might as well save the school fees and use it for better tuitions. We’ve told them there’s only one thing that will make them successful -- Study! Study! Study! Sometimes they rebel -- sigh -- but I force them to study by all means necessary. 

Our house has one piped toilet and bathroom. We face water troubles though. The water supply in the area comes for only 2 hours every day, and that too at 6 am! The water is very brown in colour and there is little pressure. I barely manage to fill two buckets. But a water tanker comes every Saturday, in a temporary colony of seasonal migrants. A water mafia supplies water here – they buy it from the municipal authorities, who have some water tankers but not enough to service all the areas of the city. So the municipal water tankers tend to go to the shopping malls while the mafia operates in the slums. Saturday becomes water storage day for the Fernandez family! We go on the scooter to save time and to try to beat the queue. Some people glare at us because we’re outsiders and look better off than them. This water costs 10 times the cost of the municipal supply ! About 1/4th  of my family income goes towards water costs. But at least it’s drinkable after boiling. So I don’t complain. Thomas makes several trips to take us all back home with the water. 
 

Parvez
I am a 75-year-old retired Army General. I grew up in Mumbai, where my family counted businessmen like the Tatas as friends. I went to the prestigious Cathedral and John Connon School and later to Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics before heading off for a career in the army. I now live in a farmhouse in a Gurugram suburb with my son and his wife. I am wheelchair-bound, but my son takes great care of me. He employed two house helps and one trained caregiver exclusively to look after me. My son works long hours and Shahnaz, my daughter-in-law, keeps busy with all her charity work. Their 2 children are studying abroad -- doing really well at Harvard and Stanford. 

We have a rainwater harvester set up, a septic tank, and Shahnaz ensures we have all the latest gadgets for improving household efficiency and health. We never drink local water when we travel, we always carry enough packaged water so we are sure about the water we are drinking -- my disability doesn’t stop me from travelling and I take my entourage of carers with me. This way even they get to see new places! I stay busy keeping in touch with my friends and colleagues and travelling to interesting places, which gives me lots of stories to tell.

I am amazed at the way Shahnaz spends ages in the shower  -- she says she dreams and plans her day there, and that the flow of water makes her think clearly. We have three cars (all 4x4s), which are washed daily by our two drivers -- you know how dusty this damned country is! How much do we pay for our water supply? I have no idea, maybe my son can tell you, but to be honest I’ve never heard anyone discuss it. I’ve heard the occasional sigh when petrol prices go up but nothing about the cost of water.

Sharjeel
I am a 15-year-old boy with an amputated leg. My father is a tailor and my mother is a housewife. We live in Aman Colony, at the site of the old Idagh relief camp near Kandhla village, where our family moved after our home was destroyed in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar–Shamli communal violence. We used to have a fridge and a bathroom in our Muzaffarnagar home. I used to go to a good school. I loved it there. 

It is horrible here. We don’t have any tap in our room in the camp. There is just one hand pump for about 100 families in the Colony, and queues for water are often broken by people muscling their way through the crowd. The hand pump was set up by some local goons who tap into the free municipal water lines, but charge the residents for the water. There are no electricity or sanitation facilities. I attend a madrassa, but frankly, my heart isn’t in my studies. I spend most of my time remembering how good our Muzaffarnagar days were when I loved going to school and playing happily with my younger brother, Jamal. Jamal died a year after we moved here due to a severe attack of diarrhoea. Since then, my mother has tried her best to save money for buying candle filters. The settlement is very open, and the nearest fields are 3km away. We still use the fields every morning. There are some public toilets on the way, as we walk through the town. However, we rarely use them since they are in a Hindu area and that makes my mother feel insecure.
 

Sudha
I am 26 years old, a second-generation British Indian woman. I live with my British boyfriend Mike, in Knightsbridge, near Harrods. I studied creative writing before deciding to study law at one of the UK's most prestigious law schools (Cambridge). Like my two brothers, my private boarding school education ensured top grades. As I lived with my parents and all my needs were provided for, I had plenty of time to study for the law entrance exam and prepare for my interview. Like Mike, I am now a successful commercial lawyer in London's high-end financial district (the City). 
My parents are liberal, practising Hindus, and are members of the Hindu Forum of Britain. My father graduated from IIT Chennai and came to the UK in the 1980s to work with a prestigious engineering firm. His marriage was arranged by his family to my mother, an English graduate of Presidency College, Chennai. The families exchanged horoscopes and adhered to all the traditional values (caste observations) while negotiating the marriage; their wedding ceremony was a society affair with elaborate rituals. 

My mother became a housewife upon migrating to London. She has had a cleaner -- Adele-- who has been working for them since before I was born. They occasionally give her a raise to ensure they are always paying her the minimum wage for London. Dad retired a few years ago and continues to live in the family home in Harrow. Just like me, they too use a filter for their drinking water. I love to go to India once a year to stay for a few days with my father’s brother’s family in Chennai. My uncle has installed a grey-water recycler and they also have a septic tank, and a tube-well for 24 hour-water supply (although this is legally not allowed in that area). My family and I always drink bottled water outside the home. I pay my water-tax via direct debit but never remember how much it is because, well, it’s peanuts! Water shouldn’t really cost the earth should it? It is a basic condition of life I always say.

Sushila Devi
I am a 50-year-old illiterate Adivasi widow. I live with my son, his wife, and their three children in rural Udaipur in Rajasthan. Our family traditionally were cowherds, but a few decades ago, the state acquired the open land where we used to graze our cows, and we were left with no place to tend our cattle. The government said that they were going to use that land for development, but we never saw any development. We rented this small piece of land to grow some produce for food. But we have to give the landlord a significant amount of the harvest as rent. The rest is just about enough to feed the family once a day. 

Our only source of water is a well two hours’ walk away. My daughter-in-law and I balance three pots each on our heads and bring back water – this gives us enough water to last two days for our family of six. Although a water tanker comes near our village, we can’t afford to pay for water. We should get water for free -- I can’t understand why we have to pay for it. Who owns the rivers and the lakes? How will our village see any development when we don’t have convenient and free clean water?

We tried to make some money on the side rearing cattle, but since the new cow slaughter bill came in, this work too has suffered. We weren’t able to feed the cows, and now we aren’t allowed to sell them before they are 3 years old. So we had to let them loose. But then last year the stray cows returned to our field and wrecked the harvest. So now my son has to spend the night in the fields watching out for stray cows. However, even if he didn’t have to do this, he wouldn’t have helped with fetching the water as that is a ‘woman’s' job, after all.