Richa
Jha
Even as
I write this, my need to rush out of the house to someplace,
just anyplace, is acute. Going against the unspoken inherent
sense of ease with one's home, and one's own toilets, I hereby
publicly announce that, as long as there's some water flowing,
there is no place like the loos outside of my home.
Our apartment
has gone without a drop of water for over ten days now. It is
this one dry patch of parched concrete structure amid an ocean
of, well, water. There is water in every direction my eyes can
see from the windows. The cars in the neighbouring houses get
their daily wash as usual, the farm opposite my apartment gets
watered as usual, the water tank of the building to the right
overflows as always, and the fountain at the end of the road
gurgles out water more furiously than it usually does, if only
to tease us.
It is one thing to say that there is no water in the house,
and another to actually not have any. A friend of mine in Bombay
would categorically bar us from entering her flat on certain
days of the month, when her changed levels of oestrogen brought
about certain elements of misanthropy in her attitude (PMS in
modern parlance), ostensibly stating water problems. "Why
do you want to come today? What'll you do yaar, we
can't even have coffee today, no water…, etc". However,
it is not quite the same here. No water means NO water. Which
means that every drop that had been saved up in the bathtubs,
buckets, tumblers, woks, polythene bags (I know they are banned,
but they've proved the most indispensable item in our household
over this last week) and gum boots has been used up.
And then
it's not just me and my family. There are several more in the
apartment who may have gone without a bath, or proper food,
or regular…it's best left to your imagination. Apart from the
occasional huddling up to spew out venom at these forces that
have conspired against us, in general, we apartment mates have
been avoiding one another in any sort of the closed spaces.
No one would like the scent of an unbathed woman, or man, even
worse. Skip the elevator, didn't the doctors prescribe taking
the stairs instead?
Problems
often come in big doses. Mine came in watery doses (there again,
you see? Only to taunt me further). As if the need to minimise
toilet use was not enough, I soon realised that my bowels had
suddenly eased up a bit and needed to be cleared more frequently
than you'd expect a healthy adult to. Finding a quick solution,
outside the house, was the only option left for us.
As a temporary
remedial measure, The Hubby and I have suddenly transformed
ourselves into the most sociable couple in town, visiting four
different sets of people every day, calling on vague acquaintances,
casually dropping in the evenings for post-prandial coffee and
chit-chat (with our toothbrushes neatly tucked inside my hand
bag or in The Hubby's pockets), and so on. The changing rooms
at the swimming pools are coming in handy, my child's school's
vast toilet-resources have been made full use of, and I could
also give you a written account of the loo-status in the various
shopping malls in town. The Hubby too has become the most hard-working
soul at work, being the first to reach, and last to leave. (We
soon plan to bring out the authentic guidebook to the 100 best
toilets in Dhaka.) Once your basic needs are taken care of,
life suddenly doesn't look so much of a drag.
On the plus
side, the cook is on a paid holiday- my child has found that
extra person to play with, and there genuinely isn't any work
to do at home. It's picnic time, without even having to bother
about preparing those sandwiches, and the messy clean-up act.
Once you look at it that way, it's not all that bad.
However,
as is now evident from the updates trickling in from the various
parts of the city, we, after all, are not the only ones to be
singled out by the WASA. Last night, we were politely asked
to refrain from using the toilet at our friends place. Not as
brusque as my Bombay friend, but they casually mentioned that
some flooring work had been done in all their toilets, "half
done floors today". Another set of friends kindly excused
themselves away-from-home for the evening, stating there was
an acute water problem at their house. We dashed to the restaurant
we've been visiting for our daily meals these days and they
had a notice taped on the toilet door saying, "Sorry, out
of use. The water from this toilet is being used to cook our
special treats you just had. We thank you for your co-operation
in this."
The banks
of Gulshan Lake, here we come…