Do your homework: Household repairs are a recurrent cost and can make us run up huge bills – The Times of India Blog

The sink in my bathroom has developed a leak. I called in the plumber who said that there was a problem with the faucet assembly.

So I shelled out Rs 3,500 for a new faucet, plus Rs 500 by way of a service fee to the plumber. But the leak is still there, leaving a puddle on the floor. Now the plumber says there could be a crack in one of the water pipes feeding the bathroom, and hell have to break open a section of wall and try to locate it. Which will cost more money. A lot more money.

When I was a kid at school, I couldnt wait to grow up so I wouldnt be saddled with doing homework. Little did I realise that homework, of another kind, is something that many, if not most, people have to put up with for all their lives.

The grown-up homework we are subject to consists of doing endless house repairs and renovations. If we are lucky enough to have a roof which we can call our own which only too many of our fellow citizens lack we soon discover that this blessing comes with a hefty price tag by way of keeping things shipshape.

According to Murphys Law, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. According to the Law of Homework, if nothing can go wrong, something will go wrong.

It can be a leak in the bathroom, a fault in the electric wiring which causes a short circuit whenever you try to turn on the TV, the fridge which for no discernable reason suddenly packs up.

Having to put up with this endless homework, I sympathise with those folks in Delhi who are having to fork out a whopping amount of money to completely remodel the place they occupy, and of which theyre not even the owners, but only tenants.

The House in question is called Parliament which is the home of our democracy and which is being redesigned at a cost of Rs 992 crore.

I just hope the bathroom sink doesnt spring a leak.

DISCLAIMER : This article is intended to bring a smile to your face. Any connection to events and characters in real life is coincidental.

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Do your homework: Household repairs are a recurrent cost and can make us run up huge bills - The Times of India Blog