School reopening and return of the monsoons

 In those days, monsoons started in the month of June. By the time, school reopened for the new academic year, even the skies used to mourn - turning several shades darker, hiding the sun. In turn, we boys used to mourn going to school after 2 months of our summer holidays. From playing all day to studying all day (Exaggeration intended. I have never studied all day.). From sleeping whenever we felt like, to sleeping whenever our parents instructed to. From eating raw mangoes and rai awlas, to eating healthy food. From being pampered by our grandparents back in native place to being disciplined by our parents. It was a return from Shangri-la and an entry into the dark and smelly school corridors. (I say dark and smelly, not because our school was unclean or anything. Only that it was relatively dark during rainy weather when school started and the combination of smells from the wet and dry socks of around 5 dozen kids smelled like sewage. Sorry for being so gross about it, but it was !!).

Some kids enjoyed returning to school. We used to call these kids as weirdos. From me and almost all my friends, love of going to school was a heinous crime and looking happy at the thought of going to school was a punishable offence !! I hated going to school, I hated going to college and I hate going to the office also !!

Returning back to the point, monsoons are wet as the ocean in Mumbai. If it starts raining, it seems like an eternity before it stops. And it rains hard. Children used to wear full raincoats. Most of us wanted their parents to buy them gumboots. I never got gumboots. My parents always bought me sandals. I used to crib at this at the time. Later I realized that, I am one of the few, who is not contributing towards the gross smell.  Also, those gumboots pick up water. Its like standing in puddles of water. You have to remove and overturn them, so that the water is drained away. Splashing and sploshing, we used to make our way to school from home. Outside the gate of our assembly hall, muddy footprints were all over. Obviously, there was a lot of slipping and sliding. The assembly hall was open at the sides and the sound of our assembly prayers was dampened by the noise of rain, pattering down the ground and crashing down the metal shades. When it was time to go upstairs to the classroom, it was again through the wet footprinted stairs. In the classroom, every now and then, we had to close the windows as children who sat near the windows used to get sprayed by rainwater ocassionally. On returning from school, some evenings were lost sitting at home, since it rained so much that one could not go out to play. Sometimes, however, my mother used to make paper boats with me and we used to place them in the large puddles of water, enjoying seeing the boat making off to far away downstream. Also, it was fun, when my mother made some hot ‘taakatla sabudana’ or something hot like ‘wada pav’ was bought. During monsoons, there used to be frequent power cuts all over the town due to rain. All of us (My colony friends and I) used to come downstairs for a chat, if it was late evening time. A return of power was almost always accompanied by a loud cheer from all over town. Sleep time used to come pretty soon, with me and my sister cuddling up to our mother, while my father used to read a book and go to sleep.

Im just re-living those days of monsoons back in school via this post. These days, I look forward to the monsoons, since it gives us that slight relief in terms of soaring temperatures. Rains do not come in June. It comes in July at the least. My daughter goes to school very happily. So a lot has changed. One thing hasn’t which is…..personally I don’t feel like going to office in monsoons to this day !!     

Fear of the mechanic

 The guy slowly raised his eyebrows so that they were as far up as they could be. Peeling his eyes from the screen of my ipad, he looked at me slowly, with a suspicious look on his face. I was too familiar with the look and had received it umpteen times from – mechanics, repairman, IT people in office and even doctors at times.

The screen of my Ipad started flickering a few weeks back, probably due to overuse, overheat or maybe someone just sat on it!! I tried a few solutions on it - youtube hacks, giving it a sharp rap, banging it on the pillow and lastly, tried the best solution there ever is to any gadget – restart it.

Nothing worked, screen was still flickering. My daughter was woeful. After all, internet, phones and screen gadgets are the life of kids these days. I took pity on my daughter’s ‘situation’ and went out to the electronics repair store and showed my iPad to the ‘guy’ mentioned above. He connected it to the charger and turned it on (It was turned off by me after trying a ‘shutoff and switch on’ routine.).

When he turned it on, the screen came alive, perfectly ok, no flicker, no hint of fading light, no darkness on the edges, no ‘ghosts’ – thereby the suspicious look on his face.

Like a little kid trying to justify a naughty prank, I told him “It was flickering at home, don’t know what happened to it here.” “Maybe it just started working after you checked it. Aap se darr gaya woh” He smirked and said ok sir.        

I’m sure it has happened with all of us. Whenever a gadget goes awry and we call a repairman to fix it or take it to a repairman, it works perfectly in front of him. In that way a gadget is similar to a young child, who is all mischievous in front of folks at home, but SO well behaved in front of outsiders!!

Let alone gadgets. I have had such situations with myself and the doctors as well. The day I decide to visit the doctor for an illness, I start feeling well and by the time I am at the physician’s clinic, it seems pointless being there at all. Even doctors have given me the same suspicious, quizzical look as that of the repairman.

To narrate another story - Once my bike lost ignition and stopped. I was stuck on the main road. The mechanic was somewhat far from the place (Past a signal junction and a ‘U-turn’). I tried the kick start, the electric start - with and without the choke. Also tried jump starting it (after seeing a youtube video in the middle of the road !!). Finally there was no other solution, than to push it to the garage. I reached the garage, walking, trotting, even running while pushing the bike. By the time I reached the garage, I was soaking with sweat and panting like a dog. I told the mechanic what had happened. He said ok, put the bike on centre stand, turned the key and kicked the start. The engine fired to life – he pulled at the throttle and it whirred. Then looking at me, he smiled. Here I had pushed the bike for about a kilometer and a half, sweated like a pig from the effort of it to get it to a garage, where this guy had started it in a jiffy without even opening up the engine !! It was like a mockery of my efforts !! Unreasonable, but for this reason, I was kind of angry on the mechanic for starting the engine at all !! 😊

Why it happens, god knows? But it does and lots of times.  

So, guess it means that mechanics, repairman and doctors are all necessary to put things right and work well again and sometimes even fear or presence of them is sufficient !!