So much water has flown down the drain since Holi. But the hue and cry involving the self proclaimed environmentalists and protagonists of restricted use of water for celebrating Holi, hasn't gone down. I agree - water conservation is a must, because the supply of potable fresh water is not unlimited and doesn't come cheap either. But does a reduced Holi with a reduced shower make any tangible difference in water conservation. I don't think so.
Holi is once in a year event, doesn't come every week or month. During my growing up days, I would wait for days for this day, to shower in color and fun, though often stuff happened which may not be so funny. (Once due to a death in family, all I could do was helplessly took a vicarious pleasure of watching others having fun through window railings). Those days many used unsafe sticky colors made from Varnish (Silvery glazing white color) and reportedly from ALKATARA (pitch black color made from tar).
Like a Pariah dog who steps into a different territory is harassed by their local stray brethren, once on a fine Holi morning couple of us strayed into our rival's territory and overpowered by them, who feasted on us by embalming our face with a liberal dosage of Varnish. We managed to come out from their clutch, not before we were looking like a Haired Mandrill, a Silvery-White version of Donald Trump.
Humiliated we came back and prepared for our revenge, stalking them when they came closer to our locality. With a few burly friends backing up, our retaliation came swift. One of our friends supplied us with BATTERY KALA (a black paste supposedly made from battery). No sooner than they arrived, we surrounded them. Revenge is best served in cold - coolly we reciprocated their hostility by smearing them with that cold, pitch black stuff. In a graceful appreciation of them making us Trump lookalike, we made them look like Obama, with their shiny white teeth protruding out of their jet black face.
And there was this MUNDA PHATA RANGA (head cracking color) - as the name symbolizes, when applied, endless stream of color comes out of your head. Before you can clean that stuff, ending up consuming tons of water.
But I doubt such kind of Holi is played these days. I believe on water conservation. For Shit, Shower and Shave, I have installed reduced water friendly gadgets at home, avoiding continuous water running from faucet during shaving. I live happily with the motto - that grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. So never mind keeping my lawn a lesser lush green by not using the sprinklers, unless we have a real dry spell, letting mother nature do the rest. The inflated pool on my backyards which holds a lot of rain water accumulated through winter. Now I have planted some seeds and sapling, but water them by using the stored water from the inflated pool.
Though frugal on using water, when occasion comes I don't mind, at least couple of times a year, switch on the sprinkler or fill the inflated pool for my son and his friends to play. We don't use the Varnish and Tar Black paste these days, so it won't hurt me to use an extra 10 to 15 gallon of fun, as long as I pay my water bills. Can't we have occasional fun and enjoy Holi, a once a year phenomenon with 10-15 extra liters of water ? Come one, when can we ever get rid of such socialist mindset.
In this circumstances, the fashionable preaching of water conservation by playing a scaled down version of Holi doesn't hold any water. Rather than preaching about reduced water consumption during Holi, they should focus on arid areas south of Vindyas where water retention and myriad places all over, where the Water Table is dangerously depleted. But what a B-Grade Bollywood actress with a faltering career, the chief protagonist of this Holier Than Thou theory is doing, is to stay in the news. If tomorrow she is offered an item number to dance hours under potable water sprinkled all over her, she won't mind, Water Conservation be damned.
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