Mumbai Wastes Water - Part 1

Mumbai thinks of wasting water in various ways. Some of these are very obvious, while some are not. Among the common ones are leaking water pipes, using filtered tap water for cleaning automobiles, brushing with the tap on, etc. There are some pointers to this kind of wastage in my earlier post.

In this multi-part series, I will keep looking out for not so obvious ways in which precious water (aka "white gold") is wasted by Mumbai and her (his?) inhabitants.

In this blog post, I focus on a very strange custom found in restaurants. As soon as customer enters a restaurant and takes a seat, some special "water boys" or waiters keep a glass full of water in front of the customer. This is like a welcome drink - a typical scenario in an Indian house - we always offer water to our guests. Of course, we do ask them whether they would like to have cold water or room-temperature water.

The problem is that some customers are not thirsty at all. The question is what happens to this glass of water. Will it be taken away to be served again to another customer? Or will it be thrown away, washed, refilled and then served? Most likely the second case. In which case, there is a wastage of water of about a glassful of water. Not much I say. I know...but if you consider the number of customers visiting the restaurant in a day, this adds up. Now, multiply this by the number of restaurants and that is some quantity we are talking about. I know this still does not match up to the quantity Mumbai wastes in other ways, but then every drop counts.

Another problem is that most customers do not want to drink the entire glass: a sip or two will keep their thirst on hold till the time the thirst is fulfilled by ordering some other drinks. In this case, more than half of the glass of water will be thrown away.

The problem does not end here: some restaurants have instructed their "boys" not to keep any water glass empty. An example of this can be seen in Sudershan (Udipi) at Saki Naka. The "boys" keep filling the glass the moment its empty. So, if you wanted to drink 2 glasses of water, you will get those plus an extra one that is wasted anyways.

Wherever possible, I instruct these "boys" not to serve water to me, since I do not trust the water anyways. I might rather drink boiled tea than contaminated water (my dad's rule #1 while travelling...more about that later in another post). Often these "boys" get shouted at by the senior waiters for not serving me water and then I have to tell them that it was my choice.

Then, there are some seemingly more intelligent eateries: like at Panshikar in Dadar where they keep a common tray of filled water glasses per table; so only those customers that want to take water, actually do so. And after drinking, one is supposed to keep the glass out of the tray...so that the "boys" know that it is a used glass. Such practice is also seen in some of the bigger hotels/halls where conferences are held.