Someone told me once, its good to look at any hitch in a positive way, instead of cribbing. So, when the worker from Chennai Corporation rang the bell and announced that the romp right outside the gate would be dug out for constructing storm water drains, I looked at it this way-finally, when the rain lashes out, I will not have to swim (kids in tow) in the dirty water.But I managed to ask the guy, how long would the work take from start to finish. Pat came the reply,'2-3 days madam', with a smile.
I should have guessed it when the guy smiled. '2-3 days' in government parlance means each day consists of nearly 100 hours. The guys who swung into action the minute the bell ringing guy disappeared from my doorstep, are nowhere to be found after digging out the slabs outside. The dug out debris has been heaped to form a little mountain right in the middle of the road, so I needn't suffer alone. Afterall, I have the buses, cars, two-wheelers and what not for hard-to-commute-company. The Government has this very generous policy and would never permit any one person to suffer ALONE.
But coming to the first line of this post....what's my positive outlook, you ask? For this I need to give a small flashback. While at school, during the sports hour, all I have managed is to take charge of the stopwatch, hold the bags and stuff of girls who ran, jumped, flung the shotput etc, assist the teachers by noting down names for inter school competitions and writing names in certificates. Others names, I mean. But now, the athlete in me has woken up with a bang. I do a long jump to cross the narrow lake(!) when out alone, and do a high jump over the wall, (after almost throwing the kid into the hands of my neighbour), and finally after safely landing,I blow a kiss to the toddler in his mother's arms who cheers me from his 3rd floor balcony! His mother even uses this high drama unfolding every other day at around noon time to feed lunch to her usually obstinate son.
4 months ago
