It's 1.30 am and you're wide awake. Reason? Simple...the "traditional" power outage of Incredible India! The part of Thane city where I live experiences a good 3 hours load shedding every single day(I tell you the TMC read Thane Municipal Corporation is pretty consistent here...$%@#%@). But looks like that's not enough so here we were sitting in the dark and wondering how to pass time in the middle of the night..For starters, there were loads of mosquitoes competing with each other presenting their concert into our ears..Shikha, my roomie came up with someting like this..."arre Thane mein kya kam gandagi (refer to one of my earlier blogs for that and you will surely get the picture!) hai jo itni saari delicacies chhod ke hamara khoon choosne aaye ho!!" Add to that the sweltering heat, making our lives completely miserable...
So how exactly do we kill time was the biggest problem we were grappling with. The only possible solution to this problem was to call up the authorities and find out what had gone wrong. But we didn't have MSEB's (Maharashtra State Electricity Board which is now Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited or MSEDCL but it's too long so I prefer MSEB) phone number..."what do we do?", thought Shikha and me...that's when Shikha decided to use the Ask Me phone service and bingo!...within a couple of minutes we had all the necessary phone numbers! What a fabulous service! Something good that came in the middle of this energy crisis...we dialled the number and were almost sure that our call wouldn't be answered thinking that the jerks would be sleeping but guess what some guy actually answered the call and then we told him about the power cut in our locality. He said that our locality did not fall in their domain and so gave us another number which apparently was meant for our locality(kapurbavdi...ew what a name na!) Now, it's 2.15am and all of this was definitely getting on our nerves...neither did the heat decide to give in nor did the mosquitoes...life as it was hellish..
With another phone number with us, we decided to dial the MSEB number, yet again. A rather indifferent voice answered the call and after we told him about the power problem in our locality, he wanted to know where exactly in our locality the problem had occured. So we gave him the details but the jerk was absolutely clueless about the place as in he didn't know anything that was even remotely associated with Kapurbavdi. Here's what Shikha told him on the phone.."Agar Kapurbavdi mein Tulsidham (is a well known place in Kapurbavdi) nahin pata toh job chhod de" :D After sometime we dialled the same number and this time the guy at the other end knew what place we were talking about but just like the earlier fellow he told us that our locality did not fall in their domain. We were like alright then at least give us the relevant phone number. And you would not believe what this lunatic said...he did not have the number and was pretty indifferent about it; since we knew these people would be of least help, we hung up!
We so thought that informing the authorities would probably solve our problem but we had forgotten about the incredible services that you get in Incredible India! So, we gave up (like we had a choice!) and thought of doing something that would help us stop hurling abuses at the authorities.
3:00am and we were hungry after battling it out with the jerks...and the mosquitoes, needless to say continued their assault on us...one heck of a night seriously!!
We decided to call up McDonald's first...so we heard a recorded voice after dialling the McD number...but obviously at 3am who's gonna actually answer your call?! The recorded voice kept saying that our call would be transferred but this kept happening in a loop...we got the point...our next option was Pizza Hut...again didn't work...we were determined on not giving up; so then we dialled Domino's...what on earth were we thinking when we dialled all these numbers! I mean obviously we knew that it was hopeless but we just thought of giving it a try..we did not have any work anyway!!
Now it was too much!! All limits had been crossed...it was 4:45 am and no signs of power getting restored...we had not slept a wink as it is and it was dawn already....wth...
Finally at 5:00am the fan started whirring..PHEW!!! That's when I fell asleep...
You know what I seriously do not care if the country's GDP increases/decreases...if I do not get a continuous supply of power or even water for that matter which apparently is a bare necessity at least in urban areas then what's the point! A country which is not even capable of providing the basic amenties to its citizens could well forget about becoming a developed nation even in the next 20(or 40, 50$#$@%) years. That's Incredible India for us Indians!!
