A little less conversation

Yes, so where were we? I was most thrilled with all the appreciation that you people showed for my abode and attacked my remaining house projects with renewed enthusiasm. One of these involved putting up some extra shelves in our bedroom (and when I say our bedroom, it really is just ours now and not an extended nursery but more on that remarkable feat later).

It started when I decided that we did not enough shelves in our bedroom. I need a place to hold my things, I told M. What things, he asks. Err, my water-bottle, my book and my glasses, I told him. If he was looking at the bedside stool, trying to communicate that that ought to suffice for my modest needs, he wisely kept his counsel. I proceeded to call a carpenter. I have fought with the last half dozen carpenters who have worked for me so this was a new guy. He looks remarkably unkempt, like there is an invisible hurricane perpetually blowing around his person. What he lacks in presentation, however, he makes up for in confidence. I showed him the narrow passage in the bedroom where I needed him to put up shelves.

Me: Blah, blah, blah. Put shelves here.
Carpenter: No shelves, I will make a showcase.
Me: I don't want a showcase, just a couple of shelves will do.
C: No, you need a showcase. I will make it. First class it will look.
Me: Er, ok. Now go away and start working. How long will it take?
C: Five days.
Me: Cool.

The money was decided on and he took over one of our parking places downstairs to start sawing and hammering. Five days came and went and he seemed to be nowhere close to done. I thought I would have a word with him, though normally it's my policy to stay as far away as possible from self-congratulatory, smug types.

Me: Arrey, kaam finish nahin hua?
C: Ho jayega, Madam.
Me: Theek se bana rahe ho?
C: Madam, aapne mujhe theek se pehchaana nahin. Main bade hisaab ka aadmi hoon.

Finally, three weeks after he had started, he came over to fit the unit into the room. Except that the door wouldn't close after it was put in. The hisaab ka aadmi had apparently miscalculated badly. What will you do now, M asked of him (fortunately for him, I wasn't at home when this fiasco was unfolding). After scratching his head for sometime, he dismantled the unit and took it downstairs again, mumbling something about having to saw a couple of inches off. The amount of activity that is going on in our parking lot, one would imagine I was planning to have a couple of windmills constructed.

A couple of days later, he came by again with his colleague/flunk, a singularly pitiable character carrying the two parts that constitute the shelf unit thingummy.

They put in the unit and what fun, the door still wouldn't close.

Me, with what Mills and Boons called a sardonic smile: Now what?
C, more scratching of head and consultation with colleague later: I will be back in half an hour after fixing this.
Me: Huh? What will you do now? Saw off more?
C doesn't reply and goes away

He came back after half an hour and the unit was looking really strange. Then I realized what had happened.

Me: Oh my god, you sawed it off from one end and attached to the other!
C: Yes, nothing else could be done in this time. But look, the door shuts now.
Me: But it's looking so ugly plus it's messing with my mind, this non-symmetrical....thing.
C mumbles some more and saunters off.

This time I followed him downstairs. He was telling his flunk to hack off some part and attach it somewhere else. The flunk looked really unhappy at this and came up to me.

Flunk: Madam, give me another day, I will fix it.
Me: Whatever. I just wanted a ledge to keep some books and things. I don't know how I got pulled into this.
Flunk looks ready to burst into tears at which point I hastily give in. Sheesh.

At the time of hitting publish, the original carpenter seems to have disappeared and has delegated his work to his flunk and some other fellows who are at it even as I type this. I have mentally written off both the shelves and the money that I have foolishly already paid them because you know a sky-high BP is not worth some planks of wood. Growl.

Now about our big achievement. Adi has now started sleeping in His Own Room and in His Own Bed. We bought him a new bed recently and made a big deal out of the new! big! fantastic! ness of the bed and big! brave! good! ness of the boy. He did not seem to buy any of it during the first daytime nap when he told me very clearly that he'd much rather stick to Mama's room and Mama's bed. I cajoled and coaxed and brought out the various teers that rest in a parent's kamaan. Beta, so ja warna Gabbar aa jayega, being my favourite. Finally sleep overtook his protests and he starting dreaming of a house made of Alpenliebes and Cadbury's Dairy Milk and completely free of parents constantly trying to put the fear of cavities and durrty durrty germs in his innocent mind.

The night duty has been taken over by M. The idea is to lie down with Adi and tell him stories till he drifts off but more often than not, when I go to check on them, I find M sound asleep and snoring loudly while Adi is wide awake and perks up when he sees me, often asking in a clear voice - Hi Mama, what are you doing? Finally about an hour after this circus is kicked off, the child falls asleep and I drag the husband back into our room.

One would think that now that I don't have to carefully contain my girth in the two feet of space that the little master used to afford me, I would sleep well and deep. But that doesn't take into account the maa ka dil. At first I was waking up every half hour, worrying that he would kick off the covers/saunter off outside the house/get bitten by insects/other bizarre fears but now I am sleeping better. Plus he walks into our room whenever he wakes up and climbs in. The best part of this gradual weaning from co-sleeping was that there were no tantrums and no tears, which I find very difficult to handle these days.

Oh and my second book has been approved by the publishers (remember, I was nervously awaiting news from their end?) and after doing my usual wild jig around the house, I decided that the time had indeed come to start work on the third one and so I have. It is different in both scope and style from the first two so I guess budhaape mein kaam karna parega. Judging by the previous two, more reclusive and anti-social behaviour will be part of the writing process. I know Agatha Christie wrote a book every year; I wonder if she ever needed to lock herself away from the outside world.