The place is my school town: Vidhya Nagar, Andhra Pradesh, India. The time is peak summer of 1999. People were running out of water. Mom had to carry pails of water, as the city could not afford to supply running water. I could not help her, partly because I was 'organizing'.
One important day, Dad was out of town, the house maiden was off work...that evening as I came home, I saw Mom in tears, as she was in physical pain of carrying water without help. I was ashamed ( that I was late) and pissed off ( at our Government's thick-skinned politicians' ill-indifference. That was the day, when I took my stand on water.
This spark ignited a fire that spread and reached a remote place in the most arid region of our region - Rayalaseema. That was where my journey with water warriors began, the Timbaktu Collective.
Here are my demands:
1) Water should be free. Burn all the water bills. You can live without food, but water, for 30 days. Over 95 % of the world is water ( don't quote me on that, thanks to Global Warming ). Out of this, only 1% of water is potable. I dont know why leaders are pimping for wars, while millions are perishing in this drought.
2) Water is a Human Right. Hey...is that a bad word ? probably so..because it seems like "right" wing term?
3) Instead of pimping wars, leaders whould invest in Water technology...cheap de-salination, glaciers, waste water re-cycling, rainwater harvesting, conservation techniques, on and on...
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