My Shower: Where Electricity and Water Really Shouldn't Mix

There is a glaring contradiction between the skyrocketing price of real estate in Chennai and abysmal quality of construction and infrastructure. We've had out share of problems with the state supplied electricity to our apartment--ranging from city-wide brown outs to meter men from the Electricity Board and telephone pole explosions right outside my window. But once you take a look at the wiring inside the apartment you finally get a real picture of how on the verge everything is to collapse.

Take a look at the construction of my shower. You can see in the picture above that the pipe that leads to the spout connects to a small hole in the concrete where there are three different circuit breakers. Inside the wall, the pipe splits into at least two different pipes, and I believe that the stains around the windows show that there is at least some leakage inside.

The circuit breakers were installed to power the electric water heater and also shunt power into my bedroom to power an air conditioner and my computer setup. The water heater isn't particularly energy efficient, I've noticed that when I keep it on, the electricity meter downstairs starts moving at three or four times its normal rate.

So now I have to wonder if the shower that I've been using for the last two years, is actually some sort of crude execution device simply biding its time until the inevitable. Lettering imprinted on one of the breakers says "15 AMPs 256 VOLTS". I wonder if that is enough to give me a gentle stimulating shock, or enough to fry me instantly into a tandoori kebab.

The thing is, I've seen setups like this in apartments across the country. A photographer friend of mine in Delhi had a small house fire when his water heater exploded during one of the humid months. Even brand new places keep electric circuits perilously close to the water supply. We've got roughly a year and a half to go living here in Chennai. Any bets on whether we make it out?

How I quit the crowds and learned to love late fees

For the last year I have been at war with the electricity board of Tamil Nadu. I chalk it up to cultural miscommunication, they chalk it up to me being an all around non-bill paying delinquent. Every two months on the 15th a meterman drops by my apartment snoops around the electrical box and makes a note of how much electricity that I have used. He is supposed to write it down on an government issued electricity ration card so that I have a record of the reading, but more often than not I am not home to give it to him and my aging and mostly blind guardsman never picks it up from me. The ration card stands in for a what I consider a normal electricity bill--the kind that arrives in the mail--and without a notation there is nothing to tell you when you actually have to pay. And I usually don't. At least not on time.

Instead of bill dates, everyone just seems to know that you need to run across town to the electricity board building and pay them in cash before the 15th of the next month. If you don't the next time the meter man drops by he will cut your power. This happened to me in September (and every month thereafter) when my first fights with the electric company began.

Paying the bill at the electricity board is no easy task. Invariably when I show up there is a line that stretches around the block and it can easily take four house in the hot sun just to give a man behind a glass window money.

So after about six months of trial and error I've finally figured out the trick for paying the electricity bill with as little hassle as possible. It involves a few late charges, a little expertise as an electrician and a sneaky way to avoid the insurmountably long lines.

While I am never able to catch the meter man when he is on the premisis, I am invariably home when he ends up cutting my power. Since power outs are common in this part of town I usually don't think much of it, but after the power has been out over an hour (or if I hear my neighbor's TV) I march down to my power box to fix the problem. In the United States when the electricity company shuts down your power they usually do so by pressing a button on some centralized computer in another part of the country. Here in Tamil Nadu it's not quite that sophisticated. In stead of a person at a call center managing your power, the meterman simply disconnects one of the yellow wires at the bottom of my meter (usually the one on the far right side--see photo) and flips the main power switch for the apartment.

To reconnect the power I just wait for the meter man to leave and then plug the lead wire back in. Presto. The lights are back on and I have two more months of power.

Of course, I don't want to steal electricity, I just want to have a way of knowing when to pay the bill. So after a bit of procrastinating (usually about a month) I make my way down the the electricity board which sits on a busy intersection about a mile from my house. Most times of the month there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people holding their electricity ration cards in their hands and waiting to pay their bills. I've waited in those lines before and it can take a very long time before the men and women behind the window stop jabbering with one another, finish their twelfth tea break and finally get around to processing payments. It makes paying a electricity bill the same as a monthly visit to the DMV.
Not wanting to wait in the nightmare line (see photo above) I have come up with a way to skirt the whole issue. Like everything in this country, there are several levels of bureaucracy that you have to deal with when interacting with the government. And despite the huge lines, there are three or four workers behind the glass counters who sit around and do nothing all day because no one needs their specific bureaucratic skills. There are three lines for paying your bill on time, a line for fines, a line for late bills and a line for general inquiries.

