AJ is paranoid about wastage…be it food, water electricity or even time! He can’t stand wastage (uncannily like my mother)…and he is always on a no wastage andolan.
On saving electricity and water his conscientiousness borders on becoming an obsession.
Since, I can be quite careless about such stuff I keep getting constant sermons on the need to preserve electricity & water, how some people in India survive in less than a bucket of water and no electricity and people like us waste etc etc. He does make sense so I keep my trap shut and hear him out (not necessarily listen and implement).
Most people would consider AJ’s habit praiseworthy (try living with it) and I do tend to agree….well ya sometimes. But there are instances when AJ overdoes it. For example if am reading a book in the room and go out to get some water and he happens to venture in and notice that the lights are on, he switches the darned lights off. So by the time I come back in approx. 5 minutes, the lights are off…now this in my opinion is a bit extreme. But since it doesn’t cause me much inconvenience I don’t exactly react.
But yesterday AJ was in true form!
We were to go out for dinner and I had rushed from office to get ready. As soon as I entered home, I switched on the geyser (yes I have a hot water bath through the year, even in June when it’s scorching) and then went about doing some work.
After 15 minutes I returned to see AJ filling in buckets and stacking them and the geyser was switched off. Before I could get over my bewilderment and react, AJ said, “You left the geyser on in the morning!!!” And then without giving me a chance to blink an eye lid he added, “Yes as usual! So I switched it off and since I don’t want the geyser damaged (apparently hot water for too long in the geyser spoils it, that’s an AJ tale) am storing all the hot water in buckets which can be used later.”
Usually in a situation like this I would have burst a nerve and lost my cool…
But the sight of him standing there filling in buckets was so hilarious that I cracked up!
And then of course I had my pound of flesh when I told him that I had switched the geyser on merely 15 minutes back so that I could have a bath. The look on his face was so incredulous that am still laughing…
So now, AJ akka. Mr. Conscientious has instructed me that I should inform him every time I switch the geyser on, so that he knows and can keep a track. And I dare not disobey because when it to comes tobijli and paani the man is always on a mission!!!
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