“Kullu” and the Complete Story!

“Kullu”, “Kullu” I woke up to the sound of this word repeatedly repeated! As I hollered out whether it was morning, Hubby dear came in and asked me to lie down for another ten minutes and I obediently cuddled and burrowed into the warm blankets not noticing that the bedroom door was shut tight now! I should have known that it wasn’t a usual morning.

It was a working day so I got up groggily and padded to the bathroom, still not noticing that the door was shut! After the cold water woke me up and I came out wiping my face, there was hubby with a nice cup of hot tea (I still hadn’t got it!) but little tentacles of suspicion were worming through my still befuddled brain especially when the door was so conscientiously being shut behind him!

I made to open it…

“First drink the tea…”

“I will in the other bedroom (where we normally have our morning tea)

“Take a sip at least…” the desperation woke me up and I marched out of the room.

Splash! Went my socks clad feet into a pool of water and I jumped electrified back into my room.

The great deluge had filled the house- the corridors , the living room , the laundry room and the computer room were rippling with the placid water and a small scream struck in  my throat!

“The carpets???!!!”, “the computer cables?”, “Curtains…..?” I asked shrilly as I waded all over the house viewing the damage. My cup of tea was forgotten on the washing machine in the flooded laundry room.

I saw my newbie teenager wielding the mop valiantly, trying to send the water swirling down whatever drain she could find. Husband was back on the phone with “Kullu” to the housekeeping people to stress the urgency. I bunched up my nightie and started the mopping process and decided on bread and butter for breakfast to be eaten standing in the kitchen.

A little while later “Kullu” paid dividends and one man from housekeeping turned up armed with a mop and water pusher and started work. But the more he worked the more water came tumbling in so he wanted a tour of the house. After he saw the extent of the lake he phoned for help and one more person came in and they began the battle against the deluge.

Meanwhile I fed the brats and send them off to school and office respectively and waited for the men to do their work.

They were most efficient – the huge carpets were lifted and hung on the balcony railings and the water was pushed ruthlessly towards the drains and later the whole house was mopped to dry it. All the doors were open so it was freezing cold but the wind dried the house soon. I got busy salvaging some books which we had not unpacked from the cardboard cartons and my forced spring cleaning began! I found quite a bit of material hidden in these cartons, I could use them to make kurtas so I was sort of happy!

Soon the men had cleaned up and left and the plumber had to come to check the pipe burst. 

It took me ten minutes of broken English (I automatically speak in broken English to all the Arabic speaking people, God know why!) five minutes of gesticulations (I was talking over the phone and how hand shaking would help is a mystery!) and the plumber came up to check the damage.

The maid had turned up after all the work got over! She said that there was no hot water in any of the taps! So here I was back to explaining to the plumber that there was no hot water by showing him the kitchen tap and he was ready to open the tap, when I went “Kullu” “Kullu” to tell him there was no hot water anywhere and the maid filled in my blanks, did he realize that the problem was a shut valve outside the house!

Soon everyone understood everything and the house except for the carpets was back to normal. A call came asking us to remove the carpets from the railings and it took another painful set of communication to explain that “Kullu” carpet was wet and we cannot move it till it dries out!

The maid insisted on mopping the “Kullu” house with Dettol!

Peace reigned and “Kullu” saved the day. (By the way “Kullu” means full; entire; complete or anything similar!)