ince I was kid, I have seen crisis of water in my locality. I grew up in a small “Muhalla” in City of Taj Mahal called Agra. Agra, as many of us might have seen, was never seen by me the same way . There was shortage of water and electricity — acute shortage. Water did not flow at all in the water pipelines provided by municipality. If by any chance water would flow in these pipelines then it was either very dirty , smelly or muddy. It hardly had any use , apart from being used for cleaning floors or being used in toilets. That’s it . 

And once in a blue moon if we got any clean water in these pipelines, then it would be guzzled up by powerful pumping motor of rich neighbors . So it never reached all the families.

So what was the choice? We had a hand-pump to pump underground clean drinking water in our “Muhalla”. This hand-pump was installed outside a nearby temple. So everybody would flock there in numbers throughout the day. 

My elder brother and myself was also one of them — to fetch clean water for drinking and washing utensils. And we fetched it for ourselves, for neighborhood Chachi ji and Bua ji !!. Also, whenever we were there — we two young boys — all the Aunties there will ask us to pump the water and they happily filled theirs buckets and “Matkas”. They blessed us obviously. 

We would finally fetch water for our self. To avoid such daily routines and avoid Aunties , we changed our timing . We started going to our dear Hand-pump during two good times when there was hardly anybody else. One was in the night time at 11 PM daily . And one during the Mahabharata serial. 

This was the time when importance of water was hardly felt by any body. I and my brother also realized how important is “planning the good timing of time” . Remember the starting line in Mahabharata Serial “Mai Samayan hoon” . To avoid any other trip during the day, we ensured to fill all the utensils available in our house — small bowls, big bowls, cooking bowls , cooker, glasses , buckets etc.

So, due to this scarcity, we were always concerned with the usage of water. Whole objective was not to waste it. So we became one bucket users from those days. We never used more than a bucket while bathing.

Today so many years have passed . I came to metro city Gurugram after completing my Engineering. Even in my new metro city I always honored the idea of one bucket. I have showers in my two bathrooms. But idea of using water to enjoy the bath has never excited me.

And look, people have started talking about saving water here also. But I never wasted it !! And why I am facing this anxiety again. Now-a-days when ever I take bath, I look at my blue bucket getting filled with water and I start thinking what else ??

These feelings were being felt in last few days. Yesterday, I was walking in the morning under heavy clouds . It was a daily routine walk in the garden located just outside our society.This garden is spread our more than 2 KM. 

I had hardly walked for 200 meters and it started raining slowly and then heavily. I thought of covering myself somewhere under a tree, but it was too late and I was completely drenched. Initially I was worried but then I loved it as I felt that today I would take bath not with one bucket but many buckets poured on to me by Rain God. And felt that I was given a prize or a gift by my nature.

I was too happy and looked on in awe because I thought for a while that it was just me , green grass , trees , clouds and rain . I looked around. There was hardly any body and few people I could see were standing in a small shed with some benches under it. I asked myself why ?? 

Yes, they were waiting for the rain to stop so that they could go back and enjoy their shower in their bathrooms. I think they were still not one bucket users.