This Saturday when I woke up to a very lazy morning, two things came to my mind. First, no new tweets were requiring my attention and second the phone was beeping softly trying to get my attention that battery level was critical 26%.
The second thing was easily fixable, not the first time when I left my phone unattented. If there is a late night Twitter revolution (lying on the bed in heating conversation on twitter) it is a tiresome task to put the phone on charging.
26% was a thing on concern. My phone was 1% away from losing his IQ. But let's talk about it later. The first problem was sinister, no new tweets in the morning meant that either the world has finally abandoned me or that there is a serious problem in my funny tweets.
Confused and confounded I got out of the bed and refreshed twitter to reload my tweets. Wife was waiting for me, as usual, to brush my teeth.
Me and my wife have creative differences on how one should spend a Saturday. I believe saturday should be spent in important task like lazing around, eating Maggie and catching up with a movie in HD. She believes Saturdays are for wasting on mundane task like cleaning the house, fixing electric coocker and repairing the broken basin pipe. We are working on it.
Worried about my twitter mentions I walked towards the kitchen towards the coffee pot and realized to my horror, it wasn't there. This was a code red alert, no coffee on a Saturday morning means, either I did not do something on Friday or did something that did not go well with the home ministry. My worries were increasing at every passing second as I saw my wife sitting quietly in the dining room.
"There is no electricity," she said quietly with the peace and calmness of a monk. This was silence before she turned into the girl from exorcist.
"Right," I said that's no biggie. Our apartment has a 24/7 electricity backup and I could picture the maintenance guy starting generator.
"Since morning..." I could sense the change in her tone. It suddenly dawned on me, no electricity. No WiFi, no tweets and no battery.
Without waiting a second I rushed to call the maintaince guy. This was bad, this was sand in swimsuit bad, no this was she-hulk on PMS bad, no no this was Barnab Screamswami sitting next to you talking on his phone in a state transport bus ride whose driver has become bus driver because his truck driving license was suspended for rash driving bad.
For last one week she was reminding me to pay the electricity bill and as a very honest husband I told her I'll pay it as soon as I reach office. And apparently I did not.
Actually, I have a disagreement with the BESCOM (state electricity board) board on when one should pay the electricity bill. They disagree with me.
I rushed out of the house (for sake of my safety) to the maintainance guy.
The phone beeped. 25%. There is was, the horror. The smartphone started its power saver program to make sure I have maximum power but at the personal sacrifice of all its internet connectivity. Now my smart phone was a dumb phone used only for calls and texting. As I crossed a few flights of stairs the phone indicated. 22%.
The horrors were true, as me and the maintainence guy found out, our electricity fuse was disconnected. Not only was fuse removed but the fuse was missing. Last time when we had similar disagreement, the BESCOM technician had simply removed it and kept it aside, I had walked there and reconnected the fuse.
Clearly the technician understood and this time, not only removed the fuse but took it with him. Early Saturday morning, which could otherwise be used for useful and important task like watching harry potter movie, was now spend talking to the maintainence guy about the options left with me.
I picked up my phone to call few of the local friends about options, "Why don't you pay the bill online," came the first suggestion by a friend to whom I had to explain that WiFi won't work without electricity. The second call was to a IT bitten friend who went to tell me that nobody works on a Saturday. In short I wasted 8% of my phone battery on two useless calls.
Battery life 14%.
Watchman suggested that I visit the BESCOM office and ask them for reconnection. Considering the other option was revisiting the girl from exorcist in a house without television or internet. I decided to take the early morning mission.
Battery life 12%
With no coffee or breakfast I found myself on the corner of the road signalling an auto rickshaw. There were two addresses given to me. The first one was straight forward so I decided to take that.
The driver as usual asked for a very high fare and when refused, as usual, reduced it to reasonable. Off we went to address number one. A long queue of gents outside suggested, I wasn't the only one forced to get out on a Saturday.
The sleepy looking registrar was talking on his phone loudly in Kannada. Taking deep breath I stood patiently waiting for him to finish his call.
Battery life 10%
He looked up and spoke something in Kannada. I looked around there was nobody in office, so I politely told him Hindi please. He again spoke in Kannada but this time pointed to the bill in my hand.
"Not here..." he said, "this department is somewhere else."
I took the updated address and walked out of the office to the different 'depadtment'. The address was confusing and it took the extreme linguistic skills of the driver to navigate throught the lanes of Bangalore.
Battery life 9%
It took 1% of battery life to reach the said address and a grumpy looking man in mustache spoke in fluent Kannada. The auto driver was instantly promoted to hindi to kannada translator and started explaining in Hindi that I had to pay the bill and connection will be restored back in the evening.
I paid the bill in cash and talked to the technician. I tried to appeal to him as a human to restore the connection. I asked him, maybe I can take the fuse back to restore connection myself.
Did it sound ransom call? Maybe.
The technician looked at me and keeping a poker face said, "Fuse is in your apartment. It is kept hidden..."
Battery life 8%.
As the sherphard from 'The alchemist' I laughed loudly at the final revelation. Taking the location of my treasure, returned to my apartment proudly and installed the fuse.
I walked those stairs as if I was Thomas Edison or his genetic offspring. On this Saturday, I had escaped from 'I told you so' of my wife, I had discovered electricity and would soon find out I had tremendous RT and 5 more followers.
As I stepped into the house, electric coffee maker sizzled to life, fresh aroma was waiting for me along with chocolate fondue for breakfast.
I now know how Superman felt. I now know how...
"Did you call the plumber?" Wife asked, "the shower is leaking..."
And life continues.
