Water Contamination @ IIT Delhi

Day before yesterday, there was a notice informing the students about a possible contamination in the drinking water and we were asked to refrain from drinking the same. Soon all hell broke loose in the campus with students running around to stock as many mineral water bottles as possible. Within a couple of hrs there was a scarcity of mineral water in the campus and lazy ones like me had to go out of the campus to get some and owing to my laziness again, I made sure to buy enough bottles to see me through for at least a couple of days.

The next day started as usual and within a couple of hrs I began showing symptoms of dysentery and before I could realize I was bedridden, lying down helpless and dehydrated. Many a times I used to feel that my laziness would someday endanger my life but I never thought this would be such a day. What started as intermittent visits to the loo soon turned out to be periodic and I was too lazy to go to the hospital and as a result of which I had become completely dehydrated by evening and could hardly move around.

In the evening Sumit and Prashant managed to get some medicines and stuff for me but that didn’t help either. Sometime during the midnight I began feeling dizzy and everything seemed to look hazy and squinted. I was losing consciousness and with great difficulty could manage to call up Sumit. Soon Sumit arrived along with Prashant and took me to a hospital outside the campus. It was about 1.30 am and I felt lucky to have found a doctor available at that time. But soon my hope straightway vanished in thin air after looking at the doctor. The guy seemed to be a more of a full-time medical attendant than a doctor and for some strange reason was hell bent on getting me admitted before even administering basic medication. Somehow this attitude of his scared me and my disease and I started feeling relatively better. I changed my mind and decided to go back to the campus. On my way to hostel, we stopped to check the IIT hospital and found that there were hundreds of cases like mine and the nurse was kind enough to administer me medication at that odd hour and offered me to sleep in the hospital for observation.

By the time I woke up the next morning, things were lot better for me. I could manage to walk around and reached the hostel by walk. Spent the entire day on bed, looking at the ceiling and was almost successful in calculating the revolutions per minute of the fan in different modes of speed. I had also noticed the flourishing animal life in cobwebs which had consumed the entire ceiling. Strange but I had to fall so sick to take notice of such things. Anyways, I vowed to myself that the first thing after I get well would be cleaning the entire ceiling which I managed to do so.

Anyways today things are more or less under control and should consider myself lucky as I had heard scores of cases where students are yet to get out of critical condition. Well till I get convinced, its only mineral water for me.

The most painful thing besides my condition was the torture my family had to go through while I was sick. They literally called me up every hr to check upon my condition. Some respite it was, talking to people who really care for you. I am very lucky in that aspect.

That’s all from me and IIT Delhi. Hope things get well soon for everyone.

PS: For some strange reason this news of widespread water contamination doesnt seem to have leaked out to the press and despite my deliberate efforts, I couldn’t find a single mention of this mess anywhere.