Chit chat with my best friend

On a lone winter morning, I was walking in the park and I saw a beautiful dew drop on a leaf. It was shining like a pearl; I went towards it to touch it.
Suddenly I heard a voice “Hi!”
I got a bit scared and asked - who is it?
I got a reply “Hi, I am water, your best friend”.
I said, “Water, my best friend...… but my best friend is somebody else. Who are you? I don't know you; how can you be my best friend?”. 
He said, “I am not only your best friend. Infact, I am everyone's best friend, you want to know how”. 
I said, “sure”

Then the drop said “Do you know humans can survive without food even for a week but cannot survive without me for more than 3 days. I am a one-of-a-kind wellspring of life, vital to the survival of life on Earth."

"Ohh! that is all fine, but I am still not sure about your theory of best friend” I said.

Then, the water drop remarked, “let me take you through your daily routine to show you how I am your best friend. When you wake up in the morning, you need me for the activities that will keep you clean and hygienic such as brushing, flushing, hand washing and bathing. Then the delicious food that you eat such as Pasta is also cooked in water and I keep you hydrated the whole day so that you can do your tasks. I am also an integral part of your daily household chores such as utensil cleaning, mopping, laundry, gardening.”

Okay, I agree that we need you but how does that qualify you as a best friend, a best friend is the one with whom you enjoy.

Well, I have that quality too!
Imagine yourself sitting on a bench in the garden on a hot summer afternoon and suddenly it starts raining. This uplifts your mood. Frogs and peacocks come hopping with their frolic, beautiful feathers wide open. You can smell the fresh aroma around you. The trees sway from side to side.
Rain makes you feel good, a rainbow makes your day, the sparkling dew drops in the morning bring a smile on your face, and oh, yes imagine the fun that you have during the Holi festival.
So, tell me would you be able to enjoy the above without me?

Now, I am convinced that you are a human's best friend!

As we discussed a lot more things, the water drop became sad.
I asked him, why he had become so sorrowful.  
He said, “I am sad, because I am being ‘wasted and poisoned’”.  
“Wasted and Poisoned! By whom?”
By my best friends, THE HUMANS. 

To my astonishment I said, “how is that possible? How can someone poison and take for granted their very own best friend.”

The water drop said with a heavy heart that humans are not using water judiciously, they are wasting water in their day-to-day lives such as:- 

• Brushing their teeth with taps on,
• Using shower to take a bath,
• Washing vegetables in running water,
• Using a hose to clean their cars,
• Not using water level alarm to check overflowing water tanks,
• Unchecked extraction of underground water.
• They are dumping their waste such as sewage, plastic bottles, oil, fertilizers, chemical heavy washing powder etc. in rivers, ponds and underground water. 

Thus, poisoning me! :(

As a result, Cape Town, South Africa, experiences an acute freshwater shortage. The water table in that area had plummeted to dangerously low levels. Because of the excessive use of water and growing demand, the populace endured severe drought and government failure. Residents of South Africa were given only 2 minutes to do their daily tasks, and to add insult to injury, the government refused to supply water to each home because there was none left. We have started seeing similar indicators of water scarcity in India too. Last summer, Chennai became the first Indian city to go dry. Most of its population today is dependent on water tankers for daily requirement of drinking water. News shows women waiting for hours in long queues and scurrying to water tankers to get water which barely meets drinking and kitchen requirements. There was no water available for sanitation and hence IT companies had asked employees to work from home. Several restaurants shutdown and city was filled with ‘Don’t waste water banners, bills and stickers. 

This soul touching sad story left a void in my heart and I felt obliged to aid and protect our dearest friend in any way I could.
The very next day I started thinking about preserving water and would like to share the things that I learnt in this pursuit. The first notion that sprang to mind was that almost 3/4th of the Earth is covered with water, then why should we worry about conserving it. You might be astonished to learn that only 1% of the entire water is usable or fresh water, with the remaining 97% being unusable salty water. What I also found out was that we need fresh water or potable water for some of the daily tasks such as bathing and cooking and recycled wastewater can be used for non-potable enduses such as gardening, flushing, mopping, etc.

This led me to design and come up with an easy, Do-it-yourself decentralized greywater treatment unit which can be implemented at individual homes with no changes in the existing home plumbing network. I named it  “BILGE VESSEL (BV)”, which can be attached or placed next to any water consuming equipment such as washing machine, cistern of water closet etc. As you take shower, the BV will have a small pump which will pump the wastewater to the topmost bucket of the Bilge vessel. Bilge vessel will have different layers of coarse aggregate, activated charcoal, fine aggregate and sand. The wastewater will trickle through these layers and get filtered. Finally, the treated and clear water gets stored in the middle part of the BV from where it can be used/reused for non-potable uses such as irrigation, flushing, washing clothes, mopping, etc. With this system each household of four family members can save 100-200 liters of water everyday i.e., 50% of their daily requirement!

This is a modest effort on my part to save and revive our dearest friend, Water.
Now, I would like to ask you again - Who is your best friend? 

Preserve Water
to save your life, 
or else you will die
and you can’t even deny.
Then you will remember the precious water
and finally you’ll realize it’s worth.
So, make amends before it is too late!