IN PRAISE OF MSEB
(MAHARASHTRA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD)
I must, doubtless, be the only one among all the residents of Pune city who’s inordinately grateful to our State’s Electricity Board, or MSEB. Grateful for its protracted - summer load-shedding schedule; three continuous hours daily, for five days a week until just recently, and now jacked up further to - four hours daily and six days a week; not counting the 15 - 20 minutes or so that they cheat on you regularly by delaying switching on the supply as and when it’s finally due, under one sham pretext or another.
My splurging spouse and ‘couldn’t care less’ kids of 22 and 17, are prone to leaving electric fans and lights on in every room they happen to peep into. Musical gadgets blare at all hours of the day and night, as does the television. And then there’s the endless ironing of the infuriating collegians, the continuous abuse of the energy-guzzling water heater, the washing machine, the charging of their cell-phones, (as and when they aren’t jabbering on it - that is,) and what have you.
And all this regardless of the season. In the height of winter all of them will snuggle under heaps of blankets and yet have the fans whirling, and always at full throttle. ‘To keep mosquitoes at bay,’ I am informed disdainfully, if ever I ask the reason, and that too, merely out of plain curiosity.
In summer if I venture to suggest that it’s better for the skin to perspire occasionally, my Pune born and bred wife’s ready excuse is, ‘I just can’t seem to breathe in Pune’s arid air.’ And anything their dear mom can’t bear, the kids can’t either. Or so they profess stridently. Their excess body-fat makes each one of them rather easy prey to the sweltering climate - I so long to tell them. But who’s to bell that cat?
The net result of such extravagance is - I end up shelling out rupees 2500 or more as light bill every other month. That of course arrives with unfailing regularity, regardless of whether the electricity itself arrives home with similar gusto or not. The bloated bill itself - courtesy their doctored electronic meter, insolently backed by numerous fictitious claims couched in technical jargon in chaste Marathi language that absolutely no one understands - is accompanied, in addition, and particularly nowadays, by dire ‘MSEB press releases’ spewing menace on would-be defaulters.
Admonishments were of no avail. So I took to turning off the offending fans in the children’s room, and particularly during the freezing winter nights. That too only after I surmised they had finally tired of gossiping on their cells and lapsed into deep slumber. But they were invariably on again, and just moments later.
Their cavalier attitude dispatched me during a recent night, even whilst I lay in bed fuming, on a nostalgic jaunt to the days of my own youth, when I behaved in much the same fashion. Not that I was ever overweight. Wherever did you see an obese child in a rice and sambhar guzzling Tamil Brahmin family cluttered with ten perennially hungry kids anyway!
And it was not also as if I used to feel especially sweaty, like they perpetually seem to, or uniformly restive through the enchanting march of the seasons. My reason was entirely different.
The ancient British-built bungalows where we dwelt, what with my father being in the central government service, were all, without exception, notorious for harbouring an exceptionally virulent variety of bed bug in every nook and corner of the house. And under the cowardly cloak of darkness these brazen creatures slithered out silently from their hideouts and launched concerted guerrilla attacks on my father’s baby battalion.
Each of us would lose a pint of blood and sport numerous telltale tattoos, testifying to the one-sided skirmish come morning. My nine siblings however rarely awoke. Whereas I was predisposed to losing precious sleep in addition to my blood. And, more importantly my already fragile sanity, if I was compelled to forego the fan facility.
There wasn’t any MSEB in our life then. MES (Military Engineering Service,) acted as the intermediary and did all the government establishments the honour of supplying electricity. Power staggering - however still existed in our home then too, but restricted to late night hours. And the sadistic perpetrator of this nocturnal nuisance was none other than my very own dad.
He would drop in our bedroom by stealth. Switch on the light and simultaneously put off the fan - this ‘dual action’ was just to delude me into believing ‘the light switch’ alone was thrown! But of course I was never fooled by his subterfuge.
