Power cuts and community life...

Amitabh Shukla

Long hours of power cuts in my east Delhi colony at the peak of the summer season has brought about a new feeling of community living and sharing. The sharing is more of the woes of each resident who sweats and curses all authorities in the middle of the night.

This is how it all began. There was load shedding and power cuts throughout the day on a Sunday. The poor inverter in my house could not cope with it. It went kaput at 10 in the night. Sweating profusely, I waited for the power to come back. The usual drills like calling the power company too happened. Nothing materialised as they had switched on the answering machine.

I was now in the balcony to take breath in the weak wind which was blowing. The wind was too weak to blow away the heat generated by temperature in the mid 40s in the daytime. It failed to dry the sweat and soon sweat was pouring from my body all over. At 12 midnight, I looked around. Most of the inverters in the colony by that time had given all they could and had silently gone to sleep. People and small children were waiting for the “power gods” to come back. Small children had started crying. The “Power Gods” did not oblige.

The stray dogs had fallen silent and so did the whistles of the watchmen who roam around in the colony in the night. Restless and angry residents started inquiring from each other. People were patrolling the streets, visiting their friends or simply killing time by sitting on the staircase. Some started moving around in their AC cars but gave it up soon. United by a common problem, they asked each other when will power come back. Everybody was clueless. The neighbour, whom I see everyday but had not talked to for 2 years, came to talk about how the colony, city and the country had been betrayed by the politicians.

Soon, it was one a.m. I went up to the roof of my flat to explore the possibility and feasibility of sleeping there on a chair. The mosquitoes sensed my intention and attacked me violently. I gave up the idea. It was here that I noticed that in the nearby park, there was a lot of activity. The screens of the mobile phones were flashing in the night sans any other source of light.

I cam down from my second floor flat and went to the park at 1.30 am. It was full of people who were now praying to God for the supply of electricity. It too didn’t work. For the first time, in the two years I have been living in the colony, I found the park so crowded. We talked to each other, inquired what the other did for a living and developed a camaraderie – something I had never done in the past. An hour passes. Lights came on at 2.30 am. There was a loud war cry as if India had won the Cricket World Cup. As soon as people started to return back, the supply went off again. This led to a desolation, similar to the one when India lost to Bangladesh in the World Cup.

The prayers were finally answered, power came back at 2.45 am. There was another round of celebration and people went to their houses. The power cut had taught them the lesson of dialogue with the neighbour and community living, missing in the urban life.

Post Script: The same problem occurred a day after and the scene was repeated.

(2010)