Thirsty Echoes

By MP Anand

In Bangalore, once called a pensioner’s paradise, where beautiful gardens bloomed, now stands a city—India’s booming Silicon Valley—where silicon dreams hum, and code weaves the fabric of tomorrow. Here, the thirsty earth gasps, parched and weary, its ancient veins once lush and green, now dry and brittle. The lakes, once mirrors of the sky, now lie cracked and forsaken.

Cape Town whispers its prohibitive warning, a ghostly echo—a city that danced on the precipice of “Day Zero” as reservoirs bared their bones, a world’s first: a metropolis gasping for liquid sustenance.

Bangalore, they called her “The Garden City,” a haven of lakes, but now her reservoirs are mere echoes, whispering tales of forgotten monsoons. A city where bytes bloom like bougainvilleas. The Cauvery Basin, our ancient lifeline, weeps silently—its veins drained by relentless summers and heedless consumption, like the cryptic lines of forsaken poetry. The sun, relentless, scorches the asphalt, seeking retribution. The monsoon teases us with its absence. Clouds gather, whispering promises, but their touch eludes. A tale of two cities hit by water scarcity.

Cape Town, across distant seas, danced with drought. Her Table Mountain wept dust as rivers turned to arid memories. Just like Cape Town, we dance on the edge of “Day Zero.” Our reservoirs, echoes of desolation, mirror the Theewaterskloof. We queue not for food, but for drinking water carried in tankers as taps run dry, hope slipping away.

The binary pulse of progress falters as borewells gasp their last breath and lakes retreat. The city’s thirst, a silent algorithm, compiles its warnings—a symphony of cracked earth, falling leaves, and desperate roots—as the water clock ticks, relentless and unforgiving, and the city’s fate hangs in the balance: a binary choice. Tech-savvy minds, oblivious to the whining whispers of the earth, fail to decode the language of the dwindling aquifers.

Elite clubs, once lush oases, now clutch at fading memories of chlorinated pools and verdant lawns. Their clubhouses, once abuzz with laughter, now echo with the hollowness of empty water tanks. Schools, where children once laughed and learned, now grapple with closures. The fire brigades and restaurants also ration water.

Oh, Bengaluru! Your soul is cracked, and your spirit is withering. Will you be the next Cape Town? A city thirsty, reaching for the last drop—a result of low rainfall and rapid, unplanned urbanization.

Our ancestors knew the sacredness of water. They considered the wells and rivers as God’s gift and worshipped them. Now we squander this liquid gold, blind to its worth. Our greed, a silent tsunami, engulfs us.

But listen! The whispers of the lakes persist. They murmur tales of forgotten wisdom, of resilience. Perhaps, if we can learn from Cape Town’s scars, we can rewrite our destiny by making this ominous message very clear through our collective effort. Let us wake from this slumber, plant hope in the barren soil, harvest raindrops in our hearts, and write a new verse for Bangalore.

In this tale of two cities, where water is gold, we pen our verses—odes and elegies for the dying wells and lakes. May our words flow like the rivers of old, helping to solve the water scarcity of a city.

For in the poetry of survival, we find resilience, unity, and grace. And perhaps, we will quench our thirst and take action to conserve our natural resources before it is too late, as Cape Town’s echoes whisper: “Remember us.”