Saturday, July 31, 2010

In hot water

It's amazing how adaptable we really are. Now I have to give some background to the story, otherwise all of those of you reading this from the US and Europe won't understand. We just recently shifted (moved) from one house to another here in Bangalore. Prior to that house, we lived in a serviced apt for 2 weeks when we arrived in Bangalore a couple of years ago. Neither the serviced apt, nor the house had hot water in the kitchen (unless you heated it on the stove). The house had a beautiful kitchen, and had a hot and cold water tap in the sink. I asked how come there was no hot water and I was told "that's the way it is sir, one for corporation and one for borewell".

To explain. That house got corporation water, which was stored in a sump, and then pumped to the tanks on the roof when the tanks got empty. There is water delivery only every other day or so, thus most houses are this way. The same is the case in our current place. We get water 3x/week. The previous house also had a borewell, in case the corporation water didn't come. Seemed to make sense.

So anyways, we moved into the new house at the beginning of June. Promptly Cindy left, then Maya a bit later, and I stayed on another 2 weeks. Then I came back first from the US, and they followed me by a week.

Now, I don't often do the dishes, as the housekeeper complains if I do them because it is "her job". But occasionally I do, usually on a Saturday evening, or Sunday because she doesn't work on Sundays. I was running the water while doing the dishes to clean up after dinner. Much to my surprise the water got hot all of a sudden. Well not really hot, but warmer than lukewarm. We only have solar heat for the water and since there has been a serious cloud cover the last few weeks, the water isn't overly hot. But hot enough to notice while washing dishes. So there you have it, all of a sudden I was in hot water--so to speak. Totally surprised. 3 years ago I would have been upset if there wasn't hot water in the kitchen for the dishes, now I'm pleasantly surprised. It's amazing the little things that can make one happy...