That majority of people have come to pay their bills on time and thus have to wait around forever to get processed. However, as a delinquent bill payer I have the luxury of scooting ahead of everyone and going to my own delinquent bill payer window.
So while everyone of India's upstanding citiziens gets to stand in lengthy lines, I get to scoot past them all and pay a nominal (60 rupee) fine for not paying on time and get away from the bloody mess in just a few minutes.

Now I'm sure that this is not the system that the Indian government intended to create for bill payment, but it is by far the easiest one that I have come by yet. Not only do I avoid lines, but I don't need to wait around my house for three days in the middle of the month to catch the meterman as he threatens to turn off my power.

Today I paid my last two month's bill for 1800 rupees, and still had time to write this post. I think the people in the photographs above as still waiting for their agent to finish their tea.

Flight of the Repairmen

He came in the morning and began drilling holes in my wall. The bits for his drill we at least an inch thick and a few feet long and the perfect tool for breaching the concrete slabs that make up my apartment building. Three days before this moment I bought an air conditioner to keep my wife's office cool while the rest of the city heats up like an oven. This particular AC design isn't the sort that just hangs out of a window, instead the cooling unit is separate from the grill and is generally perched on balconies outside every apartment. When the workman took his first look at the project he groaned.

In order to access the ledge he would have to rappel down the side of my building holding a clutch full of hemp rope in one hand and the air conditioner in the other. It is a fascinating process to watch. And it is as dangerous as it sounds. The day before his colleague fell from the second story and spent the night in the hospital. Thankfully he wasn't seriously injured, but the jolt was enough to make even my repairman to return home and get a harness and a yellow hardhat. Though in his defense, the hardhat just laid on the floor during the operation.

So for the last five hours he and one or two of his accomplices have been swinging on ropes outside my window, taking water breaks while a five story abyss hangs below their feet. When they go home they get the company rate of $30 for installation and I will have a nice cool room to relax in.

Ode to the Indian Half-Toilet

For at least a century there have been two basic types of toilet in India: the "squatter" and the "Western". The squatter, otherwise known as the "Indian Toilet" is not particularly comfortable for people brought up on western designs since they require a bit of balance and make it almost impossible to peruse the morning paper while you go about your business. The Western, on the other hand, is not particularly comfortable for someone used to squatting. I guess I'm not entirely sure why, but perhaps we are just creatures of habit and most comfortable doing out business the way we learned.

But having multiple types of toilet designs led to a lot of confusion in India. Often apartments have two bathrooms -- one with each type of toilet -- so that guests more comfortable with one over the other wouldn't be inconvenienced.

And then some brilliant bathroom engineer came up with a solution to the steady proliferation of water closets: why not create a device that was equal parts western and India. In other words why not create the world's most impractical toilet on the planet and set it loose on millions of people around Indian. They created the great Indian half-toilet, or "Oriya pan": a marvel in idiotic design. It resembles an art-deco Starship enterprise

In all my travels through this great continent I have never met a single person who prefers this design. It sits an uncomfortable twelve inches off the ground--too low to sit on, and way too high to squat on. And while negotiating the bowl shape -- because crap falls differently if you are squatting or sitting -- they found a happy medium that invariably has to be cleaned after every use.

Yet somehow despite the fact they no one actually wants to use the darn half-toilet they have bred steadily across the country. A full half of the apartments I have seen here in Chennai are equipped with the deal-breaking appliance and no land lord is willing to contemplate swapping them out for a more practical design.

Well here's to the Oriya Pan, the half-squat, half-sit contraption that is sure to make hundreds of millions of people groan with misery until one day a populist government finally bans the device and soars into a brief span of unrivaled popularity.

