Contract for Inspiration

Our experience with contractors hasn't been a very nice affair. Especially those hired to do our house for us. Especially the first contractor to do our Mumbai home. In fact, it is a taboo to mention him at our home- mom would wince at anything to do with him. The reason, of course, is age-old. Inferior quality of work, bad materials used, zero reliability.. meh, you don't need to hear it from me. What you do need to read, however, is this poem I had written at that extremely testing time, inspired by the extremely testing situation of living in a house that wasn't holding up too well against the monsoons. Yes, you do need to see this. Or maybe not.

Polly, Polly, what have you done,
You made a house of wood & gum!
You plugged the holes with cork & slime,
And covered it up with paper that shined.
It is all fine if it’s made for you,
But alas! That is not quite true.
You are much too smart for things like that,
So instead of using your bat
To break it all up after the game,
You kept it all, just the same.

So when a gentleman came to you once,
To fix his home, mend his fence,
You said, “Why, I can do better,
I’ll show what will make you happier!”
And with all the smartness of a mouse,
With a flourish you showed him the house.
It was covered all over with paper that shines,
So he couldn’t see the cork & the slime.
His downfall came when he believed
The house was just the perfect dream,
That, for him, had come true.

But never after that, was a moment for him,
When he could just sit all day & dream.
The house leaked, the house burnt,
It did everything a house shouldn’t.
All the time, the man rushed around,
Cause in this house that seemed so sound,
There was much to fix, much to build again.

So then he looked all over for Polly,
To return the house, fix his folly.
But you were nowhere to be found,
Along with his hundred thousand pounds!