House O Havoc

For those of you have lived in India before, one must be well aware of the ridiculously long processes one must go through to get a flat (apartment) set up. Plenty of the other fellows have had horror stories about not being able to obtain a gas cylinder for the stove (as they are distributed by the government), staying up till odd hours only to case the garbage man to get him to pick up the garbage, buying single liter bottles of water for weeks before being able to locate a water man, fungus embedded on ceilings simply to be wiped away by a “professional”, toilets overflowing after use, and much more. Besides finding an apartment (which took me forever) I felt my roommate and I had it easy compared to the other fellows. We live on a small street (that spits up sewage everyday) that happens to have a million small shops on it. We immediately got our water set up, daily newspaper delivered, and the interent guy literally waited 3 hours at our door to ask us if we wanted interent and the watchman’s wife picks up the trash every morning. Not too bad.

Then the problems started. Our landlord ignores us, our geezer broke and leaks so we have no hot water for our showers, the mosquito infestation was ridiculous (but worth our beautiful view of the lake), the sink tap stopped working and once it started working the tap literally broke off. Then as the maid was cleaning the bathroom she decided to knock the tap off in the bathroom and not inform me, thus allowing gallons of water to shoot out all over the bathroom and my roommate’s room. It was the most overwhelming experience having the security guard’s wife and father try to help me while only speaking Telegu. My neighbor trying to help me translate but she only speaks English and Hindi and finally my friend’s driver translating in all three languages to get things across. CRAZY! Finally my favorite part was getting locked in my own bedroom as my door knob was broken.

So Sunday was finally the fix it day, and what a day it was! My house wreaked havoc!! The carpenter and his apprentice came to fix screens to keep the mosquitoes out and do other odd jobs, the plumber came to fix the bathroom, the watch man came to be the pompous ass hole he is and help the plumber, the maid came to clean, the landlord’s son came to bug us, the neighbor came to talk to us, the neighbors two young kids who I love came to scream, run around and dance in our house, and finally my friend stopped by to say hi. I cannot begin to describe the chaos that was our house for those three hours. At one point when the little boy from next door was literally hanging on me screaming in my ear while the carpenter was asking me a question in Hindi and water was shooting out in the bathroom, I looked at my roommate and said every so enthusiastically… I LOVE THIS! What a great day! J