Tonight We Sleep In Hell

Diary Entry – 44

At two in the morning I woke up and cried out fu*k Jayalalitha. Jayalalitha is the chief minister of the state that I live in. A state with no electricity.

When you have a power cut at two in the morning, it will tick anybody off. In my state people blame Jayalalitha for their troubles the same way we blamed the dean of student affairs (aka dosa) in our college. We blamed him for the lack of water and the pathetic food. I blamed him more for the food than the water. Our mess + electricity fee + water fee per day is 75 rupees. It was a miracle that we even got food. My college is a management miracle that should be a case study in Harvard Business School. For the obese, joining my college is like joining a weight loss program. What could the poor old DOSA, do if he is expected to serve a full day meal for seventy five rupees apart from providing water and electricity. So whenever I seem to miss college, I think about the food, the water and the electricity and say to myself, “Home Sweet Home.” But home is turning out to be an even bigger nightmare. Nights like these where you spend swimming in the pool of your own sweat makes you miss hostel.

Some people from other states will now empathize with our problem saying that they don’t have electricity either. When this empathy comes from places like Kerala, it really pisses me off. The monsoon rains there makes the entire state feel like it is being air conditioned where as we people here in Chennai feel like we are living in a furnace. Empathy from such people is not wanted here. Chennai is hot as it is and the other day this is what my mom had to say:

Amma: Eda Kathri is coming to Chennai in another few days and will be here for the entire month. So don’t go out too much.

Me: Kathri? Is it one of our relatives? Why the hell does she want to stay here for an entire month? I cant entertain relatives, who decide to vacation in the hottest place in the world.

Amma: Ayo Kathri is not our relative. It is the name of hottest season in Chennai. It is going to get more hot from now on.

Me: What? That is worse. I wish Kathri was one of our relatives now. *sigh*

The power cut at two in the morning lasted for two hours. I couldn’t bear it and so I decided to take a bath. As I found my way to the bathroom in the dark, I saw a shadowy figure lurking around the bathroom. Times like that you wish you saw the reruns of the Karate Kid in Sony Pix. It is not usual to have power cuts at 2 A.M and I thought the thief’s played with the power lines. I was ready to ambush what I thought was a thief. It turned out to be a lady and the lady turned out to be my mother. I was glad that I hesitated with the punch. My mother was in the bathroom for the same reason as I was. She couldn’t bear the heat and wanted to wash her face and hands to cool down.

We don’t have an inverter in the house because of rationalization that we do in the house for any purchase we make other than food. When it comes to food, the people in my house will spend their entire fortunes on it. Sometimes I get the feeling we are buying too many sweets and ice creams. When I tell mother we should be saving she says, we don’t spend our money on any other unwanted things so we shouldn’t worry. She couldn’t be more right. We don’t spend money on anything at all. That includes the inverter. Whenever I tell her that an inverter is something we need in our house, I am asked the question on how our ancestors who had no electricity hundreds of years ago lived in this country. Then I am asked, how the British not only lived in the exact same place we are living in now, but also made a big city during a time when even a ceiling fan was a luxury. *face palms* is the only reaction I can give.

One good thing came out of this early morning nightmare though. Current came back at 4 A.M and we went back to sleep. When I woke up, mom comes up to me and tells me, I made some calls. We will have an inverter with 5 hours back up in our house in another few days. In my head I shouted, “Thank you God.”

I know my blog was about to face extinction. I have been very busy doing several things at once in life. A lot of good things came out of this blog and I will never let it die that easy.

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