A day in June

June - the month of south-west monsoon. Surprisingly, it set in early this season. I think we should find a new author to re-write "Rain rain go away" rhyme; because children enjoy playing in the rain these days! Hyderabad experienced good showers until now. Yesterday and today had been dramatic. We had heavy showers last night; water gushing down the road. The roots of many trees gave up and the branches of many lowered causing disruption to the electric lines. Yeah, we had the power go down. The rain stopped only after 3:00 AM today.

Being Saturday, my house mates and I were all at home. Every minute seemed like an hour without power and our computer down. I think this is the only time in 6 months the desktop rested for more than 8 hours. When we were all sitting and discussing about world peace, global warming and several other important issues we heard a commotion down the road.This started at 8:00 AM.

A dead tree right opposite to our house has completely rested on the main electric wires. That's the reason we had no power. It is Marredpally municipal's call to take the tree down without breaking the lines.

All characters depicted below are non-fictional. Any resemblance to persons sleeping or awake or dreaming is purely and completely coincidental.

This is just another witness about Indian Management.

First, there came 5 people ( 4 supervisors and 1 labor man with a saw ). They all stood together and analyzed how to bring the tree down for about an hour. The labor guy went up the tree and cut a small branch just above the electric lines. That took about 20 minutes and when he came down, hot tea was served for all. It was almost 10:00 AM

We were getting ready to go out for breakfast. My house mate Anish challenged me that they will bring down the tree only after a crowd of 50 people gather in the place. I didn't dare to challenge him back because I know that's exactly how it's gonna end.

After the tea break and few more people adding to the present crowd, 12 - 15 approximately; they seemed to wait for something. One among the many supervisors has made a deft move in calling for extra help. We were back from having our breakfast when the cherry picker arrived - "the-extra-help". The sole labor guy was put in the cabin and lifted high only to saw another small branch off the tree.

They tried out different moves with the cherry picker to bring the tree down. All they needed was another round of tea before they could work/think further. The supervisors were in deep discussions when few more work-men arrived. They tried tying the tree to the back of the cherry picker and pulling the tree in the opposite direction. But, nothing seemed to work. It was almost lunch time by then.

When we came back after our lunch, we were surprised to see a crane arriving the site to assist the cherry picker - another deft move after 5 hours.


Finally, they tied the tree to the crane and uprooted it - that moment was awesome. Anish was right, we had a huge crowd.



The tree was uprooted vertically and then lowered.


I, an odd man out, clicking snaps around, clapped in exaltation as the tree came down. The guy standing beside was gawking at me. Seeing him, I know that he is one among the supervisor. I returned him a broad smile, but his expression worsened. I knew right then, it is not safe for me to stay there anymore and rushed back home. It was 2:00 PM.

The power came back at 2:30PM