Network error

Time went by. Darkness arrived. The next morning, power was still elusive. I gatecrashed into the office of the chief engineer. He offered me a smile but before I could finish, someone hijacked his attention. Luck favoured me at that moment. A local MLA entered. He promised to help. He called an engineer and said, “This is so and so, please sort out his problem now!” I left the ante-room with the gentleman but before we had gone a couple of steps, someone waylaid him. The gentleman passed me on to his assistant, who asked me to go home. His team will follow, he said.

Two people did turn up and said, “Looks like the load is much more than the cable can bear.” This involved a complicated business of consulting bills to assess load capacities. Sunday intervened. The next day, I was at the office looking for Aggarwal, since the chief engineer was not in. Aggarwal was also unavailable so I was told to meet one Arun Kumar, who took me to a third man. Everybody wanted to help but no one did.

I found myself among agitated baldies, well-dressed youth, grey pensioners, potbellied businessmen and a haggard old woman ready to scratch everybody’s eyes out. Then, out of the blue, one familiar figure recognised me and asked, “How come are you sitting here?” I poured out my story. He commented wryly, “If this is how you fare imagine the fate of common citizens!”

Meanwhile a tentative figure was worked out for the repairs. By the next day it was higher: Rs 23,000, and we had to buy the pipe too. The forenoon was consumed in paperwork, forms had to be filled and stamped by the contractor. The mode of payment posed a problem. Cheques apparently was unacceptable. The next day I was there with my pocket bulging with currency notes, but the final figure took more time to compute. It became higher. “Get photocopies of these sheets,” the cashier ordered. “Can’t your company do even this?” I burst out. This hurdle, too, was cleared. Finally I asked the important question: who is to do the job? My ears awaited the words: “Now it’s our headache.” But no.

The next morning, after more calls, the contractor’s men showed up. A short while later, the newspapers announced that our electricity bills were to go up. That was when I blew my fuse!