Back to India Voyage - If it's not Fire, it is Water

Prologue

Dont know where to start on this one, as we have had an event less couple of weeks, where everything settled to normalcy. My work schedule has gotton into a nice little routine, and Kids have found themselves friends in the complex and Diwali was a grand success, with kids and adults alike having a blast. Geetha's parents and Sister/BIL were also in town and that made it even more memorable as I had the opportunity to meet Sri Samavedam Shanmukha Sarma Garu because of Madhavi's acqauintance with him. Perks of moving to India, I would say.

If it aint broke - you are not working hard enough

Anything can be repaired in India, including broken iPhones. I finally got someone to fix my broken iPhone screen and gave that to Geetha (Not so romantic, I agree, but she didn't want me to spend more on her phone) during Dasara. She was really enjoying it, and even had an exchange offer from her BIL with a very good Nokia model. One thing of note is that because of the small number of iPhones, the popular e-commerce and e-mall apps are not available on iPhones in India. There are some really great apps like ngPay etc which will let you purchase anything from rail/movie/bus tickets, banking/commerce apps, but they are limited to other smart and not so smart phones. This is a clear case of Discrimination against iPhones and I want to propose to the Congress that they should create a special reservation category for us "e-commerce app Deprived iPhone Users". That's a nice little de-tour, but lets get back to the main topic, shall we?

Geetha's mother left for Kasi along with my parents and I have decided to do Nattalu (fasting everyday for the entire month of Karthika masam) and really getting into it. It had been a week or so into the month of Karthika Masam. My routine is to perform the Puja in the morning and leave for work, come back in the evening, take shower and do puja in the evening and then have my meal of the day. I do not know if it is the fasting or Geetha has gotten even better at cooking, but every meal was so sumptuous that I used to over-eat everyday, and follow that up by a solid sleep till the morning.

Wake up call - sort of

One of those days, Geetha's dad came upstairs around 3 AM in the morning, complaining that the first floor got flooded. I was not sure if I was having a nightmare or it is really happening. Then again, my doubts have been washed off as I walked downstairs along with Geetha to see that the entire ground floor (kitche, hall, bedroom, dining room) is flooded with water. Not much, but about less than an inch of water in the whole house. We saw water dropping of the ceiling in the Kitchen and my throat went dry (amidst all the water around). We soon noticed a jet of water splashing in the sink and my first thought is that there is a broken pipeline somewhere.

So I picked up the phone and was calling the building maintenance. I was talking to them, about the leak and asking them to come over as this comes close to the definition of Emergency (at least in my dictionary) and Geetha asked me to cut the call and come take a look. She discovered the source, and it is not a broken line, and I had to cut call with the maintenance saying "Never mind.." and turned my attention to Geetha.

At this point, Her father is a little confused, perturbed and worried to say the least. Dont' know if it is the way we are, or we got toughened by the events that culminated to date, neither Geetha nor I did flinch and behaved as if it were a regular event during the course of the day. It did not matter that, it was in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning, or that there is water all over the house.

Where the rubber meets the road

The problem turned out to be a water inlet for our Water filter in the kitchen. Somehow, the inlet pipe came loose and water started gushing out (it is only a 5 mm pipe, but the pressure is high, with us being in the ground floor) into the sink. There was a plate covering the sink drain, so the water was splashing upwards giving us the impression that there was a leak in the ceiling. Now we were in much worse shape, as the problem was not someone else's but just our doing.

For starters, we shut down the inlet valve to avoid further amplification of the problem, then surveyed the scenario a little. There is water all over and we have two outlets one in to the balcony (closer to the source) and another into the bathroom attached to the bedroom (farthest from the problem source). With water being everywhere, Geetha and I decided to roll-up our sleeves and get to work. Thank the Mighty british empire for endowing us with the greatest of strategies, we decided to "Divide and Conquer". Geetha chose the balcony outlet and I chose the bathroom outlet, and armed with sponge mops we started sweeping the water away.

Nick-nacks and few other toys and sundry kept aside, Geetha and I were busy brushing/pushing the water out of the house into the outlets. Water under the beds, under the sofas, and water in the kitchen. Slowly but steadily Getha made her way out of the kitchen in to the hall and I met her my clearing my way out of the bedroom. We are breathing a sigh of relief when we saw ......

Fighting Spirit - not ours

Back to the point I mentioned earlier, regarding the iPhone, there it is, totally drenched in the water on the kitchen counter. It was so strategically placed on the kitchen counter that all the water splashing (instead of over-pouring) was landing on or near the phone and I read somewhere that electronic equipment and water do not mix well. There is truth to that piece of wisdom and now I could see the iPhone trying to do its best. One could clearly see the struggle its going through as the screen is flashing, flinching and even made attempts to make and answer phone calls. I attribute it to the brave soul that Steve jobs had designed, that despite its agonizingly pathetic physical condition, it was making feeble attempts to assure us that "all izz well". But we know in our heart of hearts that that poor soul is destined to be silenced and we would not see his bright face anymore.

We said a few little prayers for the brave soul and marched on the task in hand. Sure enough, in about an hour we were able to clear the house of the water, and we looked at each other, and heaved a sigh of relief. It was in the middle of the night, and we were sweating from the exhaustive physical work and said good night to Geetha's dad and went back to sleep as if nothing had happened.

A Matter of Faith

What befuddled us and put us in a state of sheer amazement was the fact that, there is not a drop of water in the Pooja Room which is adjacent to the Kitchen, hall and dining room. I dont claim it to be a divine intervention or a miracle, but a key aspect of our Vasthu system or Engineering which made that part of the house slightly inclined and the basi characteristic of water to follow the downward slope. If you see this an omen to renew your faith, I would be a happier person for it.

