I don’t do fans. Not even in the height of summer. Not even in Delhi where temperatures touch 45 degrees Celsius. I am also comfortable in a closed room with no air—without ever reaching for the switch. Perhaps it comes from the fact that as a young girl I had the hideous pleasure of two giant lizards falling on me right off the giant pankha that was strategically placed directly above the bed.

Unfortunately, the man I live with is obsessed with fans. For him, the thought of a room without a fan causes him to break out in a heavy sweat. The faster the better is his motto and if the blades start to resemble a chopper at take off, he is happiest. And herein lies the crux of why marriages and relationships break: The inability to agree on the temperature of the bedroom.

My entire sleep routine is now broken into REM periods and alert waking hours where I plan switching off the fan without my boyfriend realising it. Equally, he waits till I fall asleep before he blasts the fan. So far, I am winning as I am an insomniac and better versed in guerilla warfare. So, the boy buys the fact that there is an electrical fault that short circuits the wiring and we continue to live happily every after.

But this daily battle reminded me of a History lecturer that we had in college. Dr Dwivedi was a politically incorrect man who used to smoke beedis in class. He was also argumentative and combative. Of course I was addicted to his lectures. One time our conversation turned to what is beauty. According to the professor, if it was functional it was beautiful. Otherwise, it deserved to be junked. At which point, I looked up and asked him if that meant that the ugly, scarred fan in our classroom was a thing of beauty. He spent the next three sessions arguing that it was and by the end of it we were all converts. The logic was simple really. If it works for a living—and inanimate objects can do that—then it deserves the honour of being noticed. If it exists with no purpose then it must be ignored.

... contd.