The great bottle trap Conspiracy  

Fleeting Thoughts 

By Ashvini Ranjan 

In my eight decades on this earth, I have acquired one priceless piece of wisdom. If you are desperately looking for a doctor, investment adviser, chartered accountant or computer engineer, you can easily find one. But if you urgently need a plumber, electrician, carpenter or dhobi, they instantly become rarer than a tiger in the wild. 

The moment the maid doesn’t turn up, the kitchen sink refuses to drain, the motor stops pumping water to the overhead tank, the weather inside the house changes dramatically. Sunshine disappears, storm clouds gather and the man of the house is suddenly promoted to Chief Disaster Management Officer. 

Over the years, I cultivated excellent diplomatic relations with these highly influential professionals. I paid whatever they demanded, fully aware that they were charging me what economists politely call “market rates” and the rest of us call daylight robbery. I wisely resisted giving them free engineering advice like, “Why not repair the part instead of replacing the whole thing?” At my age, the fear of retaliation is greater than the fear of the repair bill. But even diplomacy has its limits. 

Our family plumber was Mallesh. His phone number occupied a place of honour in both my mobile phone and my old-fashioned diary, because one never knows which technology will fail first. 

Only once did I make the mistake of bargaining over his charges. That single act of financial prudence proved disastrous. The next time I called, Mallesh became as untraceable.   I had to restore our strained relationship by making a prompt peace offering through Google Pay. 

One morning, the washbasin in our bedroom bathroom stopped draining. I knew exactly what the problem was. The Bottle Trap underneath the basin was almost certainly clogged. The cure was straightforward: crawl under the basin, unscrew the trap with a monkey wrench, clean it and put it back. 

Unfortunately, the plan required a pair of knees that were about forty years younger. 

So I summoned Mr. Mallesh. 

After a lengthy inspection worthy of a ISRO engineering team, he delivered his verdict. 

The entire pipeline, he declared, had failed. 

It would have to be replaced. 

Since the pipe ran beneath the floor, all the tiles would have to come out. 

The job would take two full days. 

As for the cost… he mentioned it with the solemnity of a surgeon discussing a heart transplant. 

Now, advancing age may slow one’s knees, but it need not clog one’s brain. 

I telephoned the plumbing materials shop from which I usually bought fittings and asked if they could send someone, not to renovate my bathroom, but simply to clean the Bottle Trap. 

One of the young plumbers who regularly visited the shop volunteered. 

He arrived within half an hour. 

He crouched under the basin, unscrewed the Bottle Trap, removed what looked like the remains of several months’  of toothpaste, soap and assorted items, washed it thoroughly, screwed it back into place and turned on the tap. 

Water flowed beautifully. 

Operation completed. 

Total time: less than fifteen minutes. 

The amount I paid him made his day. He smiled broadly, thanked me, handed me his phone number and said, “Sir, next time, just call me.”  What I did not tell him was that what I paid him was just a fraction of what Mallesh had quoted.  

That day I learnt two valuable lessons. 

First, a clogged Bottle Trap does not necessarily require reconstructing the bathroom. 

Second, plumbers, like politicians, are not all the same.   

And somewhere in Mysuru, Mallesh is probably still wondering why his favourite customer has stopped calling.