Lakshmi hated the sound of a nearby bronze bell. It clanked even before the early birds chirped. Everyday at 4:30 in the morning, it rang once—tong: a community call for women of each household to fetch water. The women would then hurry to queue two brass jars and one jerry-can in front of the community water tank. The women competed against each other to stand first in the line—as the punctuality of their children at school, and a cup of tea sharp at 7, depended on how fast you could fetch water. Standing first in the line was no small feat. Lakshmi always stood last in the line.

Waking up early in the morning had never been one of Lakshmi’s less-acquired feats. She loved her morning sleep. She loved to watch the soft caress the early morning breeze made on her curtains. She loved that hour when the dark night passed over and the bright morning was yet to come, when the breeze didn’t bring remnants of the chilly night or promises of a hot July afternoon. It was this hour when, along with the billowing flowers of her curtains, Lakshmi preferred to take a cosy slumber. But instead she now had to be wide awake, collect whatever empty vessels the previous day had left over and stand in a line that never seemed to go short.

“We’re late again, Lakshmi. We might not have all our jars filled,” Lakshmi’s neighbourly friend Shobha remarked. The dark circles around her eyes spoke volumes of wasted sleep.

“Didn’t you sleep well, Shobha didi?” Lakshmi asked.

“Babu has been coughing all night long. He went to sleep just now. I’ll take him to the Guvaju later today,” Shobha replied.

There’s only so much the old Guvaju can do. It’s the air we breathe in, Lakshmi thought. “Babu will be alright,” she said and patted Shobha’s shoulders in a gesture to console her. With frail eyes and unmade hair, she looked like a shipwreck. Lakshmi could only imagine what she looked like, what with swollen eyes that begged of sleep and hair that had already started to pop out of her clip and dance in all directions.

Lakshmi moved a step further and looked at the big, black tank elevated on a platform. There was no need of one until a few years back. Water flowed from the stone water conduit day in and day out. As the size of her tole grew, the volume of water decreased. One of the three spouts soon dried up, the crocodile left with its gaping mouth. The other two spouts soon followed suit, leaving entire households with the only option of resorting to water tankers that collected water from places she’d never been to. Or so she’d been told. But she doubted that the water they filled the tank with was collected from the sacred place where the rocks ruptured to let the springs gush out of Mother Earth’s deep belly.

“The water tastes of chemicals,” Lakshmi remembered saying to her husband the first time she drank

the tank-water. She had resisted drinking water for a full day until her husband went and got the water tested in a chemical lab. Lakshmi had pored over the names of the chemicals written in a bad handwriting in a piece of paper.

“What do you know about the chemicals?” her husband had smirked.

Lakshmi knew quite a bit. She remembered chemical compounds and their properties from her high-school Chemistry classes. Partly satisfied that the tanker-men were not lying altogether, the conduit water was replaced with tank-water. But recently with every other child next door or next block coughing and ailing, her doubts on the sanctity of the water and that faraway place had resurfaced.

“It’ll be alright once we get Melamchi,” her husband had told her the previous night. “It’s clean, safe to drink, and they’ll have it supplied from our own tap,” he had explained with a grin realising Lakshmi’s growing concern over the water they drank. As Lakshmi put her heavy head on his comforting shoulders, she tried to remember the last timeshe had made proper use of her tap, or if it was still there. She made it a point to check the next morning ifshe had sold the mere metal cap to a kawaadi guy.

“We’ll have Melamchi soon, my buda tells me,” Lakshmi said, hopeful.

“He’s very optimistic,” Shobha said in a tired voice. “Why is this line not moving? Are they out of water already? This is what happens when you don’t hear the bell ring. Why can’t they ring it twice or thrice? Of course, they don’t want everyone in this entire tole to wake up and watch this water fiesta,” Shobha continued, her voice getting louder. “You know, I haven’t even washed babu’s uniform. And you know how he likes to get all tidied up for school. Good thing he’s not going to school today,” she sighed, frustration irking her otherwise cheerful demeanour.

Lakshmi felt sorry for her neighbour. Shobha was more like a sister to her. When she first walked to the water conduit to fetch water—a week after her marriage—it was Shobha who kept her company. It was Shobha who took pride in mentioning to the other nonchalant women that Lakshmi had an Intermediate degree in Science. When Lakshmi had urged Shobha to teach her knitting, it was Shobha who pushed her to get a Bachelor’s degree instead. So when Shobha moved her needles in a rhythmic motion, the ball of wool rolling all around, Lakshmi looked at the beautiful patterns that slowly made a sweater or a glove while she pretended to study some Chemistry bonds. It was all thanks to Shobha that Lakshmi was now soon to graduate.

“I have one drum filled with water at home. You can use some of it,” Lakshmi suggested.

“I will take one baaltin of water later today then.” Lakshmi wasn’t sure if she witnessed a smile. They had shared moments of smiles and laughs together. But now with her son ailing every other month, juggling between her knitting business and household chores seemed to have taken a toll on Shobha. It would have been a lot easier if she didn’t have to worry about the drinking water at the very least, Lakshmi thought. She remembered the happy times when Shobha kept the stone pavements of the conduit clean from lichen. The green thing, it makes the stone slippery, she would say and silently show a swell in her right foot which explained the occasional limp ofher lean body. She remembered the happy times when the flower-pots in Shobha’s house blasted of colours, when her son walked to school

clean and tidy, and when she made patterns of flowers and spiders. But now, the flower-pots had all but dried up, her son was bed-ridden and the patterns were stuck halfway to blooming and crawling.

“There’s no more water, they’re saying,”Shobha said, disappointed.

“We pay money every month to the tankers, and we get our jars filled only four days a week. I’m not giving money to anyone from now on. I’d rather walk to Mangal Hiti and get water,” they heard an old woman shout furiously. All of them knew that Mangal Hiti had dried up too. All of them knew that water tankers, whether they liked it or not, had been a boon in that dry spell. All of them had heard about Melamchi too, but they had heard about it for so long that it was now hard for them to believe that the dream project would quench their thirst anytime soon. All of them knew that the water fiesta was there to stay.

Lakshmi yawned. She remembered her curtains, the breeze. She longed for the sleep she was going to

have to throw out the very curtains the next day, and the next, and next. She then remembered her black drum filled with water. She looked at Shobha who was now sitting on the raised pavement with the empty jars forsaken by her feet.

“We’ll have to make use of the jar, it seems,” Lakshmi said. It was for days like that she had stored the jar full of water. Only she hadn’t thought she would have to use it sooner.

“Yes,” Shobha stood and collected her jars. Nothing seemed to enchant her. Not even the sight of water-filled jars.

The black drum beneath the staircase was carefully stored, with its lid tight and tied with a nylon rope. Lakshmi loosened the ties neatly which looked like a puzzle to Shobha. The tap, Lakshmi remembered. She looked toward the nearby chowk. She could only see the nozzle of what remained of their long-gone tap. She was going to have to do quite some explaining to her husband. She looked at Shobha, a bit jittery, and both of them laughed.