... And Nary a Drop to Drink...

You know, one thing we all take for granted in Canada is the ole, life-sustaining double-Hydrogen-single-Oxygen cocktail. Our massive, snowbound country has 60% of the world’s fresh water, although our determined efforts are certainly straining the definition of “fresh” these days. I can almost guarantee that anyone who pours a glass of water straight from the tap, and gulps it down on a hot, sunny day (yes, we have those in Canada) never thinks twice about it. Nor do we really consider the wealth of fresh water circling the drain while we brush our teeth or scrape our whiskers off. And have you ever plugged the tub and seen just how much water you use during a long relaxing shower? (I tend to do this quite often given my affinity for long, lustrous locks, and my adversity to cleaning out the drain). Yes, I think it’s safe to say that all of us take water for granted.

In fact, in my beautiful little town in New Brunswick (which I like to say, puts the “ain’t” in “quaint”) the signboard on the highway for years stated: “Welcome to St. George, Home of the Best Drinking Water in Canada.” Now, after decades, that sign has since been changed, partially, I think, for the sake of new tourism priorities, but also because I think the claim was fairly dubious to begin with. Regardless, since there is no such thing as “irregardless,” the water was very tasty. In fact, to my knowledge, it still is. But the reason I choose to supply you with this little tidbit of small-town trivia, is to relate the story of my cousin’s husband, D’Oyen.

Carol and D’Oyen moved to our little town straight from Toronto. D’Oyen was born in Jamaica, but since he was a young boy, his main experience of Canada had been the big city. I think that he was a little taken aback at the substantial shift in the pace of life in our town, which would be something akin to shifting from fourth into reverse. It would often take D’Oyen hours to run an errand, because he was baffled by the number of people who would actually stop to talk to him along the way. Anyway, it was after one of these afternoon-long errands that D’Oyen wheeled into our driveway, ran up the stairs, poured a glass of water and gulped it down. I happened to be in the kitchen and said, “So D’Oyen, a little thirsty?” (I was sarcastic even as a teenager). “No, not really,” he said between gulps. I was slightly confused. He finished the glass, held it up approvingly, and said, “Wow, that is good.” I was still confused, “D’Oyen, you’ve been living here for a year. You’ve never tried the water?” He looked a little sheepish, “Well, yeah, but I just noticed that sign on the highway for the first time today, so I had to come in and check,” Which just goes to show you that you don’t know what you’ve got until somebody tells you… or writes it in block letters on a billboard.

Consequently, you really don’t appreciate what you have until it’s gone. And I’ll tell you, one thing I miss everyday in Karachi is that sparkling, clear St. George water. Even living as I do, in one of the most expensive areas of the city, water comes through the lines Monday and Friday at 4:00, for one hour. At which point, you have to run outside and plug in the pump to try and fill the tank buried under your lawn. Now, to be fair, it is now coming into the hotter months and water is harder to come by, but even in the winter, the water gushes forth only once a day – no matter how many times I strike it with my staff.

The timing of the water flow is a complete mystery to me. I leave it up to my man Paul, who always tries to explain, “Today – no water, tomorrow –half hour of salty water, next day – one hour of dirty water, next day – one hour of ‘Sweet’ water.” Of the three water categories, dirty, salty and sweet, the last one, surprisingly enough, is definitely the one you’re aiming for. Now, how Paul figures all this out, I have no idea. There seems to be some secret network of servants in the neighbourhood that figures out when and what quality of water will be coming. I usually just shake my head and say, “Ok, whatever.” Now, since one hour of water doesn’t do much to fill a 5000 gallon tank, especially if you have a housemate who tends to take 3 to 5 showers a day, your tank will go dry at some point. In my experience, this usually happens on holidays, weekends and during transport strikes. Then you have to call up a tanker service, who will tell you that a truck will be there within the hour. An average of six hours later, a tanker truck will arrive and pump, hopefully, sweet water into your tank. Add to this that all of the tanker trucks are part of a mafia that control the prices and supply of the water, and you’ll start to get an idea of the irritation involved.

I feel a little ashamed of complaining about this, since my troubles are obviously insubstantial compared to the countless thousands that survive with next to no water at all. However, believe it or not, all of this rambling has all been leading up to one single story. You can really tell I haven’t been blogging in a while, since my writing is running on like a trip to the toilet after some spicy street food. All this blah, blah, blah about the drip, drip, drip has been to say that my housemate and I decided to sign up for drinking water delivery. We had tried boiling and filtering the “sweet” water, but it just wasn’t cutting it. And since you never know what micro-bugs are swimming around in there, we decided we would play it safe and call Ava or Culligan’s.

However, we left this to a friend to set up for us, who, for whatever reason, decided to save us 20 Ruppees a bottle and instead of ordering a recognised brand of drinking water, signed us up for “Winsip Drink.” No-Name, President’s Choice water. Winsip (which sounds like a windows application I downloaded recently) seemed extremely pleased to have our business. In fact, we soon received the following letter:

Dear Sir,

It is indeed heartening for us to find your great name among our valuable clientele. While we express our thanks for giving us an opportunity to serve you, we congratulate you for selecting a quality drinking water of course water is a catalyst for making body active and hence the choice of water is of high essence.

We have developed and offered WINSIP with all humbleness to be of service to human kind which been engulfed a whirl of complexities of tough life-style, requires special attention on health issues.

Commercial aspects apart, our focus is the satisfaction of WINSIP users and the effect of WINSIP drinking water on their health. Not at all contended with the efforts put in developing WINSIP, we are quiet eager to gain from your valuable suggestion and views to further improve quality and services to what ever extent possible and feasible. We will feel privilege to get enlightened with your valuable comments that would definitely push us making further improvement in our product.

Signed by CEO.

Now, as soon as we received this letter, I was a became a big fan of WINSIP. Grammatical and syntactical errors aside (and I assure you, I copied it word for word) my favourite part is the last paragraph. I love how they say, “Commercial aspects apart, our focus is your satisfaction and health.” It’s great to see a company with a little honesty. Other than our profits, we care about you the most. Fantastic. And I’m also glad to see that they tacked on that “feasible” just to make sure that they won’t be held to any outlandish suggestions.

Unfortunately for me, I won’t be receiving anymore WINSIP letters, because soon after we started drinking it, my housemate and I both admitted to a feeling of lethargy and apathy. Since this is often a common state of mind for me, I didn’t think much of it, but my housemate was convinced it was the water. I wonder if we would have come to that conclusion if it hadn’t been 20 Rupees cheaper. The mind plays amazing tricks. In any case, we have now switched to the Ava service and things are flowing nicely now. Most importantly, it is pleasantly palatable when mixed with contraband Scotch.

One thing’s for sure, as soon as I get home this summer, I’m going to walk in the door and poor myself a nice tall glass… right from the tap.