A real watershed in dietary fads

GK Chesterton’s Noah made light of the Great Flood by saying that he didn’t care where the water goes, so long as it doesn’t go into the wine. But now in a latter-day reprise of the Biblical deluge, the western world is once again being inundated with water, which is not just getting into the wine but becoming a substitute for not only that beverage but for all potables and comestibles.

In a fad causing waves of concern among nutritionists, a growing number of people in the US are putting themselves on a ‘water diet’. The idea is to imbibe nothing but aqua till all one’s body fat has been burned away and converted into energy.

Though doctors have warned that the practice represents a serious eating disorder, the diet has gained over 17,000 followers on a social media platform.


In India, those protesting against the policies of the powers that be often undertake fasts unto dearth, if not unto death, during which only jal may be had without any accompanying paan.

The various ‘river’-sharing wars’ being waged between some states also underline the importance of what might be called ‘paani-bijli’ politics. These, however, are susceptible to the crosscurrents of misunderstanding as exemplified by the tale of the power mantri who vetoed a second dam on the same waterway on the grounds that the first having taken all the bijli out of the paani, the second dam would be redundant.