This is really heart-wrenching and unheard story, unbelievable that can happen in two thousand and twenty-one. The incident happened in the state of Rajasthan which has to bear scorching summer heat every year most of the time. The story is extremely tragic and may stun anybody who reads it. Empty stomachs, parched throats, lonely desert, a woman and child, and 32 hours in the open, most of them under the cruel summer sun. Halfway through what was to be a 9-km, well-trod distance, the five-year-old was dead, of a reason unheard of in 2021 even in arid Rajasthan: thirst. Her crime was she forgot to take a water bottle to carry with her. The postmortem said Anjali died of “severe dehydration”. Her grandmother, Sukhi Devi, 60, spent about a week in different hospitals. It is not clear how they ended up thus, or there. Sukhi says they had done the route often earlier. the only difference was that this time Anjali forgot her water bottle. This is a shame for all of us. A five-year-old girl dies of thirst due to lack of tap water anywhere available in her route. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot instead of always concentrating on controlling rebellion in his party to keep his power intact should concentrate on developing the water system of the state. It is a shame for Congress that rules Rajasthan that, the state ranks 29th among 33 states and union territories in terms of providing tap connections in rural areas. Why Gehlot did not act upon providing water tap connections in rural areas, is the question. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi always sermons everybody about many things about democracy and humanity, why he did not direct his CM to work to provide tap water in rural areas. Apart from politics, this is an incident that will be an eye opener for the state administrator. As usual, now the administration has started the blame game and shuddering off responsibility. The Chief engineer of the public health engineering department has explained that there is no dearth of water in that area. He cited the reason for the unfortunate girl’s death that, the family lived in a very far area. Anjali and her mother Sukhi decided to take the nearest route to go on foot to meet Sukhi’s youngest daughter Puja. The incident has brought the pathetic situation of the water crisis in the country everywhere. In Maharashtra also, the rural areas are paralyzed by acute water shortage every year and succumbed to the tanker lobby’s arbitrary dictatorship. The government departments, the political leaders and tanker lobby nexus have taken disadvantage of water shortage since many years. Rajasthan has also the same story with no water is provided in rural areas except the areas of influential leaders. Now the blame game between state and center has also started. Rajasthan public health minister asks if someone is taking a jungle way to walk, what can the department do? This is like rubbing the salt on the dead Anjali. He has also accused the center for cutting the assistance for drinking water schemes in a desert like the state Rajasthan.  He has valid point, but this is not the question of who is wrong and who is right. A five-year-old girl has died of thirst due to lack of public water system in her nine KM walk is enough to expose the water crisis in India, maybe it has happened in Rajasthan or elsewhere. This is the sad story of today’s modern and pragmatic world.