Water Thoughts

Where have we been?

With the weather turning colder and beach season over Water Pressures is busy. The premiere at the Chicago South Asian FIlm Festival was a huge success and it was not only an honor to be featured amongst such talented filmmakers and activists, but it was a thrill to have Water Pressures premiered after years of work! So now we’re out, we’re busy, we’re planning and we’re constantly innovating. In the next few months there will be some exiting media announcements, lectures, and events culminating with John Mclean Media taking the documentary to Cannes. Does it get any better than that?

While we’re gearing up for a release of some exciting footage here on the blog I have been thinking even more about water sins. What are they? How do I interact with water? Are there things I don’t even realize I am doing that are wasteful, nay, sinful? One of the big ones is not only how we think about water but also think about other cultures. There is a certain cultural voyeurism that can sneak into the kind of work we do, a nagging voice that negates the reality of what we see.

“That can’t be real,” my brain tries to tell me when I see a documentary like Water Pressures. “How is this plausible? How does this discrepancy–between having clean tap water and having no water at all–happen? Does not compute!” And then my brain goes into overdrive.I want to solve it all. “If we had clean water everything would be alright! Infant mortality would go down. Education would improve. Women’s rights would be bettered. The world would be a better place. We need clean wells. Water! water! water!”

There are so many solutions that seem so simple. But reality creeps back in. I think it through, I understand the obstacles. Politics. Money. Attitudes. Weather. I want to save people, but I don’t know how. And wanting to save someone is a fairly elitist attitude. No, I want to help people, not save them. I want to close the gap between “us and them.” I want to be a global, water conserving, understanding citizen.

And then my brain backfires on me. “Does not compute.” and I pour a beer and fall into a Law and Order induced trance. Now that the work has been done – the documentary is made, we’re taking it on the road, spreading the Water Pressures message, leaving me more time to think through what exactly a Water Sin is, how I can really relate to this struggle, and what my responsibility is to discuss it. While certain days still end in a water-induced fetal position on the floor clutching my Water Pressures water bottle to my chest, I feel like the more I talk, think, and engage, the less overwhelmed I am by this topic.

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