Everywhere Present, Elsewhere Potable

Before I tell you what I am really setting out to write about, let me remind you: I don’t endorse the use of bottles and disposable cups for storing, transporting, or even for drinking from. It is one of the losing battles I waged against myself after resolving to abstain from using non-biodegradable disposables.It is one of my only failures. All I have managed to do so far is to minimize their usage. It is certainly better than nothing, and a step in the right direction.

Photo Credit: Dr. Ajmal

Around 71% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. That doesn’t mean you will never go thirsty regardless of where you go. Forget about the 97% which is saline; the remaining 3% fresh water is mostly not in potable form as 68% of it is stored in icecaps and glaciers. I wonder how Samuel Coleridge Taylor knew all these statistics as early as the Romantic period when he lamented in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

“Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink”.

 It is said that 57-60% percent of our body mass itself is water. It is even greater in kids and slim beauties. We need water for everything. We can’t survive without water for more than three days, whereas we could stay alive for about three weeks without food. Obviously this rule has exceptions, but it would apply to most people as it is based on scientific consensus. It also makes sense intuitively. We have read stories of people who died simply because of dehydration … even in the middle of the ocean, which holds 96.5% of all Earth’s water. The same fate befell those unfortunate enough to be stranded on small islands after being shipwrecked or airdropped.

We’ve been told that some plants can absorb vapor - the gaseous form of water - from the air to keep them hydrated. After carbon, water is the only substance I know that is found in all three states of matter: solids, liquids and gases. This is truly amazing; I wonder if water could transform itself into a plasma state as well. However, evolution hasn’t equipped us to switch to that plant mode even in a case of emergency.

I am equally fascinated by the phenomenon of rain as the very object it showers on us. We are living on a planet where a good number of people are experiencing perpetual hunger, simply because of a lack of rain.

Sacred water, thou are truly - as the wise men of yore put it - the elixir of life, though nobody I know of has ever built a temple in your honor.