Shift in to Shift Out Part II

I was finally into my apartment. It had been a long 'adventurous' day and I wanted to end it as soon as possible so I made my way into the bedroom to sleep. There was no fan in the room and presumably so as the house was supposed to have an AC. As I switched on the AC a whole lot of dust and waste flew onto my face. I couldn't have imagined an AC doing that and on closer inspection realised that the 'gadget' hanging out of the back wall wasn't an AC but an old,rusted cooler. Things through out the day had made me feel miserable and this made me furious with anger. I dialled in my landlord's number and had to listen to 2 minutes of 'gurubani' before she answered my call.

Working in a bank had made me used to hearing pick up responses like 'hi there','hello','hey how are you' or if not these then the courteous voice mail messages. However the landla'n'dy picked up the phone and said 'Oye,kya hua tujhe,ghar kee chath gir gayi kya jo 10 baje phone kar raha hai'..I was awestruck ,but soon realised nothing like what she said had happened. I told her why I had called to which she replied saying' People of your generation are too used to the comforts of life..you take everything by what it means to you..what I meant by an AC was an Air Cooler and not Air Conditioner'...she added that the cooler needs to be fed in water before switching it on and that the pipe that leads water into it was at Mrs Chandana's(another Lioness) who had gone to her son's place in Kanedaa(Canada). Before putting the phone down she said that she had a spare table fan at her place and she could lend it to me. I thanked her for the favour and said it would be great if she could do so.

Was this day ever going to end? I called up one of friend's who lived near this place and decided to go to his place to sleep. Finally here I was sleeping in a living room with two fans rotating above me at max rpm.

The next morning I called up my Boss to tell him that I had some work to do and would be late to office.The "work" I had to do was to sort things out with the property agent. A meeting was set up for 7 that evening between me the property agent and the landlord to clear all our doubts and answer all my miseries.

On reaching office i realised that my good friend 'Mr Radio' had told virtually everyone from my super boss to the cleaning staff,everyone had the smirk on the face and sympathy in the eyes which simply meant i was the holy cow to be put on the line of laughter and jokes. Having said this and experienced it too i was waiting for the clock to tick 7 PM.

Finally the time came and for a change all the concerned parties were on time. The landlady was clad in a shinning blue suit(I was wondering if she had come straight from a round of 'Giddha' practice) and was wearing a broad smile on her face. The property agent,Mr. Timmy was busy switching between his three cell phones,saying 'excuse me' every 5 seconds to answer the phone calls. Well,finally my landlady broke her silence and told Mr. Timmy to switch off his cell phone and the tone in which she said it made him actually switch them off.

The problems were getting answered,just like those of farmers in a drought hit state or of people in a flood relief camp. After around 15 minutes of trouble shooting in which I was promised an AC which was to be an Air Conditioner,one time cleaning of the apartment and Gas and telephone connections within a week Mr. Timmy thanked us both for our time.

As we all moved out of the apartment we saw two towering personalities standing right in front of us. I didn't knew them and so I think didn't Mr. Timmy,however the landlady did know them.
She greeted them but they were not their to share our smiles. To start with without saying a word one of them slapped Mr Timmy and the other asked the landlady that how could she rent out that place to me. What followed was an extended session of abuses all in their Bhangra language. The lions were roaring but the old lioness was also not to give up that easily and the fox(Mr. Timmy) was sitting in the other corner of the room waiting for the axe to fall over his neck.

Finally the growls became less nosier,the lioness snarled for the very last time and then the herd of lions turned around to get hold of the lone fox. After this wild African safari thee conclusion was that I had to vacate the den and the fox had been ordered to payback the rent,deposit and security within half an hour. In the mean time I was told to pack up!