Following the Saturday evening gym and sauna session mentioned previously we felt that we really ought to have some dinner, despite it by then being gone midnight. A prawn curry was the decision so we set about making it from scratch.
It was some minutes later when Rajeev noticed the water wasn’t boiling because the gas had gone out – so he tried to relight it without success. The reason was quickly found; there is no mains gas in Colombo so every home that uses gas has a propane cylinder and mine was empty. At this point it was about 00:20am but I decided to call the security guard anyway because the team here is pretty good at taking care of things.
The intercom rang, and rang. No answer – so I decided to take the elevator down to the lobby where I found heavily distorted local music playing at full volume on a mobile phone and a “security” guard slumped back in his chair fast asleep.
“HELLOOOO”
No response.
“HELLLLLOOOOO”
Still no response, so I went round his counter and gently shook his shoulders but still to no avail.
Eventually, he woke up, gave me a strange grin as his eyes glazed over, folded his arms on his desk and went back to deep sleep – all with the deafening and distorted music still playing.
I switched his phone off, at which point he woke up – of sorts.
“Please can I have some gas?”
“Yes”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes”
“What did I ask?”
“Yes”
Oh Lord.
“Please can I have some G-A-S?”
“Yes”
Repeat of the above, so I gestured to show an empty gas bottle and asked him to call his supervisor, which he did. After telling the guard my apartment number he said “Go wait”, so I did. A few minutes later the doorbell rang and there outside in the hallway was a member of the maintenance team with a torch in his hand – but no gas bottle. I took him to the cupboard where the bottle is kept and showed him the problem.
“Ahhhh, gas”
“Yes, gas. Actually, no gas”
“No gas, Sir”
“Yes, no gas. Where can I buy?”
“Outside, Sir”
“When?”
“After curfew”
“You mean after 31st May? Today is 23rd”
“Yes, no gas until then” – and off he went.
I resisted the temptation to borrow the gas cylinder from our neighbours even though they would unlikely be cooking at what was then 00:35am, and instead we had a simple meal of curried potato done in the microwave, and a tasty salad.
Let’s see what the daytime brings, it now being 04:39am on Sunday 23rd (despite what the blog date says as the server is in the USA).
Steve
