There was an acute water shortage in Jharia during summers. Tankers of water were not available. All of us had municipal water connections but hardly any water. So we opened the connection where the municipal pipe joined urs home ones. This thing is called a chamber. We filled water from the chamber on the ground floor on the road and carried it up to our house on the first floor. Didn t have any plastic buckets only iron ones and for water and to be used for drinking and cooking we had an aluminium bucket. Carrying water up a circular narrow staircase with no railing was quite a task. It was a red cemented staircase with white walls and latticed windows. For a while we had employed a man called "Guttra" for this job. He used to bunk if he drank a lot of alcohol the previous night. It was a get together of the whole Fatehpur gully. My Gran used to sit down in a chair manning the pipe and the buckets. We all children, mother and Aunt used to fill water. The men of the househ...
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