The Hole Story

On Wednesday, a group of men came along and dug a bloody big hole outside our house. This hole prevented us from using our parking bay, which is a problem, because parking's very hard to come by in Hauz Khas. The workers piled the contents of the hole on the side of the road, which isn't very wide, so that was a problem too. No one informed us they were going to dig the hole, and no one told us why they needed to. They dug the hole, and went home.


On Thursday, three men turned up at half past one in the afternoon. One man got in the hole and dug a bit more, and the other two sat in the shade under the frangipani tree and watched him. They all left at half past three. We still couldn't park in our parking bay, and the road was still being encroached on.


On Friday, no one turned up to work at all. The only change to the hole outside our house was that someone had thrown some rubbish into it.


On Saturday, there was a change to the status quo. Someone drove their car into the hole. I'm sure he didn't mean to...

Notice the barricades, orange cones and lights warning passersby of the presence of the hole. Don't worry if you can't see them, the driver didn't see them either, or the hole for that matter! Rod says he wasn't too pleased...

He used his tyre jack to try to lever the car up, but that wouldn't do it. A couple of labourers who were working on the building opposite eventually came over, jumped into the hole and tried to push the car up and out. That didn't work. Someone found something resembling a concrete paving slab and half wedged that in the hole. All in all, it took them about an hour to eventually get the car unstuck.

For us there was a positive aspect to the car falling down the hole, though I don't suppose the driver would see it that way. Very soon after the car had been lifted up up and away, the workers came back, laid a cable and refilled the hole. I can't say it's been done to a terribly high standard, because it seems there's at least a third of the hole debris still on our drive. I suppose we'll find out tomorrow when we try to drive off in the car how well they've tamped it all down!

Just like Snap, We've Got The Power!

Well, now at any rate. It's not been a great week for electricity in sunny South Delhi. Every summer, the power companies fail to make enough electricity to run luxury items like air conditioners, fridges and ceiling lights. And as we're currently experiencing the warmest start to the year since records began, you wouldn't be wrong in assuming the usual electricity under supply is...proceeding as usual.

For the last couple of weeks we've been having a few power outages a day, generally for an hour or less. It's almost routine now. Everyone has a torch, and we have a portable battery back up light in the dining room in the centre of the house. The light plugs into a wall socket, charging up. When the supply to the socket fails, the light immediately turns on. You wouldn't want to read a newspaper by it, but it's plenty bright enough to see where the furniture is when all the other lights have failed. I've even cooked dinner by it.

Friday at 3.40, when we got home from collecting the kids from school, the power was off. We have no idea when it actually went off, it was on when Rod and I left the house at 12.30. Our emergency light was faithfully glowing when we opened the door. The power didn't come back on until 6.10. I quickly cooked dinner. The stove and oven are gas, so are unaffected by the electricity supply. But the cook likes to use lights to see what she's doing. Luckily the family doesn't need a lot of light to eat, as the power went off again 35 minutes later. After that we retired into the front room. We have a car battery in the corner of our living room, which works in the same way as our back up light. It keeps the television/DVD/Tata Sky box/modem/telephone going until the power company restores power to our area. So we watched Kung Fu Panda in the dark. Then, because there's not much you can do when you can't turn any lights on, Keir went to bed, Thalia went to use the last 24 minutes of her laptop's battery, Rod watched some television and I had a bath. You don't actually need electricity to have a bath, not when the water tank is on the roof and it's been another 43 degree day. What comes out of the cold water tap could be taken to court for false advertising. Rod gave me the battery back up light, but within moments it forgot it was in a beige bathroom, and thought it was in a nightclub, flashing on and off like a strobe. The power had been off for so long our battery backup light had died. So not Duracell then. We switched to candles. You don't want the heat, but you need to not fall over the furniture. It's a dilemma. Power was eventually restored at 10.10, when I blew out the candles and turned on all the AC's.

Saturday was a much better day. Maybe the power company was trying to make up for the previous day's incredibly long outage... but we weren't surprised when we were plunged into the dark at 10.10 that evening. But after 10 minutes or so, Rod realised the glow he could see coming through the glass door from the dining room was a golden tone, not the cold light from the back up. The power had failed, but only in the living room and Thalia's bedroom. We checked the fuse box by the door. Everything, including the geckoes, was in order. This is not the first time we have lost power to half the house. Just before the kids and I went to Australia last summer exactly the same thing happened. An electrician came and fixed one of the main supplies into the house by using two pieces of bare wire to replace a fuse because he did not have any fuse wire. In case any long time readers thought at the time, "I wonder how long it will be before that catches fire", about 10 and a half months.

So it was dark outside, after the burnt wires stopped glowing, and it was dark in half our house. Too late to do anything about it, we moved Thalia into Keir's room and watched DVDs in our room where the AC still worked.

