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BOTTOMS UP!
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Everybody hit the bottle! Money flows like water, quite literally, says ZIYA US SALAM.
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THE BOTTLE OF COMFORT: Quench your thirst for a price on the streets of the Capital. Photos: V. Sudershan.
THESE DAYS Shabana Azmi exhorts us all to save two buckets of water every day. We also have political leaders sitting on a dharna because the water tariff has been hiked. And every other day we have those pictures of residents queuing up to fill their pitchers and buckets from public dispensers. Yes, every summer, water dries up in the city and leaves the residents with parched throats. Heat, heat everywhere and not much to drink. That is the fate of Delhiities, year after hot year.
But it was not always that way. Many summers ago, when the college goers of today were not born, when the staid uncles and aunties of sarkari daftar were in their teens, Delhi used to have a problem of plenty. Almost every other intersection in Old Delhi, Nizamuddin and Mehrauli used to have bhishtis, the water carriers who made a living selling bowls of cool water in the baking heat of the Capital. Yes, hardly anybody noticed them, simply because everybody took them for granted. As surely as the faithful proceed for Friday prayers in Old Delhi or the tourist longs for a view from the upper tier of the Qutab Minar, the bhishtis would always be there. A water skin (mashak) on their back, their sinewy frame stretched to the limit, they would strike a sweet jingle with their katoras - yes, there were no glasses used for serving water then - and people would help themselves to a quick drink before moving on. The water was always cool and not too many bothered about its source.
Sometimes, the mashaks were used to wash the city clean before the arrival of an important dignitary. But things change. Now there is little water to fulfil household needs, forget washing the road! And gradually, the faceless bhishtis went away. Where? Nobody bothered to find out as the age of refrigerated cold water swamped all others. Out went the bhishtis. In came the carts selling "machine ka thanda pani" at 5 paise per glass. The old-timers squirmed: They are selling water! We used to get it free in our childhood!
Refrigerated water
But what was this "refrigerated cold water" business? Well, these were simply aluminium or brass water tanks atop an iron cart on wheels. A slab of ice was usually dropped in to make the water cold, though it was seldom clean, filled as the tank was from the roadside tap! Some of the sellers acquired a posh look by attaching an umbrella to the trolley. It kept them cool and their lemons, which were an add-on for the rich, reasonably fresh. In those early days of cosmopolitan living, some were uncomfortable with the practice of having water from a glass that had just been used to serve somebody else, and had, at best, been only perfunctorily cleaned. The notions of caste, religion and class sat uncomfortably with many, though the need to have a drink often prevailed over grandma's wisdom!
A couple of decades of brisk business later, the water trolleys too are on their way out. At least in upmarket areas of New Delhi. Gone is probably the last sign of the bhishtis too. Now, like hunger, it is to each his own for quenching the thirst too. This is the age of selling packaged mineral water in a country where many thousands don't earn in a day what a few hundreds spend in procuring a couple of Bisleri - yes, mineral water, is still called Bisleri by many - bottles. The bottles are not biodegradable, nor is the water source unimpeachable. Also missing is the convenience of procuring fresh and clean water at an intersection, outside a place of worship, at a tourist destination, at a wedding party. In this age of multinationals, gone are peace, tradition and culture. Now everybody can have his own drink, his own way. No question of sharing it with anybody. No caste or class prejudice. All fine. Matters little that questions were raised about many companies offering `mineral' water. There were complaints about purity, there were allegations of contamination. Yet, Delhiites continued apace with their bottled water buying spree, paying at times even a hundred times more than what it cost the manufacturer. Gone is the camaraderie, the frequent exhortations of the bhishtis, the cries of the water trolley-wallahs. Local economics losing out to international business. In Delhi, once more it is to each his own, the individual paramount, the society subservient.
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