Despite stretches of load shedding which become longer in duration as the days get hotter, I had decided against investing in an inverter. Although during the day I paid the price for such renunciation, during the evenings I was quite thankful for my decision. The fact that the lights went off made me per force stop whatever activity I was in and come and sit outside to catch the breeze.
Depending on whether the moon was waxing or waning, the outside would either be lit by fireflies or flooded in moonlight. In accompaniment to that near-ethereal lighting would, of course, be the intoxicating fragrance of all the summer flowers in bloom in the garden. So drunk did I get on this combination that when the lights did come back, it would be almost an intrusion!
But that was five years ago. In the meanwhile, the more Budhababu spoke to the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis, Mittals and Jindals, the worse the power situation became. Last year I was compelled to revisit my ideology and invest in an inverter. This year, secure in the knowledge that I would not be denied the whirring of my fan just when I fell asleep (the electricity supply authorities kind of time it), I faced the summer with far more calm.
But soon the duration of the power cuts became directly proportional to the increase in temperature. The day we hit ten hours, needless to say, the inverter packed up. My first response was to scream at the electrician who had installed it. He was nice enough not to abuse me but patiently explained once more the mechanics of an inverter. Of course, the reason for such customer delight on offer was that it was a good opportunity for him to try to sell me a generator.
But generators that operate silently seemed too expensive and the ones that make a noise too environmentally abusive. So now began the search for options that would turn the fans without adding to warming, local or global! Friends whose research had preceded ours suggested putting solar panels on the terrace to power the inverter. So, we could use a combination of electricity and solar power.
As we were busy chatting with friends and Googling for information, we heard an announcement (typically done in these parts by a man with a loudspeaker atop a cycle rickshaw) that the load shedding would be severe over the next fortnight, but no one should