The idea to start this campaign struck Robin Daultani on a Sunday afternoon when he was struggling to convince himself to take a shower. It was then that he realised that he may have actually come up with a solution to Mumbai’s, and eventually India’s, water crisis. The simplest possible solution was skipping a shower on Sundays.
“Call it laziness or ideation, but I subsequently Googled some data, and there it was — 727 people like me could save enough water by not bathing every Sunday to feed a village of 500 for one full month!” Daultani says.
The campaign was born that day, and Daultani began work on the design and content. He then approached Amit Aggarwal, a friend and technology expert, to see if he might be interested in becoming his partner, and he was very enthusiastic to do so. Thus, No Bath On Sundays (NBOS) saw the light of day.
To pledge support to the cause, people need to log on to the website, register themselves as a part of the campaign and sign a statement saying they will avoid taking a bath on Sundays in a bid to conserve water. Currently, the campaign has 404 members.
Why Sundays?
Sunday is just a day-in-case, partially because most people don’t work on this day, and partially because it sounded cool. “Try no-bath-on with other days and you’ll see where are we coming from,” says Daultani.
But members can always choose any other day of the week. However, Daultani says that there is no reason for members to restrict themselves from taking a bath on the chosen day should they have pressing work. “Go on your date, and make up for the Sunday in the coming weeks. Ditto if you get a haircut, fall in a manhole or just got to bathe for any other reason,” he says.
Why Sundays?
Sunday is just a day-in-case, partially because most people don’t work on this day, and partially because it sounded cool. “Try no-bath-on with other days and you’ll see where are we coming from,” says Daultani.
But members can always choose any other day of the week. However, Daultani says that there is no reason for members to restrict themselves from taking a bath on the chosen day should they have pressing work. “Go on your date, and make up for the Sunday in the coming weeks. Ditto if you get a haircut, fall in a manhole or just got to bathe for any other reason,” he says.
Social networking
The duo have been using Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about water conservation. “The campaign was fairly successful on the sites. We’ve had people changing the pre-fed messages to their own, which proves that the idea has clicked with them and, they are putting in efforts to go one step further to make the campaign popular among their friends,” says Daultani.
Despite getting 400-odd members in a few days, the duo admits that they were expecting a better response. Hence, their plan is to take the support of other media to spread the message. “Making people aware of small conservational practices which they can adopt and follow in their day-to-day life would be something which NBOS, as a campaign, is trying to achieve,” he says.
It’s all about the conversation, right?
Even if you take a bucket-bath instead of a shower, you conserve around 25 litres over a period of time.
Quick facts
Don’t bathe on a Sunday = you conserve 54 litres of water
Observe this for a year = you conserve 2,808 litres of water
Current 404 members = conserve 11, 34, 432 litres of water
727 people observe this for one year = 20, 41, 416 litres of water conserved
20, 41, 416 litres of water = monthly water requirements for a village of 500!
Go green, your way
There are loads of things out there which you can do - avoid plastic bags, save electricity, plant trees, recycle paper. So why wait? Pick up any activity of your choice and play your own little environmentalist role.