A Day without Electricity
In an age of machines and a techno savvy generation the above sentence can evoke a shocked response. Rather, it would better be on the lines of —”we don’t won’t to imagine a day like that.” Electricity is an indispensable part of our life today. But supposing you do try and picture that scenario how different could your day be? Initially we would all fret and fume because it seems that life would come to us standstill. But it could also lead us to explore alternative avenues to spend the day.
Television watching would be drastically reduced. People working long hours on the computer could afford to stretch a bit and not be part of the “stiff neck clan’ for a day. Many tasks would have to be done manually and that would drive home the point as to how dependent we are on gadgets for our daily chores. The industrial sector which is largely ‘power driven’ would come to a grinding halt. Essential services like hospitals and transport would be badly affected. But the day could motivate us to take up our activity for which we rarely find time.
Candles, lanterns and earthen lamps would be used to drive away the darkness. Shops selling these would do brisk business and may put up a sign board saying ‘no stock’. Kids could get spooky ideas and enter into a realm of pure fantasy and indulge in pranks that could sometimes scare the daylights out of adults. The night sky would look so different. Stars above, but no neon lights blinking. The roads and the lanes bereft of street lights would look like a ‘no mans land’. Houses would be lit up with candles and lanterns whose flickering light would cast long shadows. Families and friends would sit together chatting or engaged in idle gossip and in-between lament about the fact as to “what a day it has been!”
It could also be used as a time to reflect on how our life sometimes falls into a particular pattern and only rarely do we deviate from it. When an aura of darkness envelops us, a ray of light brings in hope.
