Saturday, November 29, 2008

Cricket crazy or shock?

Call it a casualty of the Indo-Pak one-day series, day matches from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. are seriously affecting normal works, even minor ones like repairing a fuse box.

Sample this. It's 11 a.m. on a match day. A locality in the city suddenly finds itself sweating in the scorching heat as a nearby fuse box decides to take a break, after a little bit of hissing and sparking. A couple of disgruntled residents call up the `power Gods' on 1912, dubbed the `helpline.'

Sure, the response is polite: "Our people will be there to help you in less than 30 minutes." The wait starts. Thirty minutes. One hour. Another call. "They haven't come so far? Please check up after 10 minutes, I'll remind them."

The wait continues. The residents decide to go to the local Discom office where a person sitting on the veranda checks out their complaint number and then calls out a name, that of the repair expert, who saunters out of the office, seriously listens to the complaint and then says in the politest of tones: "Please excuse me for another 30 minutes, the first session of the match will be over by then and I'll come."

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