When we woke up the next morning, the only remnants of the last night's event were the wet floor mats and the dying iPhone. If not for these hard evidences, I would have chalked out this as a decent nightmare and slept if off..

Back to India Voyage - Pranavi's mis-adventure

There is an age old Chinese proverb that translates to 'May you live in interesting times'. Often this is referred to as Chinese curse. My life in India has been nothing short of making that come true in every sense of the word. I have not had time to jot down some of the incidents of the recent past, but this one begs to be told, and I would not do proper justice to the gravity of the incident if I wait any longer.

Perfect Start (or lack there of)

This incident happened on 18th December 2010 (a Saturday for those looking to find patterns or omens). I was getting ready to go to work in the morning, and the driver reported that the car would not start, not due to a dead battery, but some other hitherto unknown reason. This being India and inside a large residential complex, I asked my driver to call his driver brethren, and all of them gave me a jolly ride in and around the complex, while I tried in vain to jump start the engine. Very soon I realized that we are into unchartered waters, and asked the driver to call in the mechanic and get it towed and looked up, while I waited in the house. An hour later, they could not find out exactly what went wrong, and I called the Ford service technician as a last resort. He gave an appointment and after hearing the problem description over the phone, diagnosed the problem and gave my driver a quick remedy. Lone behold, the car starts, and it is an air leak in the fuel system and needs repaired, but as a stop-gap solution, we can pump out the air in the system and the car would work fine, and it only happens if we leave it idle overnight.

Now, both Geetha and I have decided to go ahead with our initial scheduled plan of visiting her friend's place (we should have learnt our lesson based on how the day started for us.. No, we didn't). So, we grabbed our little ones and headed for their house. Theirs is a duplex apartment, converted by internally linking 2 apartments one over the other in 3rd and 4th floors with a spiral stair case. Pranavi's favorite spot to throw a fit is that spiral stair case, her so called 'Alaka Griham'. They have a son Nikhil (9th grader) who loves to play with Dhruva and Pranavi and vice versa. That is another reason why we decided to march ahead with our plans despite the small hiccup with the car (coming to think about it, the car kinda has a hiccup and we have to clear the air pocket...). So, we are all having fun. Kids are playing with Nikhil, Geetha chatting with Narmada and I am discussing which amplifier to purchase for Murthy's new entertainment system (this guy has a separate entertainment room that you all would be proud/jealous of depending on the take). Pranavi said she was tired and wants to sleep and went into a room.

Room Alone

A little while later, I hear Pranavi crying, and since we were in the higher floor and voice being very feeble, assumed that she was downstairs and Geetha assumed that Pranavi was upstairs. Fact of the matter is that, she went into a room (upstairs) and the door closed behind her and got locked up. She could not reach for the lights and it is dark inside. However feisty little gal she is, she is still afraid of dark (partly/mostly because we use it as a weapon to feed her) and is crying scared inside.

When we realized that she was inside, they were panicked and started looking for the keys. Guess what, we tried over a dozen keys, but not able to open the door. Pranavi's cries have gone louder and she started coughing heavily, which could only lead to one thing -- she is going to vomit. Murthy and Narmada are getting anxious and trying to call in lock-smith and I even tried my Credit-card swipe technique. It did yield favorable results. Meanwhile, Pranavi went silent. This bothered all of us, and we are not sure what she is up to. Geetha kept calling her and tried to calm her down.

A true testament to our re-adaptation to the mother land, neither Geetha nor I were panicked. We were simply assessing the situation and looking at ways to solve the problem. It is heartening and comforting to see ourselves so composed in a situation like this.

"Kshana Kshanam".. (Sridevi and Venkatesh trying to sneak out of her apartment)

It is Nikhi's room that Pranavi got locked in, and he is in real panic. He told me that the window ( a large sliding French window) of his room is open and I went in to check from the other balcony. It sure is open. I have gauzed the situation and I can walk out of the balcony of the hall and cross over (about 4-5 feet) and reach the AC Unit outside the room and get past it and then slide into the room through the window. It is only fourth floor and it is dark outside, so I cant even see how high up I was. So, while there is a small contingent of people attending to Pranavi, I walked out of the balcony and reached the other room. A small detail worthy of mention is that there is no balcony in the room that Pranavi is in, as they converted even the balcony into the room to make it bigger. So, here I was hanging on to a rod 4 floors above ground trying to get past an AC unit attached to wall so I can get inside the room. Can anyone say "Kshana Kshanam"..

The hosts just realized what I was doing and they got panicked even further for both of us. Slowly and steadily I made past the AC unit, and grabbed the window and slide it open. I pulled myself up and slowly into the room. I was behind the computer desk and made my way through the opening to the front and there is Pranavi crying her lungs out and hugging Geetha dearly. Did I miss something here? I guess so...

While I was doing my own adventures, Geetha asked Pranavi to hold her hand (which she slid under the door) to appease Pranavi. In doing so, little miss Pranavi somehow managed to turn the knob and open the door. Poor kid was traumatized severely and was in a sorry state. She held on to Geetha like she wouldn't want to leave her at any cost, and in uncontrollable state. She is only 3 years old, but this is the first time I have seen her soft.

In the end, I was very pleased that she managed to open the door by herself, but it was kind of anti-climactic.. Don't you think...

So, I'm left with admiration for Murphy for his universal law... "If anything can go wrong, it will.."