As the timid bugs in their dozens scampered for dear life in the sudden glare of threatening light, which signalled the arrival of their enemy, and sought frantic refuge under our tender bodies, my daddy would go at them in a murderous counter offensive. Probing under us or even rolling us over carelessly, if needed, in order to put the marauding leeches to the sword.
And let me tell you - he’d hunt like a man possessed. That too for an hour or so. Hopping, all the while, from one child to another, determined to decimate every single bug that was sucking the precious blood that he had slogged so hard to put in his children’s growing bodies.
I don’t suppose it ever occurred to him that all were sleeping peacefully, and the intruding light, plus his pushing and prodding, was probably getting on their nerves. Being a father his blood boiled, I charitably assume now. Like mine did, you know, while waiting for him to be done with this dose of daily torture. Because the stinging pests, which exhibited a marked fancy for my body odour, promptly made an ecstatic beeline for me and mauled me even more mercilessly the moment the lumbering fan ground to a groaning halt. The bright light and my, by now, stagnant scent only led them to me that much more easily through the profusion of bodies.
During those excruciating moments, however, my infantile rage always got the better of my natural good sense, and commanded me not to budge and grant access to daddy’s avenging fingers. And so I would lie in torment, absolutely immobile like some adamant log, with fury flooding my tightly clenched eyes and rebellion seething in every pore of my being.
He would eventually heed the repeated and shrill summons of my irate mother and give up on me. With murder still raging in his eyes, he’d kill the light, this time around, and depart reluctantly. And depart on tiptoes. Imagine! As not to wake me! Wake me! After an hour of torture? Really!
The second his blessed door closed shut with that faint and familiar thud, and I heard, in addition, the customary creaking of his protesting bed, I’d pounce up and between bouts of simulated coughing - to quell the switch’s tattling noise, you see - turn the fan on again.
He was then, and still is, an extremely reserved person. But he’d nevertheless, occasionally vent his frustration upon me some morning by grumbling thus - ‘all else are shivering in the cold and you want the fan on always?’
I thought of telling him that the culpability for my action was, in truth, entirely his. But couldn’t, as usual, assemble the requisite nerve. So I took my lament to mummy instead. ‘It’s not that I feel all hot and sweaty throughout the year. But the endless series of ancient bungalows his postings condemn us to, are crammed with bedbugs. They lurk everywhere, and under cover of night they launch lethal hit-and-run attacks on us. And daily. The breeze drifting lazily from the erratic fan actually serves as a temporary balm against their sting and lets us sleep, even if only fitfully.’
The truth however was that my siblings rarely stirred, like I informed you already. They slept like drunken lords in fact, throughout the assault and right through daddy’s exasperating intrusions. But why give that secret away and take all the blame, I was my devious daddy’s crooked son, after all.
Now that I think of it, reminded as I am by my own kids’ irritating antics, I forgive him readily. A few bucks saved in the electricity bill was a genuine bounty in those singularly difficult times. By God’s grace my situation is, and never was so dire, sire as I did just two children.
‘It is extremely aggravating, all the same, this mindless proclivity of theirs,’ I complained to dad, albeit good-naturedly, just the other day. ‘Pay back time,’ was all he muttered - and with that rare glint in his sardonic eyes.
Thankfully, just when I was really despairing, MSEB has rushed to my rescue. Like I always say, ‘never expect your flesh and blood to bail you out. It’s the outsiders who invariably do that job. They haven’t an axe to grind, after all.’
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BY: RANGACHARI RAGHAVAN
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I came here via Kamalji's blog. Thanks to him, I enjoyed every bit of this.
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Dear Mr.Raghavan,
You are one of the rare breed who praioses the electricity board.Rajasthan too has load shedding, and at times equally bad.But yr reason s are superb, and very hilarious.
If we look it in yr light, yes t the loadshedding must be saving u a lot of money.
Even me, i go around switching off unnceccary lights.The bills are enomourous really.
Loved ur sense of humour, sad this has only 1 comment before mine.Regards.kamal
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nice
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