Dry ideas

The monsoons arrived in Pune on time, but somewhere lost its way. So the initial promises of wiping off the dry spell waned as June and almost the first three weeks of July were bone dry. I procrastinated the replacement of our worn-out umbrella as it would just be lying without work on our empty lobby bench or overflowing shelves.
Then the media woke up to the receding water levels in the dams near Pune. And the municipal corporation, too, announced severe water cuts fearing scarcity of the precious liquid. The media began running stories on ways to save water now. The usage of the word, now, bothered me. Why now? Why not always? Predictably, citizens rose to the occasion, saying they used clothes-rinsed water to clean their bathrooms and vegetable-washed water to water their garden etc etc “now” that the water levels have hit bottom markings in the catchment.
The day after the papers carried these fancy save-water campaigns, with elements of citizen activism thrown in, down came the rain and washed these campaigns out. The corporation then decided against water cuts as dams were getting filled up. The stories on saving water dried up, too.
Why is it that we wait for a crisis to react and act? Water is most easily available to us, and most easily misused. And the media, too, projects any save-water campaign only with reference to its crisis during that period, convincing its readers that water had to be used carefully only in times of a shortfall.
I remember, when there was a petrol supply strike in Chennai, the newspapers were full of stories on how to save petrol. There were generous inputs from residents on how they saved the pricy and precious liquid in times of that crisis. People heaved a sigh of relief that they did not “have to drive” and could spare themselves the “horror” of manoeuvring the traffic. They all claimed they loved taking the public transport system, including the MRTS trains. They said the air they inhaled was better as more and more people relied on walking or cycling to their nearest grocery store or vegetable vendor, ignoring their long-time partner-in-crime, their gas-gurgling four-wheelers. The media romanticized the spirit of the people and how they handled the crisis.
Water or petrol, we have limited resources of both. The person using petrol has the added guilt of leaving behind carbon footprints. Is it not the responsibility of the media to not restrict themselves to select occasions, but familiarize the reader regularly with the need to save water and petrol? Now that the rains have lashed Pune, and water is back in the dams, will those responsible citizens who used clothes-rinsed water for bathrooms, and vegetable-washed water for the gardens continue to do so? Or will they keep their taps on while scrubbing their utensils, which is unnecessary anyway as we need water only for rinsing them.
We are approaching the time when wars might be fought over water. It is better we save that for those rainy days.