Water world

As for drinking water, I get a weekly supply of bottled water. Come on, stop smiling. It8217;s better than that piped stuff. Yeah, I8217;m sure it8217;s full of pesticide, too, but at least it has been filtered somewhere. I8217;m trained, I suppose, to tackle contingencies like this. 8220;In a disaster zone, drink tea,8221; they used to tell us at journalism school at Orissa. Soon, we even had the chance to put our survival training to practical use. The Super Cyclone of 1999 made sure we had nothing else to wash down our Haldiram8217;s soan papdi,, the only packed food available, but tea. Apart, of course, from carbonated drinks. There weren8217;t many takers for colas in Orissa until then 8212; they were just too expensive. However, after hearing the horror stories that the catastrophe bought in its wake most of them associated with water in one way or the other, we all made a beeline for any drinkable liquid 8220;safely bottled8221; before the cyclone.

But that was seven years ago. This is my first summer in Delhi, and I am already dreaming of the wells back home in coastal Kerala, which used to nearly spill over after the bounty of every monsoon. We took that water so much for granted, cursing it for smelling of moss. Now, it seems, the Almighty is taking his revenge on me. Otherwise why would he subject me to the torture of having to bathe in water that reminds me of a particular sewer in downtown Kochi? I distinctively remember my chemistry teacher observing that the smell was that of a sulphuric compound.

I8217;ve been vaccinated against Hepatitis, but I8217;m still afraid of all the underworld connections my glass of water here has made before emerging from my tap. Give me a glass of pesticide anyday!