Water Water Everywhere

Our washing machine is placed in the living cum dining room adjacent to kitchen. What kind of a nutcase family we are, you may think! Actually there was a water inlet arrangement already made with the basin when we moved into this apartment. And since we had plans to move from here, we didn’t bother much (Yeah, we are nomads). There was no outlet for water to go away so we bought a pipe and connected it to the kitchen sink. Now each time we switch on the washing machine, we have this added task of attaching the extension pipe. Fixing it has to be done very tactfully coz, a slight malfuntion would result to water flowing onto the kitchen floor. Generally the machine is set to run while I am fiddling around in the kitchen. However, one Friday night after dinner we were watching a movie and I had put the week’s clothes for wash. Coz I generally finish ironing the truckload of clothes on Saturday. While we dumped ourselves into the bean bag and got immersed in the movie, we felt our feet turning wet! WTH??? Looking around, we saw that a sea of water is fgushing its way from the kitchen into the living room. I screamed, “Pause the washing machine... Pause Pause Pause”. Abbas had hit the panic button and simply switched the machine off!

And guess what there is no outlet in this apartment through which we can drag the water using a mop and pass it out. We had to literally use clothes, absorb as much water as possible and throw away by squeezing the cloth. We first protected the floor deewan in the living room and the extension chord lying on the floor behind our desktop table by placing floor mats near these high risk areas. While I used a small cloth, Abbas said “Get an old saree. It will soak a lot of water at once.” There was no old saree, but I somehow conjured up his old pajama and my old dress and they helped to some extent! By the end of the whole pandemonium, we were dog-tired and collapsed into the bed.

Next day, each muscle in my body worth its salt was twinging with pain. I was telling my daughters how the living room was full of water the previous night and my body is aching due to all the clean up. Tammu said “Why Mamma? Baba ne idhar hi su-su kiya kya?” Duh!!!