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter The Chennai Real Estate Market

For the medieval scholars who I know frequent this blog will be happy to know that I've uncovered a missing chapter to Dante's Inferno here in Chennai. In the last couple weeks as Padma and I have been searching the city for an apartment we have come to the realization that the final stage in a soul's journey though hell can easily be accessed though any broker or classified ad in the newspaper.

Let me explain. For those of you who have only had the opportunity to find apartments in sane and honest cities in Europe or the United States, you might not be able to wrap your head around the infernal state of land lording here in Asia. And, no I'm not just talking about the silly questions that brokers and landlords ask before renting, or the way that the price fluctuates seemingly at random. That's just part for the course. The real pain comes after you've found a place you like.

Take this great two-bedroom flat we discovered in the heart of Kilpauk. It was in our price range, had lots of light, decent flooring, bathrooms galore and a functional kitchen. It was more or less perfect for what we wanted and we told the broker that we would take it. He smiled knowingly and said of course we could have it and rubbed his palms together in anticipation of his fat brokering fee. All we were going to have to do was talk to the landlord, pay him a wad of cash and move in. Or so we were told.

The only catch was that the landlord was out of the country and we would have to wait a week for him to return. So we call off the brokers we had been talking to, give up places that were equally good and waited. Until Wednesday of the next week.

At that point we meet the landlord in his office in Anna Nagar (he sells hip-replacement devices for a living). We asked him some basic questions about the place. Such as, why do we need to give a 10 month deposit? Can we paint the place? When we give him the deposit can we get a receipt for the money? They were the sorts of questions that anyone would ask who is about to part with $2500.

He was smug and business like. "If you don't want it, I can find someone else to move in no problem," was his answer to everything we said.

We left feeling unsure about whether or not we really wanted to have him as a landlord--the apartment was nice, but he certainly wasn't. But we had promised to give him a deposit of 5000 rupees to start the transaction.

Then at 9:00 AM this morning my phone rang with the broker on the other end. The apartment was mysteriously not available anymore. Apparently landlords only want tenants who have tons of money and no questions. So we spent another two hours looking at places today and nothing was any good. It looks like this may take longer than we had expected.

Only when we had that realization did it happen. The ground opened up beneath our feet and the concrete let out a poisonous burp of sulfur and tar. When we came to our senses was a dusty manuscript in Dante's own hand. It's first words?

"Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter The Chennai Real Estate Market"

You Like Apartment? You Must Buy Now!

BROKER: Just come upstairs this is a very nice place, I have seen it just myself. I will only show to you good places because I know you foreigners only like things spic and span. I can tell that I know what you like.

ME: This is a great location, but it looks like the place is a bit run down. How often do they scrape off that moss?

BROKER: No moss. It is a nice place.

(Padma, the Broker and I walk upstairs)

PADMA: Wow, this place is huge, and look at the kitchen!

SCOTT: It's definitely better than where we are now. And look, it has three bedrooms. I guess that would mean we have to get more furniture. The only thing is, the walls are pink. We would need to repaint.

BROKER: Yes you like? You buy now. Fourteen thousand rupees. Ten month deposit.

SCOTT: Didn't you say it was only twelve thousand with a six month deposit?

BROKER: Don't listen to what I say on the phone. If you like you rent right now. It is best or us.

PADMA: But we will need to repaint.

BROKER: That will cost you extra. How much more will you pay for paint?

PADMA: What are you talking about? The walls are pink! We will do it ourselves.

BROKER: That is ok, do it yourself, but we increase the rent. Can you put down deposit right now?

SCOTT: AARRGGGAAAGG!AGRAGARG!

BROKER: Why does your husband look so red in the face?

PADMA: I don't think he likes you.

Renting in Chennai

Could anyone tell me why renting a new apartment in Chennai is a Herculean task? For the last two weeks my wife and I have been calling numbers in several different classifieds sections of newspapers, trolling Sulekha.com and making calls to chronically elusive brokers. In fourteen days we have only been able to see three houses--and two of those houses we had to visit twice because the broker forgot the key.

