The water scarcity problem in IISc is now well known, and I must say, has faced with the consequence that is faced by most of the problems in our country – getting accepted! It is no sooner winter than there isn’t any water in the hostels. Come summer and we will be bathing in the sand like the way a sparrow does. (For shitting, we can of course use the millions of unknown, unseen and un-habituated wild nooks spread across the huge campus, never mind!)
Fresh male admissions here always are put up in pigeon holes on a sharing basis, collectively called E-block. There they are not entitled to have water for 24 hours, irrespective of whether it is summer, winter or monsoon. And when the sun is about to set behind those myriad species of trees in the lush green campus, students of E-block for fear of Daku Gabbar (read absence of water) either go to sleep, or decide to spend the rest of the night in their respective labs itself. One productive way of increasing the amount of research I must say!
Hence, while the rest of India sees ragging by students (read bullies), the best educational institute in the country witnesses a special scenario, where such intolerant behavior to fresh admissions is incurred by the authorities themselves!
And most of the times it is the drinking water that finishes first. Which brings me to my own story.
Yes, of course I am not a philanthropist to pen down a story for public interest. It is what is happening around me that has troubled me, and helped me overcome my hard-wired laziness. There is no drinking water in my hostel Mrigasira since the last 6 days. And you might find it a little difficult to believe, but which is nonetheless true, that not a single plumber has paid a visit to the hostel yet!
For the first two days, I relied on my fellow wing-mate who had been kind enough to fetch me water from another hostel, realizing that I have a torn ligament in my left knee. Next day, I thought it would not be good on my part to ask for her favor everyday. So I went to Ashwini. In Bengali there is a saying that says that only a boy with a poor vision has names like padma-lochan (The lotus-eyed one). Pardon me for being audacious, but all the five ladies’ hostels here in the best educational institute in the country, are in an analogous fashion, named after Mahanakshatras (Great astronomical stars). Ashwini had given up the next day. No water there!
So I thought now that I have gotten started, let me check with some other hostel. Rohini I went. Now here, let me digress a bit, and tell you more about Rohini. This is the only ladies’ hostel that allows the entry of men! You must be thinking that the authorities perform a ‘maturity test’ before allocating girls to this hostel! The criterion is not that, not your age either. It is – ‘how long have you been staying in this institute’. Of course, some of the Rohini inmates are lucky enough to have their rooms there in their freshie year also, for, the other more profound criteria are the whims and wishes of the person who has the duty (read right) to allocate rooms!
Rohini, with its bigger and better rooms, I am afraid, had no drinking water either! So I went to Krithika. (This is the same hostel from which my kind wing-mate had brought water for me the previous two days). So I thought at least Krithika won’t disappoint me. But when I started filling water, I saw that the ‘processing’ button is always on, and the green button for ‘purified water’ never lights up! What?? This is so misleading! I had drunk this unpurified water the other night! Oh my God! (And hail my stomach, for not upsetting me!)
So next I am left with only one option (unless I intended to come all the way to lab giving my injured knee some exercise, of course) - Bharani. ‘Dear Mother Ganges, please supply me with drinking water today, I promise I will send my parents to Haridwar next year!” said I, a silent prayer. And yes! Bharani had water! Yeppie! I filled all my four bottles with happiness! Done for the day!
Next chapter. Come another day. And the same story! This time, the watchman told me there is no drinking water in any of the hostels! I decided not to venture out and come straight to the lab. And guess what? For lunch, we were not given bowls because they couldn’t be washed due to lack of water!
I remembered my good old IITBombay days! Yes we had space problems, but at least the authorities were kind enough to provide us flats instead! In an individual hostel, we had coolers and water purifiers every wing and every floor! There was no separate treatment for fresh admissions. And every individual hostel had its own mess, its own students’ council, its own mess manager, hall manager, two helpers, and an associate warden and a warden who would be professors! Where the watchman would check the luggage of all the workers in order to ensure there is no stealing of food or any other items that are meant for and paid by the students.
Can’t accept this! Can’t accept! I must at least lodge a complaint! For the last three days I had only been asking the watchman whether a complaint has been lodged and felt happy when he said yes! But no. Let me check it myself today!
I called the water supply department.