In the morning Rod reported the fault to Mr Gupta who lives on the top floor. He's in charge of building maintenance and repair. Mr Gupta said he'd send an electrician in half an hour. Three and a half hours later, Rod called him to check when the electrician would arrive. Mr Gupta hadn't called one yet, he'd been busy. So Rod told him he would go and fix the fault himself. And he told him, falsely, that he would have to turn off the electricity to the entire building, including Mr Gupta's apartment, while he did this. That seemed to get his attention, because within three minutes Mr Gupta was standing next to Rod. Rod pulled the fuses to our floor and the top floor (but not the first floor, because it wasn't their job to get the electrician). Mr Gupta sent his houseboy to the market to find an electrician. The houseboy returned with one five minutes later. How busy can you be, if all you're going to do is ask someone else to do something for you! But half an hour, and 150 rupees later, we had power back. Not sure the work's been done to an extremely high standard, but it only has to last five weeks... and when I return to Britain, I will be well qualified for a job as a cinema usherette!

The Prodigal Son (and Daughter) return...

Tommy and Gurshagun, our pet geckoes, have returned! They disappeared over the winter, but now it's warm (41 degrees C/106F...bit more than warm in my books!) they've ventured back into the house. Last night on my way to bed I spotted a gecko on the wall above the front door (which patently could do a better job of fitting the doorframe). I thought it was the return of Tommy, until I spotted another gecko further up the hallway. Both were much bigger than they had been last time we saw them. But I suppose, that's what grandparents etc always say when they see their grandchildren again after an extended time...

Tommy - my, hasn't he grown!

Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

And so, apparently, is Monday morning...and Tuesday afternoon...

Rod's been in London for a week, and returns home this morning. Raju will go to pick him up, so I checked the flight information for Indira Gandhi International Airport to find out if the flight was going to land at 11, as expected. Top of the Google search (IGI Arrivals) was the official website, with a number of quick links to the pages requested most frequently. The page I wanted was first on the list: Fight Information. See, I told you they were an unruly bunch...

Flying High

When you're on a flight, and the airhostess smiles and says "Is there anything I can get you, Sir?" do you think:
a) Chicken or beef, or on an Indian flight, veg or non-veg?
b) Gin and tonic or scotch on the rocks?
c) Do I really want the pack of peanuts? or
d) She fancies me.

Most people, I think, would pick a), b) or c). Possibly all of them. Most people on the flight, I think, would assume the airhostess smiled and made eye contact with them because it was her job, not because she actually fancied the overweight, three sheets to the wind bloke sitting in 25C. According to the paper this week, enough people think d) to force the Indian Civil Aviation Organisation to consider amending the rules regarding passenger behaviour on planes. It seems they've just realised passengers have been able to get away with unsocial behaviour (smoking, being drunk and disorderly, outraging the modesty of an airhostess) because if the offences take place in foreign airspace, they cannot be tried under Indian laws. And yes, there is a law regarding outraging the modesty of an airhostess...

If you want something done properly...

...then don't ask the maid to do it! Or as an alternative title: How often does a dish have to be washed before it is actually clean?

Monday to Saturday Santosh comes "to clean the house". I use inverted commas, because she doesn't see dirt, or dust, or cobwebs. It would really be more accurate to say she sweeps and wet wipes the floors, washes the dishes and makes the beds. But she doesn't make Keir's bed. Never has. When he slept on the top bunk I understood it, because she's short, and it's not easy. But when he moved to the bottom bunk it would have been an easy job. Maybe she just doesn't see his bed either...

On Monday morning Santosh washed up all the dishes. Before making dinner each night, I put them away. I noticed a small white bowl wasn't clean, so I put it back with the dirty dishes. On Tuesday, Santosh washed the dishes. When I went to put the dishes away that evening, I noticed the dish was still not clean. I know it was the same dish, because I recognised what it had contained. It still had purple conditioner in it from the hair treatment I'd done on Sunday. It was definitely the same bowl. Nothing else I'd cooked was pearly purple, nor smelled of lavender... To ensure the dish really got clean this time, I filled it with water to make sure it was easy to get off, and left it to soak by the sink. Wednesday Santosh did the dishes. Was that dish clean when I went to put it away? What do you think? So I washed the bloody thing myself. It's clean now...

Why don't we get a maid who can see dirt? Well, she's cheerful, relatively punctual and doesn't steal. All of which we rate higher than cleaning ability...

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you

Spotted in the newspaper:

How does the Indian Government classify documents as "confidential", "secret" and "top secret"?

"Top Secret", obviously! If the Central Information Commission told you it wouldn't be much of a secret, now would it?