Power to the meter reader

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How is it that you woke up so late?" growled the official at the Santiniketan branch of the West Bengal State Electricity Board. I was really taken by surprise. As far as I was concerned I was doing the public utility company a big favour. So why was this guy barking at me?

Unlike other cities where I got my electricity bill once every month, in Santiniketan we get a bill once in three months. I don't know whether it is because the Board is too lazy to do it more often (I suspect that's the case) or because in this small town bills are of such low amounts that it is not worth printing them so often. Whatever, I knew I had to manage my cash flow to suit this system.

As the time grew near for me to be blessed with a bill, I got a little worried as no one came to read my meter. I asked a local if she knew what could be the matter. "It happens quite often," she explained, completely unperturbed. "What you should do is read the meter yourself and give it in to the electricity office.

Obviously, all these years, I had been a fool to assume that the tariff included the service of having your meter read! I found handy stools to get on to, read the meter, scribbled out the reading and went off to the electricity office to hand it in.

Half expecting to be thanked for my efforts, I was surprised when I got barked at instead. The reason I was being admonished was that I had not done it "in time" and this would imply a separate entry in the computer.

"So why didn't you send someone to read it earlier?" I asked, by then my BP considerably higher than what it was when I had walked in. "The trainee on the job is not very conversant with all the house numbers," was the answer.

When he realised that I did not find this an adequate explanation, he tried another. "Even if the meter is not read it does not matter. In winter your consumption will be lower and if your meter is read then your average will be lower", he explained.

Besides ensuring that now they have to read the meter not even in three months but in six, I didn't really understand the logic. Why would the Electricity Board take on my cash management? And didn't they know that geysers were power guzzlers in winter?

I told him all this and more and even volunteered to give the trainee a crash course in house numbers free of cost in order to ensure that I do not have to climb on stools to read my meter again! If nothing else I had ensured the official would think twice before doling out such pathetic excuses again.

In about ten days from the day I had been to the electricity office and handed in my meter reading, a man arrived carrying my bill. I accepted it eagerly and quickly read for the meter reading amount which by now I knew by heart! It didn't match.

But just as I was wondering whether there was any other convention that I was not aware of which could explain the discrepancy I happened to read the name at the top of the bill. "Purabi Roy" it said. Livid, I called back the bearer from the gate. "Why are you giving me a bill which is not for me?" I demanded.

He looked distraught. "Isn't this yours?" he asked naively. "How can this bill be mine? The name is wrong and even the house number is wrong," I shot back, my voice breaking with rage.

"Please tell me your name, I am going to complain to the electricity office that you are not doing your job," I said. He continued to look calm and all he said was: "Actually, it is my brother who works for the Electricity Board."