In the busy bye-lanes of R T Nagar in Bengaluru, tanker lorries jostle for space on the small roads where small business owners, push carts and pedestrians try to make their way. As the summer peaks, the tanker lorries do brisk business, the demand for drinking water rises with the rising temperature.

After all, none of the apartment owners or tenants have bothered to follow the BBMP diktat of installing rain water harvesting or ground water recharging mechanisms. With money that the flat registration agents ask for greasing palms to get the papers moving, a lot of such mandatory laws can easily be ditched for good.

A gentleman who is lucky to own a plot with has access to ground water in abundance is perhaps earning in crores but neither his residence nor his style of living shows much improvement may be to avoid unwanted attention . Tankers after tankers leave his premises day in and day out and no body questions, the locals are either ignorant that if water is pumped out regularly it is going to affect everyone or just don’t care until their own bore wells run dry. A happy coalition of ignorance exists while milking the earth for personal benefits continues unabated. It makes sense not to improve the water connections or the PWD work as the scope for sale of water is not affected. Water mafia is a reality!

Happily dumping the garbage into the lakes which are already shrinking, disappearing and contaminated the common man is contributing as much as he can own disastrous end!

So far so good! The Chennai water body has run out of water! Bangalore will soon follow suit. Soon cries for water will raise from every part of the country. Where do we turn to then?

Monsoon rains are not harvested where it is aplenty.

In other parts of the country, there is ignorance and callousness.

Temple eco systems which consisted of a network of ponds and trees are lying unattended to. Perhaps reviving the culture of sauntering out in the evenings, gathering beneath peepal trees and diving into temple ponds and lakes will help in reconnecting man to earth and help us realize the need to protect our surroundings.

If any thing the current generation and their immediate predecessors will have to own up to the sin of causing irreversible damage to the environment without any care for the future of their own children or that of the planet.

Water, water everywhere not a drop to drink! is already the norm.

It’s time we got out on the weekends to build the community, clean a lake, pond or a well.

Let’s get started. We are too late already!