In a Bombay housing society, nothing unites people faster than a leakage. Not festivals, not elections, not even free samosas at the AGM. But one drop from the ceiling and suddenly the entire building becomes emotionally, technically, and spiritually involved.
It begins innocently. A faint patch appears on the ceiling. At first it looks artistic, like modern art that nobody understands but everyone respects. Then it grows. Then it drips. And with that drip, peace in the building evaporates.
The resident below looks up, not in prayer, but in accusation. Because in our buildings, the person above you is not just a neighbour, but a potential water supplier.
The first visit upstairs is polite.
“Excuse me, there seems to be a small leakage.”
The neighbour above smiles kindly. “From my flat? Impossible. Everything is perfectly dry here.”
This confidence is admirable, especially when water is literally dripping downstairs with supporting evidence.
The second visit carries more urgency.
“It is dripping continuously now.”
“Sometimes water travels,” says the neighbour, now turning philosopher.
Soon the managing committee is informed.
A committee member arrives, inspects the ceiling below, glances at the bathroom above, and nods. That nod means nothing has been solved, but everything has become serious.
Then enters the plumber. The final authority.
He taps the wall, listens to pipes like a doctor checking a patient’s heartbeat, and then delivers the verdict.
“We will have to break.”
This is the most feared sentence in a Bombay flat. Tiles tremble. Wallets faint.
In my six years as chairman of a housing society, and from many such episodes that have found their way into my book Hi Society, I discovered that in ninety percent of the cases, nothing really needed to be broken.
A simple tap washer had given up its will to live. Grouting between tiles had quietly retired. A door frame had decided to become a secret water highway to the flat below. Small things. Very small things.
Things that could have been fixed without declaring war on the bathroom.
But no. We prefer drama.
We love breaking tiles, drilling walls, and reconstructing half the house, only to finally discover that the culprit was a tap that needed replacing for fifty rupees.
In fact, I remember getting a quotation for seventy thousand rupees and getting it fixed for seven hundred and fifty rupees, with a bit of white cement and a plumber’s wages.
It reminds me very much of how we deal with problems in our country. Instead of tightening a loose screw, we pass grand laws. Instead of fixing a crack, we demolish the wall. Yes, we literally use bulldozers and pass harsh laws, because instead of understanding the leak, we declare an emergency.
Meanwhile, somewhere in a quiet corner, maybe in a housing society in Bombay a small tap continues to drip, amused at the chaos it is going to cause…!