Random Musing #32: What servicing air conditioners taught me about parenthood

Children are God's little way of punishing us for having sex – Evelyn Harper  (Two and a Half Men)

I recently got married, and before anyone asks, I’ve absolutely no desire to give anyone any “good news”. That is, I have no desire to be a Catholic and propagate. It’s an evolutionary urge, one that I can happily repress, where nurture clearly wins over nature. When I say nurture, I refer to the Herculean task that my parents went through trying to nurture me into a responsible human being that was almost impossible given my nature: an amalgamation of the various roles Salman Khan has essayed along with a lifelong desire to live by the principle of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  

The early readings portended trouble. The moment I was born, the doctor said: Bahut insouciant bacha paida hua hai. Those words turned out to be the gospel truth.

To say I was a difficult child would be an understatement, like saying Chamberlain had a hankering for peace or that the Supreme Leader loves to dog whistle during election season. When I was in Class 1, I was almost expelled from school for copying my mother’s signature in the school diary after suffering from a memory lapse and forgetting to do my homework. I would’ve gotten away with it too, if the five-year-old me had the wherewithal to copy the signature instead of writing my mother’s name in bold letters.

A couple of years later, I registered my first Pagan rebellion against Abrahamism when I told the principal of a well-known Catholic boys' school that I didn’t care for his school’s entrance interview because it was on a Saturday, and I would have to miss most of my cartoons if I were to come for the said interview.

Fast forward a couple more years, a primary school teacher in boarding school took great umbrage when I pointed out that one can get hunger pangs but not homework pangs, as a response to her question - why I did not miss the meal times (like I missed doing homework).

Perhaps, this early cheek in my adolescent years was the reason that the hockey stick mark was permanently tattooed on my other cheek. Sadly, I come from a time when corporal punishment wasn’t just frowned upon but actively encouraged: spare the rod and spoil the child, or they will turn out like David Cameron.

My constant run-ins with the establishment, particularly teachers – much to the chagrin of my mother, a professor herself – continued well into my adulthood before I was cast out like John the Savage, which made me vow that:

1) I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children (without defending anything per se).

2) I shall never ever return to an institute of formal education to study.

Of course, it’s rather ironic – though my mother’s not complaining – that not only do I teach students these days, but am also married to a woman who ticked all the academic and career boxes that I couldn’t be bothered about while growing up.

Either way, my constant run-ins with authorities, despite my better half’s ability to toe the line, suggest that there’s half a chance that any progeny that springs forth will be an almighty pain in the arse, if even a sliver of my DNA manages to slip through.  

This gave me a unique epiphany – a vision that came to me amid the dust and the labour pain of moving houses – that the closest I will ever come to experiencing parenthood and the pain of raising progeny is when I service my damn air conditioners.

I have often castigated those who call themselves dog parents – your child is not going to go to IIT or disappoint you by marrying into a different caste – but I’ve come to realise that the upkeep of air conditioners is as close as one can come to raising children.  

For starters, they are damn expensive to buy and continually keep disappointing you. They stop functioning at the slightest hurdle, whether it’s a pigeon or a little dust. Their upkeep is fiscally brutal, and they can never be EBIDTA positive (unless, of course, by a twist of nature, you drop a genius).

Just moving them from one place to another (like moving your child from one school to another) is fiscally imprudent and bad enough to sully one’s balance sheet. 

Sure, they make you happy from time to time. Few joys compare to returning home after a long day’s work to them. They are uniquely capable of cooling you down when the heat of life gets too much to bear. You look at them at the end of a long day, and you realise why you are a willing slave to Mammon and capitalism. Till you check your bank account, because ACs, just like children, aren’t just a huge pain in the arse, but an even bigger pain on the wallet.