Labour's Day

Today was labour day for me. Middle of the week holidays are sometimes dangerous. Suddenly a lot of "TODO" items come alive from nowhere. Okay, weekends too have similar traits, but the mind is more than prepared to handle.

Morning 8'o clock, 2 hours, was all the "extra sleep" I had the luxury. Then it was time for my son to go to school. My wife does all the hard work but since I was on leave, I had to accompany them to the school. Not that I mind. I love seeing the tiny-toddlers holding their guardian's hands tugging along and going to the school. My son's school is 450 meters from our house, a casual walk is all it takes. I feel pity for those kids who have to get ready and wait for their school buses (or school vans, those pathetically overloaded, utterly unsafe, rash driven vehicles) at 10 minutes to 7 in the morning. Things have not improved since my days. In fact they have become worse.

My son's school building reminds me of my own. Red bricked outer walls, the school name displayed with huge letters painted in blue and airy classrooms (yes, it is a non-AC school). The playground is much larger and it has these new fancy pools and skating areas. Thankfully there is no horse riding yet. I recently had a chance to pass-by my school. It has expanded. It must have taken the buildings on one side. Now it has a huge gate with a huge banner, a huge new building alongside the older building and possibly a larger playground.  During the nursery admissions this year, I heard that it is now considered one of the best schools in this district of the capital city. I have some memories buried deep inside that place. Sometimes, when they break open my flood-gates of emotions, in the ensuing deluge, the image of the building sometimes finds it way floating along. The present building looks an unfamiliar burial ground.

After the see-off, my wife went for her usual work-out session. I returned home to start the "installing of the overhead tank overflow system project". Climbed up the stairs of our roof only to find that the lid of our tank was blown over in the recent storm. Fixed and that and installed the new wireless level sensors. These are cool. You drop the sensor wires in the tank and the level of the tank is transmitted wirelessly down to the ground. The receiver in the room below picks up these signals and displays the water level on the display panel.

My wife joined me on the roof by the time I was giving the final touches to the installation. It was very windy today, so the effect of the summer heat was somewhat compensated. Once back at the house, I had to take my mother to the dispensary. Her medicines had been indented and she received the SMS on Saturday. It is never a pleasure to drive in the pathetic peak hour traffic in Delhi. More so if you are staying in an area where another flyover is being constructed in parallel to an existing operational one because our so called city planners could not estimate that we would require a bigger one in the first place!

After I returned home, I decided to clean the air-conditioner in our room. It has picked up a lot of dust in the filter and the guys who serviced the AC this time did not do a good job. This is a painful job. To use a toothbrush to clean the filters!!

It was almost getting time for my son to return. So I made a quick dash to buy few "cornettoes" for him. I had to take the car again, but thankfully I could drive this one inside the lanes and avoid the wretched outer ring road.  My son was very happy to see me at the school gate. He agreed to carry the umbrella and his school bag by himself.

It was after this that I had nothing else to do. I tried to invent work by checking my office emails on my mobile. There was nothing interesting there. Then I took lunch and had a siesta. In the evening, took my son for cycling so that he starts to get accustomed to our ways of driving early in his days.

To cap off the day, we decided to order the "Maharaja Thali" from Karnataka Food Center for dinner. These mobile food ordering and delivery apps surely help. Oh! and it was the most delicious present to gift oneself after a days hard work.