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A PRECIOUS DROP OF H2O
Water. Just a single drop is enough to symbolize LIFE. Water quenches our thirst, cools the body and is as essential in our daily lives as the air we breathe. Can we ever imagine a single day without water, in some form or the other? It is a life giver. Children grow up playing with water, in their bath tubs, when their mothers bathe them. So our association with water begins at a very early stage in our lives.
Yet there is a large scale misuse of this precious natural resource by people, who due to lack of proper awareness, contribute to its eventual depletion. How can we stop this? Can we ever inculcate a proper and long-time due knowledge about water’s preciousness among those who have it still but do not know the worth? We live in metropolises. We, right from school, are educated by our teachers in our Geography and Environmental Science subjects, that water has to be conserved at all costs. There seems to be a bitter truth in the saying, “Water, water everywhere/ But not a single drop to drink.” Let us shift our focus to our rural areas, the villages where the lush greenery is reason enough for the existence of a bounteous supply of natural resources. Yet sadly, it is in the villages, outside the ambit of our cityscape that the most misuse of water occurs.
The rural people hardly know about the importance or, for that matter, even the existence of water conservation projects. It forms the duty of our schools and colleges to develop programmes whereby this awareness can be spread among the villagers who are mostly illiterate. Even in cities, where the socially underprivileged children and women fall under the government’s scheme of the Anganwadi initiative, there has been a large scale propaganda regarding conservation of drinking water. It is really sad when we see wastage of water on a large scale happening everywhere. People haven’t yet realised that this precious water may be depleted from the face of the earth, if proper awareness is not inculcated among citizens here and now.
When we see people wasting drinking water by misusing it, we must immediately take steps to stop that. Because water is precious. Drinking water conservation is very important in our daily lives and the movement to save water should bring about a radical change in the way our lives are structured. We, who are the privileged classes, must undertake the initiative to build awareness to save water. Scientists in the West have already warned people that if we do not implement measures to conserve drinking water, then a day will soon arrive when there will no longer be any more drinking water to quench our thirsts. Pure drinking water is like a lifeline. DO NOT WASTE IT. We must learn its effective usage. When I look at people who continue to waste this resource by using it for performing their ablutions or people who bathe using far too much water every day, I am very much grieved. When will we learn? If at all, why not start today? If charity begins at home, then let us begin with lessons in personal and others’ hygiene.
Inadvertent usage of excess water during bath, is a routine which every other household in India experiences. We can curb that if awareness grows among the members. When we look at a glass of water kept upright upon a table, it can be viewed from two angles. From one angle, it appears half full whereas from the other, it would appear half empty. This is the conundrum on which our life is based. Our ancient scriptures have talked about this way of looking at life. Even plants need water for survival. But what is surprising is that, these leafy lives (yes, I strongly believe that plants do have a life of their own) imbibe just enough in order to grow and thrive on the mother soil. Nothing more, nothing much.
This H2O, meaning water of course, is known by various names throughout the country in the respective vernaculars. In Bangla, we call “Jal”, in Hindi “Paani”, in Tamil “Tanni” and the list is endless. The rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, so also with water. Call it by whatever name you may choose, the life-saving qualities of water remains the same. This simple combination of two molecules of Hydrogen with a single molecule of Oxygen is the reason why life is, and has been, propagating for centuries.
This is my entry for the #CuttingPaani initiative for IndiChange, being jointly hosted by Livpure and Indiblogger.
