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Spending three days in the dark

It was outright ominous, if not reeking of evil, when we reached home that day from the office and came to know about the impending doom of living in a house with the power supply cut off. Oh, if I were a newly-wed husband it would have bothered me the least. Or lets say if I were a government executive who has to finish the day's work at home because his boss had caught him napping for the first time on his job, and asked to finish the thing off at home, I would have been more than just happy. Unfortunately, I am none, and so had to accept yet another whiplash from the entity we all popularly know as God!

It happened this way: amidst the hustle-bustle of a software engineer's busy life who is currently employed on the Project Bench, the six of us had never been able to sync up our bill-payment dates. Today if you have the money, someone doesn't... and tomorrow when he has, someone else doesn't. Finally, when all of us have the money together (a rare occasion, let me assure you), no-one has the courage and will-power to get up from the bed and go and collect the money and give it to the shopkeeper downstairs who is willing to go and deposit the amount for you. Unfortunately, the officers at the electricity sub-station do not understand the deep levels of philosophical prowess required to comprehend the charm and elegance of not paying the bill and yet enjoying a fan at full speed on a hot summer evening!

And then when they finally come up and decide to give us a hard day and night, we can be paragons of efficiency and teamwork. Whew, to think of how miraculously the ATMs churned out money for us, how well-coordinated was the effort of gathering all the resources, and how swift was the execution of project "Pay-the-bill". I am sure any professional software tester would have been happily scooting and hooting about teamwork and high performance!

The best part of the story is the way we talked to the man at the electricity counter. "Sir, we have lived in constant mental agony for the last few days"... "Sir, it is due to efficient men as you that a system this huge still lights up innumerable households"... "Sir, "... you can fill in the rest of the details. And finally when we reached home to witness a tube light glowing as it does everyday in your home, we could feel the same state of bliss as Thomas Edison would have felt when he witnessed the first bulb glowing!

Did something similar happen to you?

Comments

  1. Wow. You poor fellows, 3 days is no joke!!! "Let there be light!" takes on a whole new meaning!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, you must look at the way people in our home nowadays religiously switch off fans and tube lights... Thanks for dropping by, anyway!

    ReplyDelete

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