The second thing was easily fixable, not the first time when I left my phone unattented. If there is a late night Twitter revolution (lying on the bed in heating conversation on twitter) it is a tiresome task to put the phone on charging.
26% was a thing on concern. My phone was 1% away from losing his IQ. But let's talk about it later. The first problem was sinister, no new tweets in the morning meant that either the world has finally abandoned me or that there is a serious problem in my funny tweets.
Confused and confounded I got out of the bed and refreshed twitter to reload my tweets. Wife was waiting for me, as usual, to brush my teeth.
Me and my wife have creative differences on how one should spend a Saturday. I believe saturday should be spent in important task like lazing around, eating Maggie and catching up with a movie in HD. She believes Saturdays are for wasting on mundane task like cleaning the house, fixing electric coocker and repairing the broken basin pipe. We are working on it.
Worried about my twitter mentions I walked towards the kitchen towards the coffee pot and realized to my horror, it wasn't there. This was a code red alert, no coffee on a Saturday morning means, either I did not do something on Friday or did something that did not go well with the home ministry. My worries were increasing at every passing second as I saw my wife sitting quietly in the dining room.
"There is no electricity," she said quietly with the peace and calmness of a monk. This was silence before she turned into the girl from exorcist.
"Right," I said that's no biggie. Our apartment has a 24/7 electricity backup and I could picture the maintenance guy starting generator.
"Since morning..." I could sense the change in her tone. It suddenly dawned on me, no electricity. No WiFi, no tweets and no battery.
Without waiting a second I rushed to call the maintaince guy. This was bad, this was sand in swimsuit bad, no this was she-hulk on PMS bad, no no this was Barnab Screamswami sitting next to you talking on his phone in a state transport bus ride whose driver has become bus driver because his truck driving license was suspended for rash driving bad.
For last one week she was reminding me to pay the electricity bill and as a very honest husband I told her I'll pay it as soon as I reach office. And apparently I did not.
Actually, I have a disagreement with the BESCOM (state electricity board) board on when one should pay the electricity bill. They disagree with me.
I rushed out of the house (for sake of my safety) to the maintainance guy.
The phone beeped. 25%. There is was, the horror. The smartphone started its power saver program to make sure I have maximum power but at the personal sacrifice of all its internet connectivity. Now my smart phone was a dumb phone used only for calls and texting. As I crossed a few flights of stairs the phone indicated. 22%.
The horrors were true, as me and the maintainence guy found out, our electricity fuse was disconnected. Not only was fuse removed but the fuse was missing. Last time when we had similar disagreement, the BESCOM technician had simply removed it and kept it aside, I had walked there and reconnected the fuse.
Clearly the technician understood and this time, not only removed the fuse but took it with him. Early Saturday morning, which could otherwise be used for useful and important task like watching harry potter movie, was now spend talking to the maintainence guy about the options left with me.
I picked up my phone to call few of the local friends about options, "Why don't you pay the bill online," came the first suggestion by a friend to whom I had to explain that WiFi won't work without electricity. The second call was to a IT bitten friend who went to tell me that nobody works on a Saturday. In short I wasted 8% of my phone battery on two useless calls.
Battery life 14%.
Watchman suggested that I visit the BESCOM office and ask them for reconnection. Considering the other option was revisiting the girl from exorcist in a house without television or internet. I decided to take the early morning mission.
Battery life 12%
With no coffee or breakfast I found myself on the corner of the road signalling an auto rickshaw. There were two addresses given to me. The first one was straight forward so I decided to take that.
The driver as usual asked for a very high fare and when refused, as usual, reduced it to reasonable. Off we went to address number one. A long queue of gents outside suggested, I wasn't the only one forced to get out on a Saturday.
The sleepy looking registrar was talking on his phone loudly in Kannada. Taking deep breath I stood patiently waiting for him to finish his call.
Battery life 10%
He looked up and spoke something in Kannada. I looked around there was nobody in office, so I politely told him Hindi please. He again spoke in Kannada but this time pointed to the bill in my hand.
"Not here..." he said, "this department is somewhere else."
I took the updated address and walked out of the office to the different 'depadtment'. The address was confusing and it took the extreme linguistic skills of the driver to navigate throught the lanes of Bangalore.
Battery life 9%
It took 1% of battery life to reach the said address and a grumpy looking man in mustache spoke in fluent Kannada. The auto driver was instantly promoted to hindi to kannada translator and started explaining in Hindi that I had to pay the bill and connection will be restored back in the evening.
I paid the bill in cash and talked to the technician. I tried to appeal to him as a human to restore the connection. I asked him, maybe I can take the fuse back to restore connection myself.
Did it sound ransom call? Maybe.
The technician looked at me and keeping a poker face said, "Fuse is in your apartment. It is kept hidden..."
Battery life 8%.
As the sherphard from 'The alchemist' I laughed loudly at the final revelation. Taking the location of my treasure, returned to my apartment proudly and installed the fuse.
I walked those stairs as if I was Thomas Edison or his genetic offspring. On this Saturday, I had escaped from 'I told you so' of my wife, I had discovered electricity and would soon find out I had tremendous RT and 5 more followers.
As I stepped into the house, electric coffee maker sizzled to life, fresh aroma was waiting for me along with chocolate fondue for breakfast.
I now know how Superman felt. I now know how...
"Did you call the plumber?" Wife asked, "the shower is leaking..."
And life continues.
Comments
Post a Comment
What do you think about the post? Have your say, like, dislike or even hate me. Tell me.
You might also want to Subscribe to RSS feeds or follow me on Twitter (@sidoscope) or on facebook
I don't need weapon, I have a sharp tongue.