Thiyagaraj Krishna thiya.net – My favourite place to rant and rave.

Baggage weight-loss program

My room-mate Mohan started for Sweden on official business last night, and there was no power at our place during that time. I came in around 10 PM to find the house in partial darkness, only our house, the only light inside being that of an emergency lamp. He bid good-bye and left for the airport with me wondering what to do without electricity.

Fortunately, the previous night, I had left my laptop plugged in and it had full power to last atleast for a couple of hours at the bare minimum. Also, with my Data Card on, I figured I could atleast be online for sometime before having a mosquito infested sleep.

I switched on my laptop and sat wondering how I was going to pass the night, the landlord should have slept and that was the reason that I decided to go and ask him the next day about the power cut. Then after feeling restless, I decided to go and find out if it was a blown fuse which I could identify if I could lay my hands on the electricity meter. I searched around the house with the faint light of my mobile phone which was in its last stages of its power. I finally found a hound of meters at the side of the house in a dark section. I thought I figured out the right meter when I saw one which was not showing any moment at all, With glee I decided to open the mesh gate that was enclosing it when to my dismay, I found that there was a lock in place and it was locked.

I returned to my laptop and just sat there wondering how I was going to pass the night when I got a call from my room-mate! My initial thought was that he had left something behind and was calling me to get it for him. He informed me that his baggage was overweight by over 10 kilograms and that it was very expensive to pay extra and hence he asked me to come and get it from him. I started for the airport around 11:30 PM amidst a slight drizzle. I reached there and met him and started transferring all of the artifacts which we figured he could get it there, though most of them were Indian edible items which would not be available at Sweden. Out went all the food items and some heavy clothes. He asked me to wait and went to recheck.

Unfortunately it was still overweight by some seven kilograms and he came back again, this time too, we again took out some stuff, but there was not much left to take. There were very few items that could be removed, we figured that the bag on its own was heavy. This time, he told me that he would pay extra if it was overweight. It was overweight by three kilograms, but the lady at the baggage counter who was stubborn all along allowed him in without any extra expense which I got to know via a phone call from Mohan. Finally!

I returned home around half past midnight and settled for the night with my laptop. I woke up around 11AM the next day and met the landlord and we opened the mesh gate and on investigation found that the wire leading to the fuse box had melted away completely and had to be replaced. Everything was done and I finally had electricity by afternoon. I switched on the geyser to take my bath and found that there was no water. I decided to switch on the motor and found that the motor lay dead!! I figured that they had switched off the mains of the motor and went and confirmed my thoughts. I went upstairs back to my landlord to get the keys to the mesh gate and found that there was no answer at the door, they had gone out. I came back, pondered for a moment, went searching for something long and found a new pencil that was lying around. I used that to turn on the mains switch for the motor.

Water and Electricity finally!!