A Question of Gratitude

The stick and doll's head were part of what I

have collected from the beach. The crochet is

symbolic of going over and over with the same

thread of  thought to find some resolve.

I was hoping to get some rest on Sunday. Actually I was planning to off-load a lot of stuff in my journal, but life had something else lined up. My computer refused to start. On Saturday, or was it Friday when I had been working on my laptop, I kept getting a message from Dell, which I ignored. I hate these epistles. I get them from Microsoft, from Quick Heal and Dell Support on a daily basis and they are such pestilence because they don’t allow me to work.

Mid-sentence these alerts and warnings or updates pop up and don’t let me continue with what I was doing until I damn well acknowledge them. So I have developed a stance where the computer doesn’t really know whether I have noted or not, I just let them have their say. Take a deep breath, cuss a moment and get on with things. In short I don’t bother to read the notifications and this was one communique, I should have paid heed to. I hadn’t understood it and when the device wouldn’t start, because this message was staring me in the face without budging, it took half a dozen phone calls to my technical support in Delhi (thankfully they answered on a Sunday) to inform me that the adapter had to be changed.

One of the most frustrating factors about living in a totally different city, a new place,  is that these basic things become issues for the simple reason that one doesn’t know where to go. I searched online for Dell stores and found numerous but it was Sunday, and even those that were supposedly open didn’t answer their phones. Half the day passed in this endeavour and I planned to drive down to Panjim on Monday and locate a store there. Mapusa is closer but I had work in Panjim and thought that if I was able to leave early enough I could complete half a dozen other chores.

But, I didn’t manage to leave till 12 noon and needed to get back by 2pm as Simona who usually comes at 3pm was coming then. There were prayers being conducted at St Anthony’s Church and she and her family were going to attend them, so she would come sooner and leave early. I set the google maps for Jameson in Mapusa. It was twenty-one minutes away, which gave me enough time. I had reached Mapusa, was following the map to locate the store, when I caught sight of another shop that had been listed and thought I would check it out as I wasn’t sure where Jameson was. Parking my car was a nightmare and eventually I parked about half a kilometre away, up a steep hill, which was mostly residential. Walking down, I mentally prepared myself for the steep climb back, but it didn’t turn out too bad.

I found a Jameson right there, in the same building, but they didn’t have what I needed, neither did Digiwiz, who advertise themselves as a Dell service centre, but no longer are. But they could see the urgency of the situation and told me that just a few steps down, there was another store in the same building. It looked rather sparsely stocked, with a rather dim interior, not nearly as spiffy as Jameson’s sparkling showroom down below. When I got talking to the man behind the desk and asked what the company was called, it turned out to be last on the list. Left to my own judgement , I wouldn’t even have tried looking for it. I mentioned this to him and he said that is because he doesn’t pay. Now this was news for me that, it was those who paid Google that got listed on top and were not necessarily the dealers with the best service or reviews.

He too didn’t have the required adapter, but did a quick check on his desktop and said that he could let me have it by 3pm and deliver it to me in Siolim. I was satisfied. He started making out the bill and I noticed a small clock-cum-pen stand on his desk. It had the name of the contractor who I had initially hired to do the interior of my flat. Himtik Designs, short for Himanshu Tikmany, a Marwari settled in  Goa. I couldn’t help but ask how he knew this guy. It turned out that he too had a bad experience with him. As we talked, he realised  he was needlessly advertising what he couldn’t endorse, so turned the stand around. You could no longer see the name but it retained its usefulness - holding visiting cards and pens.

After narrating what his experience had been, which had been miniscule compared to mine, he said, “But I thank him, because when he refused to give me an estimate, wanting to be paid on ‘as and when’ basis, which didn’t suit me, I got the carpenters and did it myself. And every evening when I go home, I feel this deep sense of pleasure.” I too know that the way things turned out, after Himanshu quit midway, was a much better outcome than what he could have done. But, it had been very difficult. Unlike Vinay Mhambre of Mapusa, I wasn’t Goan. I didn’t know my way around and didn’t speak the language and therefore it took me  three months to find the right solution. During that time I had taken eighteen carpenters and kitchen manufactures to work out things. I called up friends in Delhi and they found me somebody, who didn’t work out. Then someone else came up and another friend suggested a carpenter but nothing really fell into place. I found services online and  it just went on and on like this. A very maddening and tense period because I was staying in a rented apartment and getting the lease extended could have been problematic. Thankfully it wasn’t, but dealing with so much uncertainty was highly stressful.

