Candid, not Candied

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Day 17: Water, water everywhere!

'KK, wake up!!! WATER!!' I literally screamed as I woke up in the morning at 6 AM. Sleepy eyed KK was wondering what got into his newly wed wife.

'What?' he asked.

'OMG, wake up, wake up!! Our house is flooded' said I while looking down at the water level which had covered my ankles. 

This was the time when we had not even completed a month of wedded bliss. We had rented a huge two bedroom house in Vallabh Nagar, which was gonna be (relatively) closer to KK's office. 

'What happened? Where's the water coming from?' he was asking as I dashed to the kitchen to find the water flowing from the tap at full force. The sink lock had jammed and as a result the water did not find the outlet. It continued flowing till it managed to reach every corner of the house. 

Now, ours was a two bedroom house with a kitchen that had a dry area and a terrace. Our bedroom had a terrace too. By modern standards, the house was HUGE! 

First, I shut the tap and was relieved that water was no longer adding to the pool. Then I looked around. I was standing there wondering what I should do, what I should say. After all, it was a naya-naya basaya sansaar. I just didn't want KK to think I was a goose-head. I was not trained in disaster management because such disasters never occurred at mom's place. And even if it did, mom knew what to do. 

How did I leave the tap open? Well, there was this 'paani aane ka time' and obviously at around 11 PM the water supply used to be off. I must have left it on and forgotten about it. 

I was panicky, I was shivering. Oh! Did I mention, it was supposed to be KK's day to resume his desk? Breakfast was yet to be done, dabba was yet to be done and the water... SIGH!!!

'What to do?' I asked him.

'We clear this ASAP.' he said coolly as if I had just spilled a glass of water. 

'How?' 

'You take care of the breakfast, I'll do it. I will push the water in the balcony where it'll drain out.'

'But, if I do it too, it'll clear out fast.' 

'No. You are just out of your illness, I don't want you to take physical strain. Else, let's call Mr. B for his help.'

(Mr. B used to do all petty work at my father's office and he had helped a lot with the shifting stuff. He used to be close-by.)

'Nooooooooooooo, not him... he's a newspaper. He'll tell my dad the moment he sets his foot in the office.'

(Mr. B is a motor mouth. I didn't want my dad to know all this kaand that I'd done. And then the lectures that would ensue, I wanted to avoid them. ;) )

It was 6:30 by then. I walked into the other bedroom and almost fainted. Our 4 unpacked bags lay on the floor, swimming in the pool of water.

'KK, baaags.' I wailed.

'Don't worry, they are water proof. So there are no chances of clothes getting wet. Anyway, lets move them.'

We hauled the water soaked bags (at least from the outside) and kept them on tables. And KK got down to work. Now, the slopes in the house were really weird. It wasn't sloping toward the balconies, but away from them. So he had to drag the water up-slope and then the water would go in the balcony. This was taking a lot more time than expected.

'What about your office?' I asked sheepishly.

'I have to go. Can't stay home.'

'But how will I manage? I HAVE to clear the house before the maid comes in. Nahi toh, she'll tell the whole building and everyone will curse me.'

'Call Mr. B.'

'Nooooooooooooooooooooo... piliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz noooooooo...' 

'Ok. Ok. We won't call him. Then what are we gonna do? I'll go at 11 then.'

Thankfully, mom had let me borrow her vacuum cleaner which could be used to swab floor. That meant I could take off the excess water with that. After one and half hour of manually throwing the water out, I brought out the vacuum cleaner and dried the house off the remainder water. 

By this time, KK was dead tired and he retired to bed with an instruction to wake him at 10. 

Just 2 minutes later, someone rang the door bell. I was petrified to find two men standing in front of me. One was the watchman, I recognized. 

'Hello, I live on the first floor, just below your house. We have some leakage in our bedroom. I just wanted to  see if the leakage was from here?'

I was petrified. I asked them to wait outside, while I ran in to 'KK, two men have come saying there's leakage. What to do? What to do?'

'We'll tell them the truth.'

'No, no, no, no, noooooooo, please, please, please nooooooo. I know how touchy society women are when it comes to wasting water... pleaseeeeeeee....'

'Ok. But at least let them in. We can't keep them standing outside forever.'

They came into the bedroom and the watchman cum plumber said 'Paani yahaan se leak hua hai' (The water has leaked from here) pointing to one corner in the bedroom which was sharing the balcony.

'Haan, actually aaj subah humne balcony dhoya tha. Shayad uske wajah se leak hua hoga.'(Yes, actually we just washed the balcony today morning. The leakage could have been because of that.) said KK, my HERO!

'Haan, ho sakta hai... lekin ab thode dinon ke liye yahaan paani mat daalna.' (Yes, maybe... but for a few days don't wash the balcony.)

I felt a wave of relief wash over me. 

'Look, everything's fine. Now, don't worry!' said KK with a smiling face. 'BTW, I missed my bus, you know that. That means you will have to drop me to the office.'

This happened on May 3rd, 2010. A year after that incident, many would think I am laughing it off, but no, it still gives me goose bumps.

As for telling my parents about it; they came visiting in the evening and I was feeling so guilty that I narrated the whole incident myself. :)



7 comments:

  1. Yay!!! Keep digging woman!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. hah hah, something similar had happened at my home too...my mom's actually when mom me and NP were out. Thankfully it was night, so we cleared off all that we could and let all the fans in the house do the drying work...we called that our "Water Kingdom"

    ReplyDelete
  3. oh God!..can totally imagine the whole situation and urs too...kudos to ur hubby for being Mr.Kool. Mine is one too..:-)..
    Naye naye shaadi ke goof ups can never be forgotten..:-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Did u hv paani for the rest of the work, esp. the ones that go on in a different room? :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. N: yes, more reasons for laughter, eh?

    Varsha: wow! good to know I am not akeli goose-head in this world. ;)

    Uma: I know, if it weren't for him, I would have started crying maybe!

    Namratha: Yes, yes.. we did. (THANKFULLY) nahi hota toh I would feel soo guilty for the rest of the day!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Shraddha: you just can't imagine!

    ReplyDelete

Go on, say it! I will not sue you... pinky promise!

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails