Thoo-Thum

In Madras, where I exist, we've always been paranoid about water. At first the paranoia had been about the lack of water, but lately there has been a lot of rain, here and on higher ground, chiefly due to the efforts of musicians in Narada Gana Sabha and some stout maamees of deep faith servicing Godly bearded blokes chanting precipitating mantras. It was just that they chose not to chant these mantras for several years, as they had better things to do like take prolonged pungent oil baths. But the maamees took matters into their own paws and deployed words like, "Guruji" and "Bikshai" and attached "olyo" to the ends of all the words they could gather (viz. paathaelolyo, kaettaelolyo, Ambujam ponaalolyo and so on.). The Godly blokes had no other go but to start chanting the mantras that brought about rain.
So, these days water is not a big problem. The Corporation supplies blackish foaming liquid through the water pipes happily, continuously. So, we dilute that with water from our bore well, pass it through Aquaguard. (Appliance makers who flaunt their worth with several certificates from ominous sounding Government bodies, and perhaps the universal belief that the dead don't complain.) For every glass of water that is drunk, eyes wander to the sides to see what the other fellow creatures do. And I was comfortable in knowing that almost all of my acquaintances were employing the same principle of purification.
There was the category that merely buys bottled water and they believe firmly that the water in those bubble tops are as pure as they get. Most of these containers look so worn out and used, that I used to think that our PT Instructor (God rest his egg eating soul) drank straight from these bubble tops and hit the students on the head with the empty containers. But nothing ever happens to the water buyers. I think it is in the deep belief system that we have for almost everything, that, unless we see floating human body parts in a bubble top, the water in it is fit for drinking.
I have a very long way to go before I become so self-convincing. So, I took the water purifier route. But it all changed a few days ago. A cousin, was also as adequately Aquaguarded as I was, called me and informed me that he needed the expert opinion of our family doctor. Our family doctor is probably the last of the breed, he is a person who makes house calls, accepts whatever money you give him and gives his frank opinion when we need to see an expert if the problem is serious (and warrants an expert's opinion). And he fixes an appointment with the experts. So, I referred my cousin to our doc on call, and the results came back laden with hepatitis. Not just for the cousin, but for his whole family. The family doc said that the most likely cause was water.
Since I didn't have enough time to raise my immunity levels, I had two options. I could convince myself that my cousin and his family strayed into Dumeel Kuppam accidentally, where they were offered water from a helpful Ottai Mooku Aandal, the estranged wife of Nenjumudi Nagappan. Or I could abandon the mere purification stuff, and go for for a much better process. I decided to buy the Reverse Osmosis unit that the Aquaguardians are marketing like crazy. Snazzy stuff, horribly expensive, but extremely convenient. And the water comes with all forms of certificates known to medical kind, so many that they have printed it out on a separate booklet with a very yummy model on the cover, drinking a glass of water like it was "come hither" nectar. So, if I am to die, it will have to be in battle, car crash, overdose of lectures from neighborhood maamaas, freak sighting of a class of girls from some deep interior-town in south India, wearing tight tshirts, jeans, but with big red bindis and long oil plaited flattened hair.
But I figure, the water I drink is safe enough for me.