On top of all that, half the people in Chennai have ludacris requirements. Here's a sampling of a few standard questions I've been asked so far: Are you Married? Are you a vegetarian? Are you the executive of your own multi-national company? If I were ever to answer no, the person on the other end immediately hangs up after offering the measly excuse "I'll get back to you."

So in the last week I've verified with my wife that we did indeed get married, dropped meat from my diet and founded my own sweatshop supplying cheap undergarments to western outlet stores. Next I fear they are going to ask if I am a professional wrestler.

To top it all off people here ask for a standard deposit of 10 months rent. Add a brokerage fee on top of that (for all the labor the had to put in hanging up on you and losing keys) and it's pretty close to a year up front just to get an entry level apartment. And don't even ask about getting interest on the three thousand dollar deposit--it's your free gift to the landlord.

The whole thing makes me sick.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

When (my) lights go out

It has already been two days since we finished the rickshaw race and I am still feeling under the weather. Despite consuming all manner of questionable eatables in my years in India I have been pretty lucky to avoid the worst forms of sickness that inhabit roadside food stands. But I have the feeling that my luck may have run out. I did a Google search on my symptoms and it looks like I am either still dehydrated from three days straight on a motorcycle, or I might have gotten a very mild case of typhoid. I'll pencil in a mid afternoon jaunt to the doctor today.

Adding to my overall misery was my most recent dance with the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the way the Indian government chooses to route power to Guru Nanak Niwas, my betel stained apartment building, it may come as a shock to you that even my own home is rife with a plague of bureaucratic idiocies.

For the last six months my wife and I thought we were getting away without paying our electricity bill. When we moved in our landlord gave us a yellow electricity card and told us to give it to the one-eyed decrepit chowkidar who pretends to keep brigands and terrorists away from our apartment complex. The system was supposed to be that a meter man would drop by once every couple months, take a reading, note it on the card and send us a bill. In exchanged we were allowed to plug in an array of electronic devices and enjoy near-constant power fluctuations and at least one explosion.

Two months passed and we anxiously awaited our first bill. It never came. A few more months slipped by and we thought that perhaps we were somehow off the books. Rather than figure out the problem, we hoped against hope that they would eventually send us a bill or drop a letter threatening to take us off the grid.

Then it happened. A day after we got back from Kanyakumari a man from the electricity board dropped by our meter, saw that we hadn't paid and promptly disconnected our power. In reality all he did was unscrew a single wire from our meter box, but it effectively blackened our apartment and sent us scurrying over to a friend's bungalow for a night.

The next morning we interrogated our guard who said he had never received our card. We asked him to check his files...er...shed for any sign of it, but to no avail. Instead he began to berate us in Hindi for being irresponsible and for letting the bill go unpaid for so long. We called our landlord who delivered a similar speech before inviting us over for tea at his house and chaperoning our first trip to the dingy government office that supplies power to our neighborhood.

We arrived with photocopies of the old electricity card, our lease, six types of identification, an affidavit from our landlord's wife (the actual owner of the apartment), several thousand rupees in cash, and a sinking feeling that this would take a long time. We took up positions next to a bureaucrat wielding a rubber stamp and one fingered typing skills. For the next half hour our landlord spoke to him in Tamil, smiled falsely, and said that the foreigners should be excused for their stupidity. They laughed at the last joke and sent us knowing glares. The man looked skeptical, but eventually capitulated when we gave him a little extra cash under the table. He issued us a fresh card and sent two electricians home with us to reconnect the power.

A couple turns of a screw later and the power was back on. The electrician explained that we should really buy a new meter (one that he could get us "real cheap") because the old one in my building runs a little too fast. My landlord said that would be a good idea and offered to let us pay for the improvements to our apartment.

After saying goodbye, Padma and I made our way up to our flat. We turned on the AC, opened up our laptops and went to check our e-mail when we ran into our second setback of the day. In a technological double-whammy our broadband provider had decided that since we had been out of our apartment for a week that they would disconnect our Internet as well. We spent the next few hours negotiating with a team of technical specialists and customer care people to get everything up and running again.

It was late at night before everything was back to normal and I decided to skip my blog for the day and ruminate on the mundane trials everyone in India has to go through for basic services.