Aabid Surti

Aabid Surti is an odd character.

A few years ago, he was invited to meet the President of India

to receive a national award . He politely declined.

But he has time for every Sunday for seven years now,

to go door-to-door in Mira Road, a non-descript suburb of Mumbai,

with a plumber to repair leaking taps for FREE. 

Aabid has written around 80 books. He read an interview of the

former UN chief Boutros Boutros Ghali, that by 2025 more than

40 countries are expected to experiemce water crisis.

A few days later, he came across a statistic in that: A TAP THAT

DRIPS ONCE  EVERY SECOND WASTES 1000 LITRES A MONTH.

That triggered an idea. He would take a plumber from door to door

and fix taps for FREE - one Apartment Complex every week-end.

First began by replacing old O-ring rubber gaskets with new ones.

He named his one-man NGO 'Drop Dead'  and created a tag line:

Save Every Drop… or Drop Dead.

His team – consisted consisted of Aabid himself, Riyaaz the plumber
and a female volunteer Tejal.  By the end of 1st year they had visited 1533 homes
and fixed  around 400 taps.
   

Slowly, the news began to spread. 
In March 2008, director Shekhar Kapur, who was working on
water conservation film, wrote on his website: ‘
Aabid Surti, thank you so much for who you are.
I wish there were more people like you in this world.
Keep in touch with us and keep inspiring us.
Newspapers began to write about Drop Dead, .
One of the most heartfelt messages was from  Shah Rukh Khan,
In 2010, Aabid Surti was nominated for the CNN-IBN CJ
‘Be The Change’ Award. In the same year, a television crew
from Berlin flew down to follow him on his Sunday rounds
which continued come monsoon or shine. 
Conservatively, he has saved at least 5.5m litres of water till date.
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