Power cuts make Bangaloreans star gazers

The night sky is clear and the bright stars are twinkling and the full moon is a beauty. The cool breeze is heavenly. No airconditioner can ever replace it. Imagine sleeping under the stars! The night is best for star gazing.

We were planning to sleep in the terrace and were ready with blankets and pillows and mosquito coils! Kids are excited. "Tell us a story", they said. I look at the bright moon and tell the story of an alien kid from the moon who wanted to come to the earth and make friends with kids on earth. I made the story up by stealing bits and pieces from sci-fi movies. They fall asleep under the stars.

Not that we have suddenly become nature lovers, we are left with no other choice. In Bangalore, we face power cuts almost every night. Sometimes it lasts the whole night. Even with an inverter, power supply does not last whole night. Although the manufacturer promise 8 hours of power supply, the inverter has to puff and pant to come anywhere closer. To overcome that many homes use only one fan and all the members of the family sleep under the fan in the drawing room.

Well, we haven't bought an inverter yet. The recession is one major factor that makes anyone shy away from any major purchase. Let's see if we can do without one for some more time.

All is not not beautiful under the moon. Kids are fast aleep, but mosquitos are not. Their music gets louder and louder. A drop of water falls on my face. Rain! Bye bye moon, bye bye stars, we are back to civilization. Another sleepless night in the humid bedroom accompanied by live concert from mosquitoes!

If this continues, most of us Bangaloreans will become star gazers and poets. Blame it on climate change or global warming, I am almost certain we are starting our journey backwards from civilization.

Acute water shortage - water, the great leveller

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry – wise words, perhaps too late!

Occupants of many apartments in Bangalore will vouch for that. Occupants in one of the apartment complexes recently shelled out Rs 100,000 for water. Reason – the bore wells dried out! Independent houses in Bangalore generally depend on tanker services during such a crisis. But apartments cannot do that. Fortunately a bore well owner agreed to sell water - for a good price! The increasing number of apartments and independent houses has made water shortage acute. Many apartment complexes, even those by well known builders are not equipped to handle such a crisis.

Things are no different in my home state, Kerala. A cousin’s house has a well, but the water is brown and salty and cannot be used for washing or drinking. The government supply of water was in abundance during the elections. Following the elections, there was no water supply for many days. This meant that people had to carry their clothes to other houses with wells for washing! Many had to make do with dirty water in bathrooms. They were too tired to fetch more water in autorickshaws.

For the assembly elections, a prominent party promised us water. No one actually believed in the party’s ideals, but voted for water - even the educated elite Bangaloreans did so. We laugh at poor people voting for one kilogram of rice, for a cycle or for a television set. But then we also vote for water supply or electricity for houses or tarred roads to our houses. Long live Democracy!