When the Tamilnadu EB announced that there will be very less power shortage this year and as a result there will be fewer power cuts,I was the most happiest person in TN,believe it or not as I am one of those guys who would even on a chilly winter night like to have the fan running at full speed.
But I don't use the AC because my bronchus is a little bit sensitive to chillness that the AC produces.Hence however sweltering it may be I would like to sleep just with the fans on and the windows open.
However for the last week or so,there has been a regular power cut in our flat especially between 10.30 and 11.00 in the night.When contacted the EB told that they were not carrying out any maintenance work.Left with no option we called them to come and check our mains.After an hour one guy finally decided to show up.
He came,he saw and he proclaimed "Fuse poiduchu saar".As pompous as Julius Ceaser when he spoke those 3 immortal words "Vini,Vidi,Vici" .
After changing the fuse we paid him the usual amount that is mandatory unofficially.I could have kicked myself for that but the flat association saw it fit to pay him what he asked so where is the opinion of one person going to hold water.The reason "Ippo kudukulana adutha vatti vara mattanga".
Hollering about bribes and overcharging will take this post quite of context which is not what I intend to do.
Anyway the next day,the same thing happened and the same routine was enacted.The same guy came,said the same thing(why am i using so many "same"s) and fixed the fuse.
Day 3. Repeatuuu
Day 4. Repeatuuu
Now, before you think I am going to proceed till 365, hold your horses because this where the proverbial twist in the story takes place( God, I sound like an amateurish screen play writer).
The next day the events repeated themselves(haha,I have not used "same" for 40 words) and in my sweat filled anger I felt like putting my fists through the mains a la Jackie Chan in some kung fu movies that they show in Vijay TV on Saturday nights,which I gratefully did not because the only result would have been shattered knuckles.
Fortunately, the EB officials were alerted due to the curious repeat of the same problem over and over again and they decided to send a senior technician.
The guy who ambled over to our flat said that in his analysis(yes!! he used the word analysis),the issue was overloading of the mains,the reason for which was the use of AC's in all our 12 flats in the compound.This sounded ridiculous as last summer there was no such issues and I told him so.
Naturally, he got angry, said I didn't understand how the power transmission works and et al. before I finally waved my engineering tag before him and shut him up for good.Man, that felt sweet, you know to shut up someone who acts like a know-it-all with that one remark "I AM AN ENGINEER".
That night the problem was temporarily fixed and the next morning they promised to send someone to look into the issue.The next day,3 people actually turned up and went through the rigmarole of looking at the connections from the transformer to the pole and from the pole to the flat mains and that was where the culprit lay.
You see,the week before we started having this phenomenon of isolated power cuts the Corporation people had dug up our road for laying out pipes for the storm water drains and they accidentally had punctured one of the cables going to our flat mains,which in reality had caused us to have only 2 phases rather than the 3 phases which is normal and this was responsible for the overloading as the load of that phase had been diverted to be shared by the other two.
As the problem had been identified,it may seem it was a simple matter of replacing that cable and setting things right but alas it was not to be.The difficulty in moving ahead was that though EB had the power to change cables overhead, if they wanted to do something with cables that ran below the ground, you(meaning the person who has the problem not the EB) have to take the permission of the Corporation by giving them a request letter in writing for digging the road.After it was approved,the EB would then carry on their work.
Funny how two wings of the corporation act like separate autonomous bodies with no communication between them.Anyhow that is the state of things and it wasn't until two days ago that the problem was totally rectified be relaying that cable.
My nights have been much better since then and I have actually managed to blog regularly,which given my predisposition to slacking is quite a feat by itself.Not that blogging is a feat,but trying not be a slacker is.
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