“Hello, there is no drinking water in Mrigasira since Friday. Can you do something about it?”
“Which hostel madam?”
“Mrigasira!”
“Hello”
“There is no drinking water! Could you send a plumber?”
“Which hostel madam?”
“Mrigasira, I said!”
“What?” (And then I remembered the unique way of addressing hostels here!)
“M-block, M-block” I almost shouted.
“Ok madam, I will send someone!” – thapak! End of the call….
Call at the hostel office…. Ring! Ring! Ring! And Ring! No one bothered to lift the call! Smart people!
What is the problem? I asked the watchman again. And he told me that it is a supply problem!
Now water supply problem in Bangalore looks very mysterious to me. My brother had stayed here for 2 years in BTM layout, and had never ever complained about water! My friend from the IT industry stays in Whitefield, and he seems to be unaware. My friend who is a research staff in Nimhans, Koramangala, had never faced such a problem. The distribution of supply seems a little strange. We have heard from our professors that the institute pays the BWSSB a lot for water supply. Awards galore at their website: http://www.bwssb.org/
Lets do some study, and forget about this, thought I. Came to lab. My fellow lab-mate, a victim of the E-block, met me on the way, and a traveler in the same boat, he realized immediately by seeing all the bottles in my hand. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
“No water, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah, don’t ask!”
“But now it must have come…even in E block there was no water, but now it has come!”
“No water as in, not even for bath?”
“Nope!”
“Then?”
“Then what? We waited till now, and took bath, and now coming to lab”.
What should be my state of mind now? Should I feel lucky that at least I could take bath in the morning, or should I feel sorry my friend, and at least another hundred like him, who had to wait till 4 o’clock for getting water for bathing!
Time for studying now….regularity, eating, sleeping, drinking water (kudos to the rich department for fitting aqua guard at all the labs)….end of the day.
Next morning, I woke up with a fear that I might find the taps running dry! But thank God, they weren’t. But no drinking water, as usual! I had to take all my bottles and start out on a venture.
Wait. Can I not find two minutes to actually lodge a complaint with the hostel office itself?
History tells us, that we Indians are very peace-loving (read lazy enough to always accept things the way they are). But can I not change myself at least for a day?
“promise you would be polite, promise you wont fight!” I said to myself!
“May I come in?” I asked in the hostel office. There were four rooms, and I made a random choice.
“Yes”
“See Sir, there is no drinking water in Mrigasira since Friday, and it has been 6 days now. No action has been taken, and I have come with all my bottles. You please tell me where to fill them?”
“You see, we have our own jurisdictions. The hostel office chairman is going to come at 2.30 to look into the issue!”
What??? Jurisdictions? How long does it take for someone to at least enquire what’s wrong? Am I going to remain thirsty till 2.30?? I could almost feel blood rushing to my brain!
“patient, patient” I told myself.
“Would you tell me how long does it take to take a step?” I asked.
“There is no point in arguing with me, madam. You can come and talk to the chairman at 2.30!”
“But I am not in this institute to complaint to the chairman! I have to attend classes at 2.30!”
“There is no point talking to me madam. We are looking into the matter. The chairman will sit at 2.30 today for solving the water issues. We have our own jurisdictions!”
“But it has already been 6 days!”
“We have done the best we could do!”
The ‘best’? Did I hear correctly? The ‘best’? Is this what he said? I couldn’t control my natural emotion, which ultimately came out of my mouth with a lot of hurt, and shame!
“If this is the best that the best educational institution in the country can do, it feels sorry to be here!”
And I started running away. And while running, I could see that, like many street fights in our country, we had an audience!
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
We have been lucky. Most of us have not seen the worse. Most of us here in this institute are good students who have been caressed by their parents, praised by their teachers, brought up in all cozy comforts and who have set examples for their younger followers. We are here for our research.
But above all this, with my badly hurt heart now, I realize one truth that surpasses and raises above all petty mundane things that we indulge ourselves in everyday. That making a difference is not easy! That adding more meaning to life is not easy! That facing a problem is not easy! That NOT putting blame on others is not easy! We, who are very common mortals, on either side of the table, are not very different from each other. And together are we. Together we rise. Together we solve a problem.
Yes I am writing this for myself and my own interest. Because I am THE PUBLIC.
