Water and three thieves

"Are you sure, you wanna do it? " Rohit asked.

"No other option", I replied.

July 2016

I, Rohit and mukesh were classmates in college and after final semester we all 3 decided to prepare for competitive exams. Me and mukesh wanted to prepare in bhilai in some local coaching centre but Rohit somehow convinced our confused mind to go to Delhi, as "made easy" is one of the best coaching centre for engineering related competitive exams.

With heavy loaded bags on our shoulder and dreams in our eyes, we reached to Delhi for the first time in our life. After struggling for few days we finally got a flat for our accommodation which was under our budget. Manager of building Satish ensured us to manage maid, food and other basic facilities for us as we do not have much time due to hectic hours of coaching classes.

The coaching class started and we all three got busy in our study schedule. We use to go classes at 7:00 morning which end at 3:00 mid day. After classes we use to revise all the coaching stuff and practice workbooks given by coaching. We use to study till 1:00 AM. Our faculties told us not to sleep more than 6 hours as it is a waste of time.

Slowly the time flew and our class time increased to 7:00 morning to 6:00 evening. We barely get time to relax or to do any other stuff apart from banging head in books.

December 2016

Exams date declared as 8th January 2017, we had only one month left. Classes and self study made us so busy. There was extra class on previous Sunday, we have a bunch of unwashed clothes this Sunday morning. Mukesh woke up very early to wash his clothes. I and Rohit were sleeping peacefully until we heard mukesh's voice. "Whom he is yelling at", Rohit murmured.

"Water cannot be supplied to this building for two days", Satish said.

 "Two days!.. are you mad? How will we manage without water for two days? What's the problem" Mukesh exclaimed.

"Water pump has some problem, it will take two days to repair it. But don't worry I will arrange 3 buckets of water for all 15 flats in this building". Satish replied.

Mukesh lost his temper and start yelling at satish. He not gonna manage as cloths are still unwashed and 3 buckets of water for 3 flatmates is not enough. Rohit and I heard his loud voice and went to them and were equally filled with anger as mukesh but didn't yell as he was enough for satish.

Finally we decided not to wash cloths and to use that water for bath only. Fortunately for drinking and cooking we were dependent on bislery packaged water. We couldn't use that water for house chores as it was costly.

Somehow we managed but satish supplied only 2 buckets water to us. We haven't bath properly since two days. Surprisingly water was unavailable on the third day too. With tensed face we called satish and the thing happened which we were not expecting.

"Water pump is not repaired yet", Satish said.

It was our fourth day without proper water supply. We didn't know when the pump going to repair. In whole building water was not supplying. Satish arranged a common public tap where all building persons can fill water for them. We were the only bachelors in building. The time for water supply in that tap was 8:30 in the morning but due to our hectic coaching class schedule from 7:00 morning to 6:00 evening, we unable to fill water. In morning before going to classes we requested our manager satish to keep water for us but he declined and said, "If I do anything for you, other will also make me do their stuffs, so you have to take care of you and I can't do anything". We didn't want to complain against his deeds and behaviour as exams were near and we didn't want waste time on this.

"We'll see you after 8th jan" we thought and went for our classes.

In evening we back to our flat. We hadn't a drop of water to wash hands too. We were in urgent need of water for toilet use as one can live without bath but have to use toilet anyway. Our cloths were dirty, we hadn't bath properly since four days, there was no water to wash utensils of kitchen too.

In heavy tension of studies we were suffering something bigger. We haven't seen this scarcity of water in our life till now. The water which we never valued and wasted every day, today we felt its value. This time our god, our wish, our prayer everything was water. We tried to contact satish but he didn't pick the call. How we gonna do tomorrow? How to arrange water? Let's buy packaged water in huge quantity! But it is too expensive. We can't buy that water in such amount for an unknown period.

"I have an idea to get water" I said.

"What's that", Mukesh asked.

'We will steal water'

'From where'?

'From neighbour building sintex tank'.

It was 01:00 AM. I, Rohit and Mukesh was ready as our plan. I and Rohit have to climb to another roof while mukesh will stay at our building terrace. We had three buckets.

'I will fill the bucket from the tank give it to you and you pass that to mukesh. Then mukesh will fill our tank and return empty bucket back to you. This way we will arrange atleast half tank water', I said to Rohit.

"Are you sure, you wanna do it? " Rohit asked.

"No other option", I replied.

We were filling our tank very fast. There was no one at the terrace. Suddenly we heard footsteps from stairs of neighbour building. Mukesh hasn't need to hide as he was at our building but I and Rohit got scared. We didn't have time to cross the terrace so we hide ourselves behind the tank. A man entered to terrace while talking softly on his mobile. He has no clue there were us hiding from him. He was talking to someone and was so focused in chat that he can't hear our loud heartbeat. We were waiting for him to go back but he sat on parapet wall and let us waits for around half an hour. While mukesh was still waiting, we also got frustrated. Finally he went downstairs and we came out sweating out of stress.

Now we were so tensed that we skip our task and went back to our room. Although we didn't fill our tank half but it was sufficient to perform one day house chores.

Stealing water from someone else's tank became our routine for every night. We took risk of being caught every night for some buckets of water. The water we wasted for our whole life has become so precious that we started saving drops of water and became very conscious while using it.

After 5 days of continuous thieving finally the motor repaired and we got full supply of water in our flat. This was the day when we hadn't do so much hard work for water. We were sat in room at the same time when we used to fill the water. We all were drowned in thoughts. We all realised the importance of water. We faced the problem which is being faced by many people of world. We were seeing the future when water scarcity will be a wide problem and how people will kill each other just for few drops of water which they are wasting today. We pledged not to waste water and not let anyone do that.