Power cuts

The most unpleasant side effects of peak summer in Hyderabad include the constant but unpredictable power cuts. Last week we had a severe thunderstorm (only in our neighborhood, another specialty of Hyderabad where it rains in bursts in a small area while the adjacent areas are bone dry) followed by a 6 hours loss of electricity. My seven year old nephew, who was visiting from the US at that time, wrote in his travel diary “The worst thing happened to us today. We had a power cut. Power means electricity…..”

In his short life, he has not experienced the daily drama that temporary loss of electricity brings. We fume and sweat in the afternoon, unwilling to open the doors and unable to stay without some circulation of air, however hot it might be. In the evenings, we light candles and sit idly, sometimes savoring the enforced short break from activities, sometimes cursing the untimely darkness. We have had several candle-light dinners in the last few weeks.

But I get most upset when the lights go off just before bedtime. I love the last hour before bedtime when I read or write or just ruminate on the day that was or the day ahead. When the room was plunged in darkness during a weeknight, I lit a candle and lay on the bed watching the shadows cast by our movements. The glow of the candle reflected off the mirror on the dresser casting a crooked ray of light. The shadow of Aparna’s foot loomed large like the Loch Ness monster from the ceiling as she flexed her feet. As the minutes went by, the candle wasted away but the flame grew long and straight, taller than what was left of the wax in the white cylinder of paraffin. My nephew danced around, amused by his tiny figure magnified many times, on multiple walls, like the magic mirror trick in a Charlie Chaplin movie.
On the day of the thunderstorm, we sat around and talked, mostly about how to restore the electricity, a futile exercise but as necessary as discussing the daily news. We proceeded to cook in the darkness, reminiscent of women a century before us for whom this may have been an everyday event. The oil droplets splashed from previous cooking experiments shone brightly, illuminated by the dim light of the candle from the underside, the droplets that escape our gaze when the bright tube light floods the room.

The dark has been teaching important lessons. Lack of understanding makes monsters out of molehills; shining a light from a different perspective shows us a different side to ordinary occurrences; there is humor to be found in every situation. Perhaps the candles sacrifice in providing a glow that is larger than itself is symbolic of our ability to rise beyond perceived limitations; we are capable of living bigger, better lives. It is darkness that can show us how. Powerful lessons from power cuts!