Most contractors that came didn’t win my confidence. Some were too expensive and others declined because the design was a tad complicated. A lot of stuff had to fit in a relatively small space which required skill and detailing.  In the end, Vinay Agrawal of Kosmos in Mumbai, whose office had designed the apartment for me in the first place, loaned me two carpenters. It was already partially done, so they couldn’t undertake it as a project. If they had I would have paid through my nose and couldn’t afford more expenditure. I had to become the contractor and learn all sorts of things and somehow I did get it done. And I do know that this was the best solution, because given my constraints and exacting standards, cutting out the contractor saved me a lot of money and ensured I got the best materials. I also sat at the site supervising and getting everything done to precision. Every colour, ever tile was placed with great thought and understanding of what I was going to use the spaces for and how. There are issues but, what guarantee did I have that there wouldn’t have been more with Himtik or any other firm that took it on?

I love my apartment. It has turned out very special. Once I got involved I enjoyed the work. I savoured the jaunts, shopping  for tiles, hunting for lights and all the nitty gritty – down to bathroom fittings. And, I too have my moments when I feel this deep sense of gratitude. As I am lying in bed, before I turn out the lights at night, I feel the serenity of the bedroom, the way things have just fallen into place – the perfect colours, the lights which couldn’t have been better. I relish working in the extremely hands on kitchen, which though miniscule is kitted-out with everything and works ultra-efficiently. My desk is cut from the trunk of a local Shivan tree, where I went to the timber yard and chose the log and had it cut to my specifications. And every piece of furniture has been distress- polished to blend in with the veneer and laminates that more or less fade into the walls. And, although my apartment is full of books, you see the spines of a myriad publications and not the shelves. Between Meryl, Vinay and myself, the design turned out to be excellent.

I am proud to have accomplished its execution, almost singlehandedly. But not once, not even for a split second can I even think gratitude towards Himanshu who not only let me down, but tried to take advantage of the situation, when I was unwell and hospitalised, to use substandard materials. And sick as I was, to try and hold me to ransom to accept all his irrational conditions. To this day, I don’t know if the parts that he worked on - some of which I retained, are solid enough. I can thank life and I do, because I realise that at times the universe has a better plan that one can envisage and often knows better than I, the competence in me to execute it too. But, to consider giving credit for this to an individual who behaved unprofessionally and disrespectfully seems a total disregard for the way things unfolded and what I had to endure, to get to this point of finding the right people to execute the design for me.

I know that a lot of spiritual teachings abound that suggest this is a way to forgive and move on, but surely the acknowledgement and gratitude is placed in the wrong arena, towards the wrong person? Unquestionably this must be given to oneself for the learning, for seizing the opportunity and for finding the scope to do it right.  It wasn’t as if the other was doling out wisdom, with any measure of awareness, and encouraging me to do it myself for the reasons that eventually made sense. If this were the case, then yes, all praise goes to their sagacity and prescience, but not otherwise.

I can find forgiveness for the situation, for the discomfort and for undergoing those incredibly tense moments and all the rest of it,  by seeing the way things turned out. But I cannot attribute any of this to the person who let me down. I cannot even remotely thank him. When I went to see the progress of work, upon being discharged from the hospital I was aghast and so upset, I literally sat on the floor and cried. I wanted him out. I didn’t have an alternate so gave him a list of things that needed rectification which included a bed that had been made too small to fit the mattress size. And, when he threatened to leave for the third time in two months, I accepted. Made him give it to me in writing there and then and this paved the way for what followed, through which I found my feet – eventually.

I learned along the way, the nuances of an altogether different trade. I know that conventional understanding suggests gratitude for this instance and I concede that his leaving created a field of possibility, but I went through hell. It was so hard those early months, that it will be a while before time has dulled the pain and I feel generous enough to see his role in this as one that deserves that grace, if at all.