Remembering the past - 2

After water flooding over the weekend in my apartment, the next thing in line was - water scarcity. Although it didnt last for more than a couple of hours, it made me think about the scarcity we used to have in Chennai.

When I was in probably classes 5-9, Chennai, especially the area where we lived, TNagar/WMambalam/Kodambakkam area experienced severe water scarcity. We used to have this active 'street association' and they used to have meetings in our house terrace to tackle this problem. As kids we used to wait for the end of the meeting when they used to give Rasna to everyone. My dad didnt like any kind of preserved food or softdrinks like rasna and so my mom never made them at home. So, I used to hang around at these meeting trying to organise and help with the arrangements, etc along with a bunch of kids from my street and get a good helping of Rasna at the end. Then came the time of Metro water lorry's. Man, it was fun. Almost everyone from all houses used to come out and welcome the lorry with such enthu and sometimes even feed the lorry driver and his helper typical TamBram food. All mami's and mama's carrying buckets and pots..... Oh, and if the lorry came before my 6 pm, then its all Patti's and Thatha's who have to carry the buckets and the lorry driver had to face their ire and wrath for not having come later......

.... those were the days...hmmmm ...(read it as 'Peru Moochu')

Then, came water sumps and better water storage and all the fun of interacting with people was lost... we probably dont even know who lives a couple of doors away from us......