08 November 2012, 09:32 AM IST
A few days ago I attended a function at a 5-star hotel not too far from my home. While everything else was open to debate - parking rush, food, service - what I really fell for was the quality of air inside the air-conditioned premises and the quality of the water in the toilets. Both were, to put it in one word, sparkling. Incidentally, this was a function on social entrepreneurs, helping the poor.
Subsequently, I asked a friend of mine, who used to be a Chief Engineer in the Merchant Navy and was now working for another 5-star hotel, how they managed it, where did they get this ultra clean air from. Don't ask, he said, it starts off as the same polluted air and scarce water, and then sat down to explain to me the intricate way in which they ensured clean air inside the hotel premises, the preferential supply of water, the pumps, compressors, filters, treatment involving passing air through water, and water through air, and more. And he also gave me an idea of the costs involved.
As a matter of fact, he said, the water in their toilets is probably cleaner than the bottled mineral water the rest of us buy, because some foreign guests have been known to take samples and test them. Before and after washing their rears and brushing their teeth and dousing their hands.
So, now it is out - the rich and the wealthy, the powerful and the elite, they can have access to cleaner air and water too. For their faces and for their butts. For their nostrils and their teeth. Even for their toenails.
Meanwhile, for the last few weeks, the air quality in Delhi has been going from bad to worse. You can now bite the dust in the air for nutrition it seems. What comes in the official announcements can not hide the truth anymore - speak to a traffic policeman and hear what they have to say. Nobody likes "point" duty at busy intersections anymore, twenty minutes at a time is about the best they can achieve.
And where I live, in a "posh" part of Delhi also known as DefCol, we've been blessed with the worst air quality ever in Delhi's history, aided by the multiple arterial roads that surround us. And no municipal water in the last 4 days.
So what do you do when you get no municipal water? And the newly re-constucted "commercial" buildings all appear to have borewells sucking water out from around 50-70 metres below the surface?
You approach the Delhi Jal Board. They have "water emergency centres" all over town.
But first - went to the nearby pumping station - and got some wild rumour about water supply not coming from behind, possibly due to issues that the Delhi Government has with another state government. As of now that sounds fake.
Went to the Greater Kailash Delhi Jal Board emergency centre. Greeted by line after line of unused water tankers. Man at the counter says no shortage our end, enough water for everybody, please go to Lajpat Nagar, DefCol comes under that. Enough water here, please feel free to have a bath if you wish, tempted. But we can't send our DJB/GK water tankers to DJB/Lajpat Nagar. Why not?
Went to Lajpat Nagar Jal Vihar area. Greeted by another polite gentleman, who offered me a register in which to have my complaint noted, and got information that this lack of water supply is likely to continue till Diwali. Or more. Why? No idea. Only one water tanker here, missing a headlamp, out of order, rest not available, sorry.
Asked around some more. a disgruntled gent outside told me that the DJB tankers are all out on "private duty", refilling water into private tankers. Where do you get private tankers from? Nearby Krishna Market, ask anybody, so we went there.
At Krishna Market, rate without pump is about a thousand rupees for 5000 litres, extra for pumo, how much do you want? In the not so far distance, a DJB tanker truck is refilling into smaller private tanker trucks.
Make phone call to water emergency number. There is no shortage, I am told. Obviously a new fiction writer has been born.
Returning back, saw traffic policemen trying to nab drunk drivers under the DefCol/Jungpura flyover, the dust conditions there were extremely terrible. So terrible, in fact, that one could not see them through the Dickensian gloom. Tempted to have a beer. The booze shops are still open, till late.
Oh yes. Reforms are here.
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