Neighbours and Water

(written 2-3 years ago)

They say that World War III will be due to water, but some people just don’t care.

I have a neighbour next to my house, and for four years, that I’ve been here, their tank has been overflowing every time there is supply of corporation water.

It’s one of those things that really irritate me. How can one know that they’re wasting water and not do anything about it? I have told them personally, asked my parents to convey the message, and even bothered them in early hours for some days continuously, to simply fix a valve!

A valve isn’t one of those expensive, high-tech kind of instrument that needs a lot of effort, energy or money to install. It is simple and easily available. They have three men in the house, two of them are engineers (ahem!), who could’ve easily done the job in five to ten minutes. And if they didn’t want to do it themselves, they can easily afford a plumber too.

But no, it appears that they just don’t want to!

Each time I approach them, I try to be polite, (for it is not advisable to damage relationships with neighbours), and tell them to install a ball valve. Once I even gave them a speech in their language, (the best I could), about how so many people on earth don’t even have access to clean drinking water, let alone for basic hygiene, and that it was so very wrong of them to waste the same precious resource this way!

After this too, I’ve tried talking to the ‘educated members’ of their family, the head of the family, and when this too didn’t work, I merely yelled about sinners, hell and dying of thirst through the window every time I heard the water overflow.

I don’t think they care at all! (And by the way, I wonder what this says about education.)

I’ve thought of sending them a false threat from BWSSB that they will not get water any more unless they get a valve fixed. Next, I thought of complaining to BWSSB about it, but my parents thought that they would not care either. What a system! Talk about abuse of subsidies! The poor in the slums have one common tap every few blocks and irregular water supply whereas the rich have a tap in every room that can run 24/7! Isn’t the whole point of subsidies lost?

But what on earth does one do about all this? Please do tell me.

Just yesterday morning as I woke up, I heard the loud pouring patter outside. I got so livid that I would’ve gone up on the terrace and started bombing them with the most vile curses I knew till they woke up! But fortunately my Dad stopped me. That wasn’t the way. I thought later about what else I could possibly do about it.

The pen had better be mightier than the sword.