I don’t quite remember how we produced the two invisible, odourless gases (there are various ways, check YouTube) but I do remember the conclusion of the experiment. We opened the tall, seemingly empty beaker and put a match to it. There was a pale blue flash, and a WHUMP, which made us jump back hastily. And then approached it warily… there, on the walls of the beaker were a few drops of water, seemingly produced out of nothing. It was miraculous. Of course, the two gases involved were hydrogen and oxygen, probably mixed in a 2:1 ratio.
But here was a substance – in liquid form without which no life on earth would be possible. Water. They say 60 per cent of our bodies are made of water, over 70 per cent of our brains and hearts are water and 80 per cent of our blood. If we lose even 2 or 3 per cent of this, we are dead of dehydration. We can go without food for days and weeks, for water, not more than 2-3 days. We cook with it, cool with it and revel in it.
Every form of life is dependent on water, from microscopic plankton, plants, to giant redwoods, bacteria, insects, reptiles, amphibians, fish and mammals. As much as 70 per cent of the planet’s surface is covered with it, providing an environment in which a whole host of creatures and plants live. Though only 3 per cent of the world’s water is ‘fresh’ (and so potable), it seems enough. Much of it remains locked up in solid ice packs, miles deep, on the poles, and the high mountain ranges like the Himalayas, gradually melting into liquid form that trickles down as streams, and then broadens into rivers, spilling into lakes – before returning to the ocean. Over land, the liquid is sucked up by trees and forests, and much of it released back into the air in the form of vapour, only to cool and pour down as rain.
And as it is so indispensable, the best place to observe wildlife is over a waterhole or water-body in the jungle. A sudden downpour after months of dry weather, will see animals and birds of all sorts flock to it: sometimes their thirst is so great that a lion and a deer will drink their fill at the same time. Thirst can be maddening: on a restricted liquid diet (1-1.2 litres/day) I have never felt thirstier; not so much because I needed it but because I couldn’t have it. If you are ever stranded in a rainforest or baking desert – like our survival heroes on TV – the ‘first order of business’ is always to find a source of fresh (boiled for 20 minutes) water, followed by food and shelter.
A lake at sunset (Ranjit Lal)
Sadly, our treatment of this magic elixir beggars belief. We pee and poo in our rivers and lakes, industries gout huge quantities of toxic chemicals and heavy metals into them, we dump enormous quantities of plastic into our oceans, not to mention oil and grease. Every major (and probably) minor river in India is nothing but an open sewer, glutinous with sludge and stinking of decay, often all neatly covered up in a toxic layer of foam. In this, we bathe, do our laundry, drink and conduct our rituals. There is certainly no joy in immersing the ashes of a loved one in a river you can smell before you see.
And yes, we believe that some rivers – like our Ganges – have the power to absolve our sins, to cleanse us. Hence, have a holy bath and be sin-free. No one asks, of course, if that gives us the licence to commit even more evil, which we can wash away with another dip!
Teamed up with gravity, water makes a weapon of mass destruction that is virtually unmatchable. And by hacking down forests, damming rivers and telling them where to flow, occupying river basins, blowing up mountain-slopes, we have aided and abetted this deadly liaison. And when water gets mad it takes no prisoners.
Even under normal circumstances, angry water can be awesome. Watch monsoon rollers thunder up a beach and you can virtually sense they have evil on their minds. To whisk you away and take you under… Those same waves, during a benign winter will sigh at your feet and expire, in a delicate frill of foam and bubbles.
Water can be utterly beautiful too: a waterfall pouring down a sheer cliff face, a lake at sunset as still and clear as glass, raindrops plinking down in puddles, drops like pearls condensing on windows or eyelashes, silver droplets sploshing into underground lakes, filtered and distilled by their passage through the rocks above it.
Step out early enough and you may see leaves with their edges coroneted with tiny round pearls of water – guttation – the extra they do not need, or on a dewy morning when resting dragonflies turn into pieces of jewellery.
Water’s greatest talent, of course, is its ability to dissolve practically everything – everything which enables us to live. It is a medium of transport par excellence, sucked up by roots and tree trunks and surging through our circulatory system carrying blood around, and even life-giving gases like oxygen, from which it was born.
All life emerged from water billions of years ago. Some forms evolved enough to eventually crawl onto dry land and make a living there, but remained ever-dependent on it.
As for us, on a hot summer’s day, there’s nothing to beat a chilled bottle of beer with condensation pearling on its sides.
Water droplets on the surface of a leaf (Ranjit Lal) 
A lake at sunset (Ranjit Lal)
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