Water war.

Water war

One of the poorest neighborhoods in the world is in a Kerala town in India. The neighborhood is literally two streets and houses on those streets. There are constant fights between those who live on Jayashankar road and those who live on Priya road. The streets are parallel to each other. The main source of fighting is the single well that provides water to the people of both these streets. It is a perpetual fight to be the first there and to draw enough water so that a family is able to cook, clean, drink, and bathe.

If you go there in the wee hours after midnight, you can see empty buckets and pails lined up on both sides of the well. In a hour or so, the women and children will come to draw water and get started with their days. But each street has their own gang of hoodlums. The Jayashankar gang smashes the earthen pitchers that belong to families on Priya. The exact same situation happens with the Priya gang. The constant one upping often leads to several families going without water on some days. The only one happy is the pot maker. There is violence on some days, and always sorrow. If your family has a meal of thick gruel, then it is a happy day.

Of course, this is a tale of two star-crossed lovers. John from Jayashankar and Hari from Priya road. It is hard enough to live on these streets and be lovers. But the animosity each streets have to each other is probably less than the homophobia of the people in this town.

On a day after intense fights between the two groups, a woman from outside the town comes to the water well and drinks without a care for the people gaping at this audacity. She is Esther. To the corner, at the tea shop, she finds out about the fights and this general animosity. She hears it all and recognizes an opportunity. She bounces from one side to the other side offering her services to get more water for each street. Playing each off the other, she hopes to some how end this fight. She jumps from one gang to the other raising the stakes, escalating the fights. All of this on the idea that in the end that the fighting might end with the gangs self destructing because of this escalation. Of course, this is made difficult with the two lovers. She hopes to unite them. But to unite them and have them be accepted is the part that borders on insanity. But she can do it. The question is how...