Workmen

Today, Mr Anandan who should be called Handy Anandan insisted that I should have my door fixed. Every day he comes by, swirling around my room searching out and describing defects in a rolling, liquid language scattered with many 'super, super's and 'tomorrow coming's. A few days ago he noticed my door stuck. "Carpenter, carpenter, tomorrow coming" he promised. Well today they did. Three of them. One to carry the tools (in an old hessian rice sack), one, whose girth was less than the door's breadth, to hold the door as the third, who easily had the smiliest smile, wielded a saw of Fisher Price sharpness and cut an enormous triangle of wood from the underside of the door. He was obviously the head carpenter, because not only did he not have to carry the tools, but he actually got to use them. The great news is that my door no longer sticks. The bad news is that there is now a cat-flap for mosquitoes, who don't even have the bother of pushing open a flap to get into my room.