Four stages and a borewell

While contemplating on what my next post is going to be about, I stumbled upon a lot of ideas, and thoughts, even as I was caught up with my offline work. This was around the time when I was super tired and super frustrated supervising the super slow borewell guys! Remember all those weird status messages I had some time back!

That's when I so totally started believing in the adage Pelli chesi choodu, illu katti choodu which roughly translates to "Supervise a marriage ceremony/ the construction of a house and see (the fun?)"... How true! The whole activity (during the three-day marathon borewell session) and my mental state can roughly be segregated into four stages!

And what do I get? Almost similar emotions that I had experienced before, during and after my wedding ceremony. Yes, you read it right. I kept comparing the whole process with my marriage and divided it into 4 brief stages.

Stage 1 (Pre-marital - well in this case borewell - syndrome): I was super excited, but tense, worked up but excited again... just like the day before the wedding. There was so much to do and the long anticipatory wait was like a never-ending story. I kept praying that it shouldn't start raining all over again as rains played havoc with my borewell plans for many months now.

Stage 2 (This I want to term the pre-ceremony syndrome): This reminded me of the day of the wedding, especially just a few hours before the actual ceremony... It was so relieving to see the sun shining bright and orange that morning! The tension was still there though, as I wasn't sure if the owner of Laxmi Tubewells and Drillers will find some excuse yet again to avoid taking up the job at our plot.

Stage 3 (Wedding blues): Fortunately, and thankfully, the workers arrived with their gigantic borewell machine and another truck that carried other vital things like diesel, pipes, and people among others. I was super excited as they started backing the machine into position and asked me to break a coconut, sprinkle some kumkum, turmeric, and flowers, light a few agarbatti sticks, and they ACTUALLY started drilling. Wow!!! I don't think I can do justice if I try to express my excitement in words.

Stage 4 (Post-marital/borewell blues): This, to me, was like the day after marriage. As I had mentioned before, the marathon drilling session lasted three days draining me of all

my energy, patience and intelligence. I was deprived of everything - sleep and food being the most important. I knew the guys are at the root of the problem and the long wait was soon going to end, but the end seemed too far away at times - when I lost hope completely and felt nothing but frustration, especially when the casing pipes gave way twice and they had to re-do the entire process. A day-and-a-half lost in vain. :(

But I've to admit that supervising the drilling session was something! Despite all the hitches, I found it particularly thrilling to watch the work in progress, as each stage offered me a new experience. Apparently my parents had a marathon wedding ceremony that lasted three days too. Wonder how they felt at that point! Probably just the way I felt at the end of it all - when my mind and body were so numb, when I wanted nothing but the whole thing to end, when I wanted to just shrug my shoulders and walk off... into the wilderness without a second thought.

But here I am shouldering another major responsibility willingly, and moving ahead with confidence. This time it's supervision of the house construction itself :))). Did somebody call me 'brave'? I guess 'rebel' would be the more apt and appropriate word. Hahaha!!! And life still goes on in this sleepy hamlet - even if it is one step at a time.