The fault in my electrical stars: Double, double, toil, and trouble *

 I've had so many electrical issues in the past year that I've decided to give it its own series. These stories will be told from a strange mix of viewpoints--debugging and ranting. Take from it whatever you like. :)

On Monday evening, I unlocked the door to my home with a feeling of trepidation. We'd gone away for the weekend, and I was going to be home alone this week. Added to that, given the history of snafus we've had, I didn't know what I'd be greeted by when I came home. My mind had conjured up all kinds of disasters, and I was bracing myself for the worst. But as I opened the door and stepped in, nothing seemed to be amiss. I wandered around all three rooms cautiously, looking for things gone awry. The light and fan in the bedroom were both on, and God knows how long they had been on. (For those uninitiated to my electrical woes- No, we had not left them on by mistake. This is an extremely sporadic and irreproducible bug in my house. Or maybe it's a feature. *sarcasm*) But all things considered, this was very minor compared to all that I'd been imagining, so I shrugged it off and made a mental note to figure out how to turn off everything except the fridge before going away next time.

My day had started at 4am, and I was completely wiped out, so I wrapped up things early and called it a day. Belatedly, I remembered, I hadn't done my laundry because I was away over the weekend. I quickly tossed it into the machine, and came back to bed and fell asleep. I thought the electrical Gods had finally moved on from me to someone else. But such is not the way these things work.

1.41 am. I awoke bleary eyed, to the sound of the UPS beeping frantically and the rain pouring. I realized that my house was plunged in absolute darkness, and had been so for a while. I shuddered No, this can't be happening to me. Not again. As expected, every other house had power. The sound of the UPS is by now associated with so much trauma for me, and it brings back so many nightmarish situations. Wearily, I walked to the electrical unit and opened it up. I looked at all the MCBs, and saw that an entire row of trip switches was off. I tried turning them on, but they instantly tripped again. I was too groggy eyed to debug this. 

Actually, I was freaking out. I'd set my alarm for 5am, planning to catch up on a number of things. With no power, that was ruled out. I wondered if it could be fixed in a few minutes now, because the alternative meant that I spent the better part of my morning on this and not work. Wishful thinking. My apartment is supposed to have electricians 24/7, so I called up and asked if the electrician could take a look. I sat up and waited for half an hour, but no one turned up.

And then, yet another troubling memory surfaced up. The last time, during another such issue, the electrician had not come even after multiple calls. And then I did something that I thought was entirely normal. I posted a message on this whatsapp group, asking for help. A little context- This group has residents, all our utility people, and their supervisors. Whenever people did not get help, they would post a message here and the supervisors would immediately respond, assigning someone to the issue. I had seen many people get help through this before, and therefore I posted a message. As expected, the supervisor responded and said that an electrician would be coming soon. But, there was something else. The electrician on the shift called me, and scolded me for posting a message on the group. Yes, you heard that right. He was annoyed that I had escalated the issue, and told me not to post messages on the group in future.

I was appalled. And then it struck me. All the people who had previously posted such messages were men. And well, to restate the obvious, I am a woman. He thought it was not my place to command. I should have sat quietly and waited till "the men" came over and fixed things. It infuriated me. I retorted in anger: You do your job. Don't tell me what to post and where to post. I escalated because I have been calling for a day and didn't get a response.

He quieted down, but he did not forget that conversation. He took his own sweet time in fixing things, making evident his "I-don't-give-a-damn" attitude every time I called to follow up. I had not thought through these consequences when I reacted impulsively. And then, he brought over the bill when the repair work was completed. My husband happened to be there at the time, and the electrician made a snarky remark on how active I was on the whatsapp group or something to that effect. The gall of this man to come and complain to my own husband about me! My temper once again flew threw the roof, and I had to clench my teeth in order to keep quiet. But I remembered the consequences from last time, and decided that it wasn't worth the hassle. 

This incident plagued me for a while. I wonder how many other women he has treated this way. Isn't there something I can do about this? But the more practical side of me chimes in: This isn't your battle to fight. Given the amount of electrical faults here, you can't afford to not be on good terms with the electrician. And finally, the voice of doubt: How can you be sure if he reacted that way because you are a woman? Maybe you're making too much of a wayward remark. What if you complain, and no one agrees with you? I did not figure out how to handle this, and therefore, did nothing.

And so this time, I hesitated to post a message asking for help, even though I knew it was the right thing to do. This man had managed to successfully rattle me. I did not want another unpleasant interaction with him, especially now that my husband was not there and he would see me as a "lone woman". I felt cornered and powerless. I did not want to wake up and confront that guy again. In fact, I did not want to see him ever again. But I had no choice. I called my husband and ranted to him, that this had to happen again. He told me to try and get some sleep, and wait till morning.

I slept, but troubled. I was jolted awake by nightmares every 5 minutes, and I desperately waited for it to dawn. An electrician turned up shortly, and I prayed hard that it would be anyone but this guy. Thankfully, it was someone else. He turned on the trip switches one by one, to figure out what was causing the issue.(That's a useful trick, one I hadn't thought of last night.) Finally, he isolated it to one. But he did not know what the trip switch was associated with. He asked me to try turning on everything, and see if anything didn't work. Fans, lights, sockets and geysers worked, and so did the kitchen appliances. I was puzzled. The electrician looked at me blankly, and said he'd leave and return later if something wasn't working. I thought frantically. If it tripped off last night, it must be due to something that was on. But what was on? Just the geyser and fridge. And both were working. And then it hit me. Washing machine. I confirmed my hypothesis, and the electrician left saying that it was outside his realm. I will have to check if was the extension board or the washing machine at fault, and possibly call the service guy. But that's a story for another day. For now, the electrical gods seem to be appeased by the offering of my soapy laundry. :)

*The latter part of the title, if unfamiliar, is a reference to the witches' song from Macbeth.