About 20 years ago, when my family and I had first made the move from Saudi Arabia to India, and settled down in Hyderabad, and the water supply over here (especially in my area; it was a newly developing colony, and we’d all get our water from the bore wells that we’d have to get dug, or the municipal supply tankers that would come to your house and fill it up for you—which would be once a week, every week, at least until the summers lasted—for a certain fee of course) was not as efficient as it is now… now-a-days, we have our own water connections that the government had installed back around 2001, and what a relief that was, to not be calling up someone else and waiting for the tanker to come and fill your sump (what we here refer to as an underground tank).But in all fairness, the guy who was in-charge of all of this, happened to be the son of the man who’d installed the water connection at my father’s elder brother’s place, who my dad had hired when he was getting his house constructed. So he’d always make sure that the water would be supplied to us within the hour, whenever we’d call up, so life was pretty sweet until now. It’s what happened last, last Tuesday that started causing us problems; the underground pipe that was joined to the main line which was connected to our end of the colony had burst, unbeknownst to us, and the drainage water was now seeping into the water supply.
My mom and I had noticed the change in the water colouration whenever we’d go to open the sump and check the water level every morning, and just assumed that it was not the thing that was on the top of both of our minds, but just as a precaution we’d stopped using the water and started getting the Bisleri distilled water bottles for all our needs. And then, when finally a strange pungent smell started emanating from the source, we knew this was perhaps something that we were going to have to get someone involved with, and complain to.
So that’s just what my mother ended up doing for the next 5-6 days straight, and finally, someone decided to take our complaints seriously enough to send some people from the Metropolitan office, that looks after all the water of the city, to our place. They came, they saw, and they conquered—yeah, which is to say, after about 5 days, when every one’s water supply was almost nil now, they ended up sending one tank of 5 thousand litres of water that had to be distributed amongst all of us after finding the breakage in the pipe and fixing it… and you know what ended up happening, the thug from across the street ended up emptying a majority of the water into his place, and sent just the last few slivers to us—the Water-runner.
So, there we were now, with maybe 1/6th of the level of water in our sump, and had to spend a day or two until this problem had been resolved, right… wrong. Weren’t you paying attention (which I am a king in doing sometimes, okay, MOST of the times) but if it took them the better part of a week just to get here to solve the problem, what on god’s green earth gave me the idea that it would take them any shorter now to solve our current predicament. So, what started off as 1 day, dragged on to 2, and then 3, and as we were nearing the fourth—we knew we were going to have to start to do something about this soon, until the water lasted…
So mom and dad got on the phone again and were trying there darndest to resolve the situation: first trying to get in touch with the water department and asking them when the water would be back, and then giving up hope and deciding to get together with some of the other colony members and complaining to the Home Minister of our State, who just happened to live a few metres down the road… she would surely help us… yeah, fat chance, suckers. Because the next thing you know, everyone had started ordering their own water tankers to come to their places and fill up their water, not before they’d cleaned their sumps obviously… I know my mom had—she had our maid come over with her husband and give the “TAAKI” (another hindi word, meaning tank—I thought I’d teach anyone actually reading all this shit some hindi, if I could)… a nice little scrub down, and by the end of it, man—was it looking CLEAN, like PRISTINE, clean.
Mom was happy and so was I, but we didn’t actually know how clean it’d be until we started filling it up with water, which was another ordeal in itself to get the water tanker to come to our place, because of the huge waiting lines you’d be submerged in while calling the Water Works to get some water—a wait of three days, minimum, if you were lucky that is—otherwise, 7, or maybe even eight—shudder. So after making our trips to the metropolitan board, and the water supplies, and almost everywhere else where we could get the water from (we were running a water shortage, as usual, not that it would ever be a problem for me since we had the government tap to take care of us, so I would never give it a second thought, to see all those people running after the water tankers, and forming lines behind it to get their cans and utensil filled, and sometimes even scuffles breaking out—man against man, woman against woman, and sometimes—one against the other; it would be rough). And now I knew why… without water, without life, you were nothing.
So, after the constant calling and calling and calling, my mother was finally able to get in touch with a guy who said he’d take the order, but she’d have to pay him a little extra, like 600 bucks compared to the 400 that they usually charged, and she said fine—just as long as she’d get the water. Our water had been running on fumes, and we were now reduced to the last few gallons, so if not today, we’d have to go kaput… we’d already started to use the overhead tank that we had only for the bare essentials, like going to the toilet, and washing the dishes with the least amount of water possible…
And so, on Sunday, the driver promised to come after 9 with his truck and fill the water. And around 8, 8:30, we got the call that he was on his way. My dad went and stood outside the gate incase he’d have to go and get him from wherever he was, and I decided to go and join him… after standing there for 15 minutes or so, dad said he had to go inside for a minute, and left his cell with me, and as I’m waiting there and turning my head around at everything that sounds even faintly like a truck, I get his call… he was waiting for me on the main road, and I said I’d be right there, and since I can’t run anymore ever since my accident—this was the first time that I was striding down the road as fast as I could, and there he was, just round the bend—and I motioned for him to come forward.
After I’d guided the truck into our gate, the guy who was driving the truck jumped down, with his friend—they were, what, 18/19 years old—nice chaps, fooling around with each other, and I forgot how much I enjoyed these brief encounters, back when these truckers would come to our place almost on a weekly basis. They weren’t this young back them, but ever since the demand for water had skyrocketed to what it has today, I guess anyone with a license was welcome… the driver did end up going over the small-brick-cement mound as he was trying to maneuver his machine into place—but heck, I didn’t care, just as long as we were getting the water today… the guy who’d booked the tanker for mom had called her back and told her that she didn’t have to pay the 600, just the 4, so I told dad to slip these guys a fifty so that the next time we need ‘em, they’ll come, and dad said, yeah, and so after the water was filled to the brim, the guys started to pull out of the gate, and Ravi, the guy who was talking to me on the phone came forward and I told him to step inside the gate and dad paid him the 400 for the water, and a fifty for the two of them.
And as they were leaving I asked Ravi if he had a card that I could call him on if I ever needed some more water, and he said, sure, and then he said, just get in touch with me on the number I’d just dialed you on, and I said okay. Ah, water—what people have to do to get it sometimes.
