Don't drink the water

For several days I'd been beset with impolite complaints of the stomach.

For several days I'd been beset with impolite complaints of the stomach. Accordingly, a lot of time was spent thinking aloud with my colleagues about how I could have contracted these stomach spasms and all that follows.
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Was it the food I ordered from Sreedevi Fast Food the other night? Darn! I knew I should not have broken my rule of not eating North Indian food anywhere south of Connaught Place even if it was from a place with a stylish name.



Illustration/ Jishu dev malakar
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But others had eaten the leftovers and were fine. So, was it because I drank too much at my friend's party the other night? No, of course not. I'm too old to be affected by that stuff (ahem). I know! It must be that sandwich I ate from that fancy coffee placeu00a0-- isn't their overpriced food always stale?

Well, whatever it was, it couldn't possibly be the p*ss-coloured water trickling out of the taps and into my intestines. I know it for sure, because first of all when I discussed it with Pushpa, the cook, she said, "No didi, it's like this everywhere." Which surely must mean it's okay. Secondly, the BMC too had said in the papers that it was only some ferrous colour thingy from the pipes, which was totally safe for humans.

Now, would the BMC lie? Yes?! Oh wash your mouth, why don't you! Don't worry. The water is perfectly safe for washing your mouth! I drink it, don't I?

So, I was one part alarmed and one part relieved on reading that, in fact, the water in our taps probably contains impermissible levels of stuff like chlorine and magnesium which can cause diarrhoea, acidity and whatnot if drunk constantly.

Alarmed because, well, am I brave enough to drink dangerous water daily? Relieved, because at least my tummy troubles are Not My Fault. I mean, everything is fine as long as it's someone else's fault and not connected to my disorganised eating and ill-advised drinking, right?

Which is why I can empathise with the BMC when it says that it is not their fault that they have not taken samples from taps (only reservoirs) because you know, this is a very common phenomenonu00a0-- "a problem typical of cities" which have "overwhelming" slum populations. So sayeth Dr Daksha Shah of the BMC.

I am sure she is right and the water in Sao Paolo is equally yellow. At such a moment, you realise how lucky we are to have poverty in India. Thankfully, there's always someone else to blame.

And aren't we lucky that despite all our disadvantage-creating and image-tarnishing and cholera-causing and water-yellowing poor, we also have nice private companies making bottled water? In fact, we don't mind giving these lying BMCs and corrupt governments to the slum people. We would prefer to have a CEO to run our world, babau00a0-- that would set a good example for all to follow also.

Also, now I'm feeling very international because I can say, just like the touristsu00a0-- Don't Drink the Water. This is a double advantage because, as everyone knows, tourists, like the BMC, are not responsible for what goes on around them in slum-ridden places where there's so much, like, local colour (even in the water, look!) and domestic help is cheap and we can all live like nawabs who occasionally order the indigestion special kebabs from Sreedevi Fast Food when in the mood to go local (no they have not paid me to plug them, but can I be blamed if I hope for a discount?).

Paromita Vohra is an award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker, writer and curator working with fiction and non-fiction. The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.

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