Bang Bang Galore!
A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg
Blog 10
In Bangalore, the end of dry season means the landscapes are parched, water reservoirs are shallow and people here are acutely aware of their water consumption. Mio’s shower serves five people including me and the flow of water from the nozzle is sometimes barely a trickle. If my shampoo produces too much lather, I stand under the shower- head in various poses and ring my hands around my body and repeatidly slide the excess soap to the floor. The shower only a few minutes, but it does the trick. I feel energized and clean: it’s an easy lifestyle adjustment.
Morning is definitely the time for bathroom usage because in the afternoons, the toilets don’t flush and the sinks are dry. While I am in school, I use the non- flush urinals and when I am on the streets, I have been known to urinate in stagnant open water sewers.
It is the first time in my life that I am able to count on how much water I am consuming on a daily basis. In my routine, bi-weekly laundry is by far my biggest water hog. My wardrobe for this trip is pared down to the essentials. I arrived here with three T-shirts, two pairs of khaki coloured cargo shorts and six boxer shorts. It is a modest wardrobe, but the brightly coloured boxers present a slight problem, because it forces to fill up a second bucket of water so the deep colours don’t bleed on my pastel shirts.
I am drinking bottled water like an addict. Kinley is a Coke subsidiary and Aquafina is part of the Pepsi conglomerate. Sot its Coke versus Pepsi here, just like back home. I hate supporting multinationals, but somehow I feel more secure drinking American brands. I brush my teeth with bottled water and sometimes when I am lost in thought, I mistakenly rinse my mouth with tap water. Luckily my stomach doesn’t seem to mind the odd indiscretion.
Mio and Tak assure me that I am being neurotic about drinking water. They began drinking local tap water immediately after they arrived here and are both the picture of health. In fact, none of the people I know here consume bottled water, but it is obvious that there are lots of consumers, because I see ribbed plastic empties floating everywhere.
A few months ago, I met an American woman who teaches English at an International school in Bangalore. She tried to begin a recycling program for plastic bottles, but the project soon fizzled due to lack of political will. Recycling is not a hot button here, probably because it does not create wealth. It is often the poor people who handle garbage; an elderly brittle woman in an open field, stokes the fires of tiny mound of garbage. There are noxious fumes wafting through the air while she drops more plastic bottles into the small fire.
All the kids at Born Free know that I am never without a bottle of water in my knapsack. On a hot day, I am a convenient fountain. Faisal knows I have a soft spot for him and he often points his thumb towards his mouth indicating, he is parched. I raise the bottle high in the air and pour water in his mouth as if I were pouring wine in a goblet.
His lips never touch the bottle; the other kids follow suit and before you know it, I have gone through another one litre bottle.
At times, I imagine myself as a parent to one of these kids. Surely, I would not drink bottled water and allow them to drink from a tap. Yes, there is always the argument that drinking from a tap is more problematic for a foreigner, because it will create stomach havoc. But I am lucky I have the choice to drink what I deem healthy for me. The kids whom I teach do not have the same options.
Water privitization is a frequent newspaper headline here. The rich will always be able to afford cleaner water, a claim, privitization supporters find hard to dispute. My water usage here is minimal when compared with my lifestyle back home and even though my eco-foot print is decreasing in size, I am sure there are plenty of others in this country who see my water intake as extravagant.
