Thirst

Sanjay and I sit on the top of the hill and stare out at the huge, never-ending Arabian Sea. The salty breeze brings a little relief from the heat.

“It feels like the world is made of water from up here,” I say. “That there’s enough of it for everyone.”

But I know there isn’t.

In the distance, the flyover bridge soars into the sky and snakes across the bay. Its lights twinkle and outshine the stars in the night sky.

“The sea link bridge looks like an M,” I say.

“It does,” my brother says. “M for Mumbai?”

“M for me-Minni,” I say. “And for Monsoon. I hope this year we have a good one.” Lately the monsoon season comes later and later, which means less and less water.

Although water surrounds my island city, most of the people I know are always struggling to get enough. We don’t have running water in our house. We just have a tap outside that we share with our neighbors. Ma has to wake up at the crack of dawn to fill our buckets because the authorities only supply water for two hours every morning and for an hour in the evening when the shortages aren’t too bad. The rest of the day, the tap is dry. Every home has a big barrel outside the house, to store collected water for the day.

“Remember when Ma and the other women draped our leaky old tap with a marigold garland as if it was a god they could charm with flowers?” Sanjay says.

I do remember, and we laugh, although it’s sad to think it was probably a frustrating day when the water trickled rather than flowed.

I look out at the ocean. Part of our view is blocked by billboards with glamorous Bollywood movie stars-billboards that are larger than our house.

The houses in our neighborhood are small and crammed on top of each other, but they do face the sea. Rich people who live in skyscrapers pay millions for the same ocean view.

Last year, a charity helped paint our homes and fix our leaking tin roofs. Some said it was because the people whizzing past in their air-conditioned cars on the flyover bridge didn’t want to see decaying, moldy “slums.”

I chose yellow for our house. I helped to sand down the years of moss and mold from our old tin and concrete walls. Baba, Ma, Sanjay, and I dipped our brushes in yellow, and the first coat of paint was like a ray of bright sunshine getting rid of the darkness. My neighbors chose purple and blue, and red and orange. Our street looks like a rainbow.

“Sanjay,” I ask, “will we have to worry about water when we are grown up?”

For a long moment, he is silent.

So I answer myself. “No. No, we won’t.”

I point at the cluster of tall buildings shimmering in the distance where Ma works in the afternoons. I say, “One day, we’ll live in one of those tall shiny buildings, where water runs from taps.”

“Okay,” he says, and links his arm in mine, as if I’m predicting the future. “Like the boy who was born here and studied computers and now has an office in a building and employs sixty people.”

I nod.

“Can you imagine,” I say, “that on top of some of those high-rise buildings they have a swimming pool full of water? Enough for our whole neighborhood to bathe. How do you think they built a pool on top of a building? Wouldn’t you love to see it?”