Water and Electricity

Another thing about India, which I haven’t really talked too much about … power cuts and water shortages!! Anyone who has lived in a country like this will know what I am talking about. The night before last, the power went off at 2 a.m. and our bedroom was absolutely sweltering hot. I didn’t wake up but Penri woke me up and told me to go downstairs as the air conditioners were working in the lounge. That is the bizarre thing about power cuts here … there doesn’t seem to be any logic with the circuits in the house. For example, one time we had a power cut where the left side of the house cut out (including only one of the two ACs in the lounge), another time it was the upstairs only and then last night in our bedroom the AC went off, but our lights were working and downstairs the ACs were working but the lights weren’t. It’s very bizarre and makes no sense whatsoever. Anyway, Penri went to sleep on the sofa and I slept on the daybed, which would have been ok except Penri left all the light switches on in the lounge, so when the power came back on at 4 a.m. it lit up like Blackpool Illuminations! So we woke up again and went back upstairs! What a night!
The water is another story all together. Sometimes one tap will stop working and the rest are ok and other times all the water will run out. This happened the other day. My mum and I had been moving some furniture around in the house (in fact up and down our spiral staircase) including carrying a sun lounger from the second floor to the ground floor and moving tables, chairs and a big wooden blanket chest. When we finished we both collapsed and I suggested going for a swim, so we did. We came back in and I went straight upstairs for a shower while my mum was faffing around in the kitchen. I put my shampoo on my hair and went to turn the water from the tap to the shower so I could wash it out and the water stopped completely. So, I grabbed my towel and went into my mum’s bathroom and turned her taps on in the shower ... nothing! I picked up my towel again and went downstairs to the kitchen. I asked my mum to fill up a bowl from the kitchen tap so I could rinse my hair out and guess what … no water! I didn’t know what to do – the only person who could fix the water was Bala (our security guard) who had gone out on his bike to the shops. I was absolutely covered in shampoo by now and it was dripping everywhere. My mum said ‘Well, you’ll have to jump in the pool!’ After running through all the options in my head, I figured this was the best one, so I put my swimsuit back on and jumped back in the pool to rinse my hair out. Bala came back 20 minutes later and fixed the water for us.