Dirty Bangalore - Paperwala!

It was my wife's hullabaloo that made me take my eyes back of the TV screen on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Without much delay (who wants trouble) I went to my wife’s laboratory – Kitchen to enquire what provoked her to remember my existence in this hour.

“Why don’t you call the paperwala… I am finding it hard these days to stack newspapers in the cupboard. You better sell it off or flush it in the toilet after reading” (There is a hint of insult attached as this humble human being takes the news paper when I go to toilet).

I opened the door… Damn… who invented this latches and for God sake how many of them is required for a door? I could see a guy with a sack attached to his bicycle at the other end of the street. I could hear him shouting but still wonder how my wife manage to distinguish it’s a paper fella!.

As he approached our house, I swiftly went inside and dragged the bundle of paper out to the front door as it was heavy and I had not started going to gym those days and obviously I would like to use the leaves in a better way than lying in the hospital bed with a broken back.

The guy saw me struggling and with great enthusiasm and kindness he also helped me to get them out. With the tone of a perfect businessman I asked him “Eshtu per KG?” (What is the rate for one kilogram of newspaper) After few moments with all his calculation done he said “five rupees sir!”. Now that sounds a good deal for some old Malayalam newspaper and even my wife looked satisfied with it.

Then from his sack he pulled out his weighing balance and a 1 KG measurement. He took a handful of paper and placed it in one side of the device where the other side which holds the measuring weight is unmoved. It made him pull atleast two more handful of papers to get it balanced.

This is certainly not looking good. I thought I will be making enough money now for a couple of beers and by the way things are going it certainly looked overambitious. He put down the set of paper he weighed and took another set of paper to weigh. This time he had to put more paper than the earlier try and it certainly looked suspicious that I had to intervene.

I took the weighing balance from his hand though he didn’t look that happy giving it to me. Damn it weighed atleast 5 KG and still the balance was steady. I shook both the ends of it and on the second attempt, with a click sound the weighing machine started behaving as it should be. The end where he kept the paper was way down.

With a Sherlock Holmes smile on my pizzed off face, I enquired about it curbing the frustration in my mind and the answer was instantaneous “Machine kharabagithe sir” (There seems to be a problem with the machine sir!” Ahh…now you know it. To cover up the embarrassment he offered me a deal and asked me how many KG’s it would be. With my limited knowledge I could easily figure out it weighed atleast 20 KG and I told him the same.

He returned the answer with a silly smile in his face “Maximum 8 KG barathe sir” (It will be maximum 8 KG sir). With all my anger bursting out I shouted him to get out and cursing my wife and the paperwala I pulled it to its original location before crashing down to the easy chair to catch up with what I missed out from what I was seeing before…

Net net… that bundle of paper still remain in the same place and I avoid looking at the face of my wife when she cleans up the table picking up the newspaper… !