‘If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water’. Indeed so, water is a key foundation, a means of survival, a basic necessity of life for most, if not all, living organisms on the Earth. Water, the hub of life, is the matter and matrix, mother and medium of all things under the sky. It won’ t be misleading to say that water creates a vicious circle providing a niche for the growth and development of human kind. Plants need water to carry on the process of photosynthesis, and it goes without saying that it is because they survive that we survive. Nonetheless, human beings are directly dependent on water to satiate their body.
A chemical combination of hydrogen and oxygen in the ratio 2:1 creates a molecule commonly called water, which is a transparent, tasteless and odourless fluid and which forms the world’s streams, lakes, oceans and rain, and is also a major constituent of the fluids of organisms. Water exists in all the three distinct states of matter, in solid state as ice, in liquid state as the flowing water and in the gaseous state as vapour. It covers almost 71 percent of the Earth’s surface but only a minute fraction is available as fresh water suitable for consumption, thus instigating the saying ‘Water Water everywhere, not a drop to drink’. 96.5 percent of the planet’s crust water is present in seas and oceans, 1.7 percent as groundwater and yet 1.7 percent in glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland, a small fraction in other water bodies and 0.001 percent in the air as vapour, clouds and precipitation. Water on Earth follows a cycle of evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation and runoff, usually reaching the sea.
Life without water is spotting a pig flying!, which we consider impossible under the present circumstances. The vitality of water is a vivid issue with numerous instances to satisfy the cause. The importance of water in one’s life can be best illustrated by imagining a day with the dry well.