"Ahh!! these mosquitoes....." mumbled Mr. Desai. It had been 16 hours since Kailash Apartment suffered  a major power cut causing great inconvenience to its dwellers. With no electricity it seemed that life had come to a halt for everyone and Mr. Desai was no exception. Since morning Mr. Desai had fought numerous battles. He went to brush his teeth but found that the tap had nothing to offer him except a few drops of water. Somehow he finished the job of washing himself. He knew that water shortage would follow electricity failure so he decided to store some water for future purposes but it had only been ten minutes when the tap completely died out. Mr. Desai now started panicking. He dropped his idea of bathing and rushed to a nearby market to at least get some packaged drinking water bottles. This early morning exercise had already wore him off so much when he got another bad news that there was a fault in the main transformer of the apartment which would take an entire day to get repaired .

Mr. Desai lived alone in his apartment . Early morning he used to leave for his job but today being Sunday he missed his air-conditioned office room. He kept the water bottles in the refrigerator and went ahead with the task of preparing breakfast. On any other day his breakfast would have been 'aalo parathas with chutney' but today he decided to save water as much as he could and hence satisfied himself with 'milk cornflakes'. While eating this meagre breakfast, he promised himself a lavish lunch in the afternoon. So as per his plan at noon Mr. Desai called to a nearby restaurant and ordered some " Chhole Bhature, Biryani and Lassi". He was both happy and sad to receive his lunch. While paying the delivery boy, he was reminded that the food had cost him his shirt which he had planned to buy with his savings. Unfortunately his hungry stomach knew nothing but food so he settled down to eat. While eating he looked down to his watch . "Alas!! still six hours to suffer...Why don't these people install a good quality transformer?" 

After lunch he decided to take a nap. He thought sleeping was a good idea as time would pass away quickly and he would get a chance to rest too. But it seemed today nothing was going to happen in his favour. The hot summer afternoon caused him to sweat immensely. He could do nothing but sigh and abuse the much needed electricity. With a newspaper cum fan in his one hand he decided to stare at the ceiling fan anticipating it to run anytime but alas it was just his imagination. Poor Mr. Desai kept rolling on his bed but couldn't get a sound sleep. With this struggle the painful afternoon course came to an end bringing in the respite of cool evening air. After so much of discomfort the evening air seemed no less than a boon to him. He made himself a cup of tea and decided to sit in his balcony with the same crushed newspaper that had served him as a fan a few hours ago.

This combination of ginger tea with spicy news' couldn't rescue Mr. Desai for too long. With sunset darkness entered his small flat. He came inside and lit a little candle on the table. He was worried as he had some pending office -work to do . But at least he didn't have to worry about dinner as he had saved himself some of his lunch . So Mr. Desai brought his files and papers near the candle and started working for his presentation that he had to give next day. He had forgot to prepare it in all the chaos. So he worked for a good one hour . Suddenly something bit him on his cheeks. He slapped his left cheek and found a dead mosquito. He immediately rushed towards his balcony and locked the net- door that he had mistakenly left ajar. But alas it was too late as the mosquitoes were all over his place now. Mr. Desai could not tolerate the idea of tiny mosquitoes invading his space. So he took his all purpose newspaper and began waving in the dark. After ten-twelve unsuccessful attempts he finally gave in. 

After dinner it was now his time to sleep. So a very tired Mr. Desai dropped on his bed. He was so tired now that a lack of electricity could not cause him any inconvenience. Soon he was asleep and it was not long before he started dreaming. He dreamt of his daughter's wedding, of how Savita got married to Mukesh last year. He was about to bid them farewell at the airport when he was again disturbed from his sleep. This time again it was the mosquito. Mr. Desai  was furious now. He immediately picked up his phone and called his security guard Mukesh. As soon as Mukesh was on the line, Mr. Desai scolded him.."What is happening Mukesh!! Will this transformer ever get repaired. When is the electricity going to come??"...All he heard on the phone was " No No Papaji we have electricity here.." Mr. Desai was shocked. He immediately looked at the number dialed. It was not of Mukesh security guards' but of his son-in-law Mukeshs'. He had saved his guards' no in lowercase letters and of his son-in-laws' in upper case letters and accidently he had dialed his son-in-laws' number. He immediately said sorry to mukesh for disturbing him at that late hour and disconnected the call. He was embarassed by his deed . But suddenly he burst out into laughter and laughed for a long time at what he had done. He laughed till he had tears in his eyes which were already dazzled by the electricity that had come a few minutes ago.


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