we all know about water crisis in india's cities. chennai, mumbai, bangalore and you name it the water crisis will be there at various level.

chennai is especially prone to severe water crisis and the reason for these are simple.
1. all waterbodies of chennai are under huge abuse with sewage, litter, encroachments, etc
2. concrete jungles in various sections of the city has made the place into a concrete platform with no possibility of rain water going down for rain water harvesting.
3. the emerging affulence of the people makes them think that they can buy 'mineral' water by giving many.

let's take the sewage of point 1. cooum is one of the major rivers of urban chennai. but nobody calls it a river. they call it 'saakadai' - meaning 'sewage tank'.

the reason for this sewage is simple. failed or improper treatment plants, govt apathy, etc.

but there is another reason also which is the failure of the elite of chennai who flush their toilets.

pradip saha has captured this in his film. when the toilets we use flush huge amounts of water to dispose very little human shit, the result is overloading of crucial urban bodies such as cooum. add to that the water load from kitchen, bathroom, etc and what you have is little sewage + massive water = massive polluted river like cooum.

there is a urgent need to develop green or eco san toilets. and the responsibility for this lies with us, the elite and not with the government or the poor people who we often blame for our water woes.


(above are some images of cooum, the river of chennai)