APHEA E-Souvenir · Illustrated story

The Story Behind the Tap

Artwork by

  • Jintu Dhar

Part 01

When the tap runs dry

The day begins at home with an empty tap. Step outside and the same problem looks different depending on where you stand.

An engineer and his family sit beside empty pots and a dry tap.
01 The Plumber’s House Without Water
An hourglass separates monsoon flooding from a parched street and an empty bucket.
02 The City That Throws Away Rain
A family with water vessels looks across at a pool and a man relaxing beside it.
03 A Luxury for Some, a Necessity for Others
A shopper inspects premium bottled water while women carry pots in the background.
04 The Price of Water
An hourglass contrasts a household using water above with children waiting for it below.
05 The Water Hourglass
A doctor watches over a parched Earth in a hospital bed as its water drip runs low.
06 A Planet on a Drip

Part 02

What it takes to get water flowing

The engineer goes from drawings and estimates to a burst main, an inspection and a glass of water that still has to pass a test.

A PHE engineer leans back among project drawings, files and a chalkboard sketch of a water tank.
07 The Engineer’s Drawing Room
A tower of estimates and scheme files overtops the water tank behind the engineer.
08 The Estimate That Grew Taller Than the Water Tank
A colleague checks the pressure gauge while the engineer thinks about paperwork, inspections and emergency calls.
09 The Two Meanings of Pressure
An engineer checks a tablet beside an exposed, leaking main while residents wait behind a fence.
10 A Leak Out of Sight
Reporters hold out microphones while the engineer stands waist-deep beside a burst pipe.
11 The Engineer Who Gives Interviews Underwater
Engineers with test equipment inspect a scheme as a child asks why so many doctors have arrived.
12 The Quality Control Inspection
A magnified view shows microorganisms in a glass of apparently clear water.
13 Clear Water Still Needs Testing
An engineer looks over a treatment plant while people collect and drink water in the scenes below.
14 The Work Behind a Working Tap

Part 03

The engineer stays on call

Back at the division, the paperwork has its own pressure. Calls, meetings and transfers follow the engineer well beyond the office.

Arrows carry incoming and outgoing paperwork around a PHE engineer drawn as the division’s busiest pump.
15 The Most Powerful Pump in the Division
Engineers sit around a meeting table where tea and snacks are circled at the bottom of the agenda.
16 The Most Important Item in the Meeting
An RTI request sends the engineer digging through decades of dusty scheme records.
17 The Engineer Who Became an Archaeologist
WhatsApp messages crowd the screen around a PHE engineer at his desk.
18 The Engineer’s WhatsApp University
An engineer and a small robot look toward a display of digital tools for water supply work.
19 When Artificial Intelligence Meets Field Engineering
An engineer sits at a fantasy control panel with switches for rain, sunshine and dry conditions.
20 The Engineer Who Controls the Weather
A call about a water supply breakdown interrupts a family picnic.
21 The Emergency That Waited for Sunday
A child talks to the engineer under clocks marked with duties from early morning to late at night.
22 The Clock That Works Only in PHE
The engineer is drawn with multiple arms attending to files, phones and fieldwork at once.
23 An Executive Engineer’s Many Hands
The engineer speaks to his family by video call beside a water main, with a sign showing home is 300 kilometres away.
24 The Engineer Posted 300 km from Home
A family surveys boxes and possible postings after the engineer receives a transfer order.
25 Transfer Order: The Family Packing Department
Engineers joke about pay and allowances around a scale and a pump.
26 The Eighth Pay Commission

Part 04

The next drop

The final scenes bring the story back to the tap, and to what today’s choices leave for the next generation.

One drop hangs from a tap whose shadow looks like a waterfall.
27 The Shadow of a Dripping Tap
A child holds her hands beneath a tap in a living tree, with green hills behind her.
28 Turn Off the Tap
An elder watches a child draw a blue river in a landscape where the riverbed has dried up.
29 The River in the Drawing
An engineer hands a girl a glass of water above a scene of children looking out over a river at sunset.
30 Borrowed From the Next Generation
Alternate illustrations
The family sits amid suitcases and boxes while signs point toward possible postings.
Alt 1 Transfer Order, alternate composition
A hand reaches for a tap in a tree that is green on one side and dry on the other.
Alt 2 Turn Off the Tap, alternate composition
Illustration