new delhi the muse and the musings a la kumarakom were missing on prime minister atal bihari vajpayees 78th birthday he let others do the poetry although he turned philosophic for brief moments he seemed a man in a hurry to put into practice at least one of his dreams taking drinking water to every home a benign smile lit his face throughout the morning carrying flowers and bouquets people in large numbers thronged his residence at the race course road that was thrown open to the public amid heavy security the vvips included vicepresident bhairon singh shekhawat who went around distributing laddoos and cakes deputy prime minister l k advani and rss chief k s sudarshan ministerial colleagues yashwant sinha pramod mahajan ananth kumar jagmohan and others came calling advani came with a lifesize portrait of the pm while lok sabha speaker manohar joshi and former president k r narayanan brought bouquets he corrected those who were profuse in greeting him on his birthday the world celebrates it as the birth of isa masih jesus christ he reminded them gently vajpayee did not oblige the media which wanted him to say something on your birthday but at the launching of the ambitious swajaldhara scheme which was a live ceremony complete with videoconferencing he was a proactive participant interacting with people in ahmednagar to adilabad and lucknow there was a sense of urgency even amid the touch of philosophy hum to jeete marte rahenge magar logon ko paani pahunchana ati avashyak hai agar aapke paas khana hai magar paani nahin hai to yeh bhi samasya hai we shall come and go but it is essential that people receive basic needs like drinking water you may have food to eat but if there is no water to drink then that is a problem what gladdened the prime minister was that the scheme obviously timed for release on his birthday had already taken off from delhi i had thought the scheme was only being launched magar mehsoos kar raha hoon ki yeh daftar mein file mein nahin rahi at awalapur in adilabad district andhra pradesh along with the village panchayat chief a state minister janardhan reddy was at hand at malkup village in maharashtra union minister balasaheb vikhe patil and state minister dilip walse patil received him via the satellite and at bakshi gohana kala in lucknow chief minister mayawati held the water front while others were thankful to the centre maharashtra forever proactive told the prime minister that 436 schemes had already been launched and rs 27 crore contributed forming a major chunk of the scheme so far under way a teenager representing the people of malkup forgot his lines in nervous excitement vajpayee put him at ease telling him marathit bola speak in marathi thrilled the boy completed it pronto in mother tongue the prime minister lauded the scheme for which every rs 10 contributed by the public and the state the centre would chip in with rs 90