So how exactly do we kill time was the biggest problem we were grappling with. The only possible solution to this problem was to call up the authorities and find out what had gone wrong. But we didn't have MSEB's (Maharashtra State Electricity Board which is now Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited or MSEDCL but it's too long so I prefer MSEB) phone number..."what do we do?", thought Shikha and me...that's when Shikha decided to use the Ask Me phone service and bingo!...within a couple of minutes we had all the necessary phone numbers! What a fabulous service! Something good that came in the middle of this energy crisis...we dialled the number and were almost sure that our call wouldn't be answered thinking that the jerks would be sleeping but guess what some guy actually answered the call and then we told him about the power cut in our locality. He said that our locality did not fall in their domain and so gave us another number which apparently was meant for our locality(kapurbavdi...ew what a name na!) Now, it's 2.15am and all of this was definitely getting on our nerves...neither did the heat decide to give in nor did the mosquitoes...life as it was hellish..
With another phone number with us, we decided to dial the MSEB number, yet again. A rather indifferent voice answered the call and after we told him about the power problem in our locality, he wanted to know where exactly in our locality the problem had occured. So we gave him the details but the jerk was absolutely clueless about the place as in he didn't know anything that was even remotely associated with Kapurbavdi. Here's what Shikha told him on the phone.."Agar Kapurbavdi mein Tulsidham (is a well known place in Kapurbavdi) nahin pata toh job chhod de" :D After sometime we dialled the same number and this time the guy at the other end knew what place we were talking about but just like the earlier fellow he told us that our locality did not fall in their domain. We were like alright then at least give us the relevant phone number. And you would not believe what this lunatic said...he did not have the number and was pretty indifferent about it; since we knew these people would be of least help, we hung up!
We so thought that informing the authorities would probably solve our problem but we had forgotten about the incredible services that you get in Incredible India! So, we gave up (like we had a choice!) and thought of doing something that would help us stop hurling abuses at the authorities.
3:00am and we were hungry after battling it out with the jerks...and the mosquitoes, needless to say continued their assault on us...one heck of a night seriously!!
We decided to call up McDonald's first...so we heard a recorded voice after dialling the McD number...but obviously at 3am who's gonna actually answer your call?! The recorded voice kept saying that our call would be transferred but this kept happening in a loop...we got the point...our next option was Pizza Hut...again didn't work...we were determined on not giving up; so then we dialled Domino's...what on earth were we thinking when we dialled all these numbers! I mean obviously we knew that it was hopeless but we just thought of giving it a try..we did not have any work anyway!!
Now it was too much!! All limits had been crossed...it was 4:45 am and no signs of power getting restored...we had not slept a wink as it is and it was dawn already....wth...
Finally at 5:00am the fan started whirring..PHEW!!! That's when I fell asleep...
You know what I seriously do not care if the country's GDP increases/decreases...if I do not get a continuous supply of power or even water for that matter which apparently is a bare necessity at least in urban areas then what's the point! A country which is not even capable of providing the basic amenties to its citizens could well forget about becoming a developed nation even in the next 20(or 40, 50$#$@%) years. That's Incredible India for us Indians!!
4 comments:
Hey,
strong reaction.......... i agree basic amenties should be the top priority.............it is a sad state of affair........
Hey...there's a reason behind the lack of basic amenities...is it the MSEB's fault that the power it produces isn't sufficient for the city ???
People keep talking about this Incredible country with such a huge growth rate and then we stay awake the whole night because the power is not there ..... that's incredible!!
And this happens in Delhi (whr i am) and Mumbai. India's capital and India's financial capital. I thanks God each day I wasn't born in any other city!! :P
@ Soumil...
The point here is not about whether the power production is sufficent or not...that's a completely different issue altogether!!
The point I'm trying to make is if there's a fault somewhere, in the middle of the night; our authorities should be responsible enough to fix the problem and not be so callous about the whole issue.
Also, a power cut at MIDNIGHT is simply not justified(especially when you don't have an inverter or something)
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