Taking it forward
My cablewallah is giving me trouble. And while I am quick to admit to my own mistakes, my present predicament is most definitely my cablewallah’s fault. Ideally I should be taking him to the consumer court or at least making myself be heard calmly. However, every other day when he decides to haunt me, I find myself shrieking and hobbling like a witch instead of dealing with the unfortunate misunderstandings that have caused a rift in our dependence on each other-he for his money and me for his unreliable connection.
I took my sorry tale to my friend who lives in a glitzy building in Khar where all these sundry services are handled by a contractor. Ha! Easy for her. She is not running behind her cablewallah like a screaming banshee with a bee on her nose!
However, she does not agree with me. Or more specifically with my ‘chalta hai’ stance. “You people just do not follow problems through,” is her puzzled refrain. She is in local parlance, America-Returned. And that actually makes her a completely different kettle of fish! Let me explain.
Of all the things that got her started, noise pollution took the front seat when she found that every time she looked down from her balcony on the 9th floor of her building, she was confronted either with a festival playing out in full swing under her or a cricket match and even political rallies when things were beginning to look a little too quiet.
She lives next to a club which in itself is something that we all envy. No don’t get me wrong. I am certainly not vying for membership. It’s just that there is this expanse of openness to look into which is most endearing.
She snorts at this explanation. She says she showed utmost patience through all the shenanigans until one fine day during a cricket match when every single time a run was made (and those can be pretty frequent we lovers of cricket must agree!) a ferocious drum beat signaling this feat would take off!
On earlier instances she called the club-complained. She walked up to the ‘perpetrators’ of all kinds of noise and pleaded with them for the sakes of all collective eardrums, she even wrote letters but alas to no avail.
However, this time she was determined. Armed with the numbers of noise-pollution activists, local politicians and resolution she wrote letters, called incessantly, drummed up support, pledged help, pulled rugs et al until the club relented and accepted their fault.
She has had many a pleasant naps in the relatively quiet afternoons that have followed. This is not to say that cricket is still not played with noisy gusto right under her window, but she knows she can make the un-oiled machines of our civic sense turn.
The funny thing is she always knew. I did not. Every time I am confronted with a problem that is other than of my own making I never go out to remedy it. Be is garbage being thrown on the pavement in front of my building or even someone smoking on the balcony above mine and flicking their ash into my plants just below.
Today as I write this, I know all I need to do is sit down and figure out that if I am in the right nothing can stop me from doing what is right.
Gayatri
Click here for MyBandra Home page, Bandra Classifieds, Bandra Blogs and Bandra Events
Get MyBandra Blog alerts by Email - Just enter your email HERE
Real Estate Listings - in Bandra, Khar, Santacruz
