:: Cyrus Broacha

I absolutely love water

By Cyrus Broacha

Jul 12 : My son asked me the other day, "Who invented rain?" Caught off guard by the statement, I weakly muttered, "Mr Pitambar from the next building". Most things are, as a rule, blamed on Mr Pitambar, and to the best of my knowledge he has never denied any of the charges.

My son wasn’t entirely convinced. I tried the usual suspects, the gay who lives directly above us. The gentleman who sleeps on the terrace, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and four members of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). However, my son didn’t even blink. Just as I was about to admit defeat and ask him to check with a higher authority, his mother, word on the news channel was about an impending 30 per cent water cut in Mumbai.

I have to say it here, right at the outset, that I love water. It’s one thing I can’t live without. Unlike other life forms who need air as well, I’m happy with just water, thank you. I mean, let’s face it, what can you do with air? Can you splash in it, make water bubbles? Collect it in vessels, spit in it? Tell me what? What? I’ll tell you, air is absolutely useless. A waste of time, a futile product with no functional or utility value. Probably some propaganda of American or the Russians or maybe the Chinese. Yup, the Chinese for sure. Air is clearly a Chinese product whose value has been created by a Chinese mafia in a bid to earn huge profits, once the whole world demands their slice of Chinese air, which is actually an unnecessary commodity in the first place. The same is not true of water. We need water for four important functions: to drink; to bathe and toilet with; to drink, after having bathed and toileted on it; and this is the most important, to throw on Mr Pitambar when he’s not watching.

Why don’t we instead have an air cut? Thirty per cent less air available. That will show the Chinese. A 30 per cent air cut will only really affect terrorists and perverts who, in any case, very often are one and the same thing. The terrorists need the air to inflate their terror rafts, and to help give them something to do before they get on with the broad spectrum of terrorising. The perverts will have real trouble giving shape and volume to their rubber dolls, arguably the only woman who would ever voluntarily go out on a date with them twice.

Ladies and others, a 30 per cent water cut is a huge change in your life. If your are used to putting water in your ear, or taking your rubber duck Freddie for a swim, or having a shampoo, you must realise that one of these three will have to be cancelled with immediate effect. Obviously, the shampoo, swimming and long bubble baths may soon be a distant memory... Something they used to do back in the day movies, exhibitions and houses would all display a few images of that lost art of swimming. No longer will the next generation of children be able to order, "I’ll have my whisky with water". Neither will be available, just the damn air. And although poets tell you to drink in the air, it’s an impossible feat and doesn’t really happen, and only makes sense when someone flings a cola at you.

So to answer my son’s question, I don’t know who invented rain or for that matter the washing machine, dishwasher or Mr Pitambar’s toupee? What I do know is that we need that rain to fall quickly in all the right places. So please, Mr Condensation, or Mrs A. Broacha, please get the damn rain to fall (ASAP).

I’ll end with the wise words of Geoffrey Chaucer (not the writer, but a similarly named hairdresser), "Rain, Rain don’t go away, then you won’t have to come back another day".

(N.B.: Chaucer died of Pneumonia in 1561 in the days when it was spelled without the P.)