Siesta and the Electric Meter Man

The weather has always been lovely in Alex. The winter particularly has been wonderful, weather wise that is! It’s been a pleasant 17 to 18 degree during the day and it has fallen to an awesome 6 to 7 degrees during the night. All of us are really savoring this after having stayed in South India for all of the last twenty years! In fact I did not even own any warm clothes when we shifted here (that is decent ones!). Can you believe it? The warm bright sunshine is kind of heavenly to walk out in.

Unfortunately the electricity bill which normally falls in winter is highest here. Our apartment is quite huge and windy. In spite of keeping all the glass doors closed the cold seeps in and we have to use the air conditioner to heat our living space.

Never a big lover of television other than news, I avoided going into the living room as it was the coldest and it was too big to heat with any kind of heating apparatus! Especially after the internet was resumed I just don’t go there! It is exclusively used by the other two members of the family- one who likes the sound of the TV while he is working on his laptop and the other lounges on a single sofa either watching TV or with the noise of the TV as a background while she is chatting on FB! I had enough of it while watching BBC and Al Jazzeera while the revolution was going on (I didn’t have any other entertainment!). Both don’t feel cold; in fact the young lady says she reaches thermal equilibrium in the position of lounging on the couch and doesn’t need any warmth!

So I use electricity lavishly to keep myself cosy! In fact hubby dear says, “Use as much as you want” because he gets to keep the electricity bills reimbursement for his cigarettes!

I always have a nap post lunch at about two o’clock in the afternoon, right after the maid leaves. I lounge on the bed reading – slowly getting drowsy and by 2.30 I am in a pleasurably languid state just before passing into the unconscious state of sleep. Once a month (The date is never the same!) the bell will ring when I am right on the brink of this gratifying state! I have to literally drag myself out of bed to open the door. Many a times I have tried to ignore the call but the second ring always succeeds in slashing into my somnolent state.

So I pad reluctantly to the door and open it to face the Electric meter man with the bill. He is always cheerful and full of joie de vivre. I don’t have the heart to be rude to him. I put out my hand to take the bill.

He refuses to give it me right away. He insists that I learn Arabic as soon as possible and will read out the amount due in Arabic. I am able to read the Arabic numerals but do not remember the sounds beyond thirty! And as the figure is in hundreds I don’t understand a word of what he is saying. (anyway my brain is a little befuddled under the circumstance) I peer into the bill to look at the figures which he tries his best to hide. All through this exercise he will be giving me a lecture on the necessity of learning the language. He even told me how he learnt Greek when he was there for two months!

I look at him suitably shamefacedly and this cools him down a bit. He then writes the figures in English numerals on the bill and I go back and get him the exact amount and he pockets it with a “Shukaran” never forgetting to say that it is like the Hindi “Shukriya”! He warns me that next time he will not write the figures in English and strolls down the stairs.

My sleep has flown out of the window and I go and try to do some productive work and normally end up with a huge headache!

I don’t know what the equivalent of “tone deaf” is for language deaf but that is what I am. I have stayed in Mysore, Balgaum, Hyderabad and Mumbai and though I understand the rudimentary bits of Kannada, Telugu and Marathi I cannot speak them and so it is with Arabic. After eleven months here I cannot speak a sentence, though I understand quite a few of the words. I am able to communicate with my maid and that is a major achievement!

I do envy people who can pick up a new language so very easily and prattle away in it! In India you can get by with English and Hindi but here it is not so. I use a lot of hand movement inter spaced with Arabic words and the ubiquitous English to get by and hope to understand the meter man when he comes next month!