Awful Friday

Fridays are essentially Wooohooo!!! days. Ask anyone whats on their mind and most of them are planning their weekend. Some people are waiting all week for Friday.... I have a frend whose gtalk status message is a countdown until friday. For some people, what you did last weekend is a conversation starter of sorts. While some folks laze the weekend away, some travel, others watch movies, and still others visit their hometown. I was recovering from a cold and cough that I had somehow managed to catch in the middle of a particularly wicked summer in Bengalooru. Naturally, I was totally looking forward to an amazing weekend and I was determined not to waste it. When I was leaving for the day at 6pm, it was raining cats and dogs.

The Arien picks me up frm work and we had a lazy evening. We relaxed over a cuppa chai, mulled over general stuff, changed channels a lot, watched a bit of IPL, had dinner, when we had a power cut. We were pretty chilled as we had a generator and so waited for the security to switch it on. Yes... this is the same person who metamorphises into a traffic policeman when I drive out of the apartment. After impatiently waiting for 15 mts, we realize that there must b sm problem. The Arien speaks to the security guard and finds out that the generator is under repair. It was soon pretty warm and suddenly there were zillions of mosquitos for company.

I was surprised at how quickly a nice day turned pretty bad with a power cut. All the enthu was long gone. I was cribbing 'bout the security guard who takes forever to switch on the generator and if he knew it was not working, he should have informed us. The Arien was cribbing 'bout the mosquitoes. We decided that maybe falling asleep wud b good and attempted tht. It was stifling hot as there was no breeze at all and so sleep was really hard to come by. Because there was no power, we could not switch on the mosquito mat. We managed to have a short nap for 20 mts before we were awoken by the buzzing of the mosquitoes and the lack of air.

I decided to sit in the balcony and left - as I walked towards the balcony, I could hear the Arien shriek in the background "Lock the balcony door after you - I cannot handle any more mosquitoes." I curbed the urge to retort.

The power came back at 2:30 am on Saturday. I rushed back to switch off the lights and try to catch a bit of sleep when we heard the unmistakable sound of a wire going up in flames. In 5 mts, we had the next power cut. The Arien decided to check out what had happened. He left carrying a candle as we could not figure out where we had kept our torch. He came back 20 mts later. A truck had hit the transformer of our building as it tried to navigate a particularly difficult turn and the wire went up in flames. So, there was no chance of the power coming back until BESCOM folks turned up which would be - 10 am. The generator was garam aagidhe according to our security guard and so we were likely to suffer for the rest of the nite.

I didn't know if I cud handle any more of the power cut or the mosquitoes. It was 4:45 am. I sms the Senior Arien asking him if we can visit him and sleep over. The Senior Arien is a habitual early riser and for once it was going to be of sm help for us- Yeah!!! The Arien was also thrilled that we had a way out of the current scenario. No response till 6 am. I decide to make coffee for the Arien. I make the coffee and feel overwhelmed with sleep. I fall asleep at 6:45 am. When I woke up, it was 11 am. The Senior Arien had finally replied to my message "Please go ahead" at 9:55 am. I burst out laughing n woke the Arien up.

One power cut and we were so damn vulnerable. You never realize how dependant you are on the electricity that serves you day in and day out until smthng like this happens. Saturday was spent catching up on lost sleep. I felt that this Friday was the worst Friday ever. All the enthu for the wknd evaporated with a snap of a finger. At the time, I was pretty bugged. In the larger scheme of things, people lose family members, jobs, money at a snap of a finger. What I had lost was hardly as valuable as all tht. Still, it is the lil things that bug us way more than the beeg ones, am I right?