One Bucket of Life

ONE BUCKET OF LIFE

“Thanks for nominating me for the ice bucket challenge! I further nominate XVZ for the same!!” “NO.”

My social networking pages have been going crazy with people uploading videos of dumping cold water/ice on themselves for the past weeks. Not knowing why so many people would put cold water on themselves, i did what any of us would do, I Googled it.

The Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, is the activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone's head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research. As i read more about the challenge I realized two things.

One, ALS is a horrible, painful and expensive disease which makes the person suffering from it questions his reason for existing.  

Secondly, in a country like India, where women in villages trace many kilometres to get drinking water, is it justified to dump buckets of water over our head in the name of charity?

And while the videos of celebrities dunking in ice water have been great fun to watch, have they really benefitted ALS? 

ALS is rare enough in the United States, but in India, it is so off the radar that we don't even have an estimation of the number of cases. Besides, the ALS challenge makes sense in the USA where the more prevalent diseases like cancer are well-funded. In India, however, the leading diseases remain untreated and unfunded. In India, the ice bucket challenge was all about fun.

Isn't it ironic that we are wasting something as precious as water in the name of charity?

For the record, 780 million people across India and the world don't even have access to clean water.

Even as our country receives copious rain, water scarcity in India is coming up to become a huge setback for Indians. More than 80% of water needs of the country are met by exploiting the ground water resources of India. This has aggravated the depletion of water table, and led to an unprecedented water shortage. More than 75% of the water resources are wasted or washed off due lack of storage planning.

In a country where we have yearly floods, but not timely rains, where we see dry, cracking and  parched lands and like the picture of a sickly little kid who has not had food or water for days together for “one like = one prayer”, the Ice bucket challenge is a grotesque mismatch.

We don’t need the water challenge in India, as 22 out of 32 big cities already face the challenge to clean drinking water. The situation is worse in rural areas.

Remember the picturesque image of a lady carrying a pitcher of water through a forest that we all saw in our school books?? That is very much real. Women in our villages do dare through forests and arid lands and walk many kms just for a pitcher of drinking water.

Their fight is not for top positions in life or higher pay scales; their fight everyday is for the basic means of survival like food and potable water. People in far off areas have been forced to the level of using the water collected in puddles on the roadside. The statistics are pathetic and the conditions of the people who are directly affected are even worse.

So next time we seek to complete a challenge, let’s not forget the daily challenges our people face. Next time we feel like doing charity, let’s turn off that tap which is left open while we brush, mend that leaky faucet and use a bucket  for bathing instead of a shower.

There is no denying that water scarcity is the single largest upcoming challenge haunting our country and it becomes our moral responsibility to make small efforts in conserving the fuel of our lives, water. After all, charity begins at home right?