A couple whom my wife Prita and I know well came visiting one Tuesday evening last month. Since we enjoy their company, we thought we’d welcome them with a grand dinner. So we spent most of Tuesday afternoon preparing something we knew they’d savour, a creamy baked chicken dish.
The way Prita makes it is laborious but the results are worthwhile. By six that evening, we were ready to pop the whole thing into the oven when along came a rainstorm, followed, as usual in these parts, by a power failure. We weren’t worried, for the power usually returns in half an hour of the passing of the storm. I called up the power company’s call centre, and was told that there was a breakdown somewhere, and that power would be restored in the usual half an hour.
Half an hour came and went, and our visitors were almost due, with no power. I called a second time, and was told that it would be another couple of hours. At this stage, we had to take emergency measures to produce something edible out of the chicken we’d prepared, so Prita got that going.
Our guests arrived before the power did. We had lights and fans, and our tactful friends claimed they liked the rather creamy curried chicken almost as much as its baked cousin. “I’m sorry but we had no power,” Prita told them, “we’ll have it tomorrow night.” She was confident she could do it because although the power company cut the power every Wednesday at 10am, they restore it at 5 pm.
When we went to bed after midnight the power still hadn’t returned. It was restored at about nine next morning, while we were in the middle of a late breakfast, and I excused myself to make sure that the overhead tank was full and the washing machine on. Three quarters of an hour later, with just three minutes remaining on the wash cycle, it went off again, this time without a storm of any kind. Our friends at the call centre told me that it was the regular maintenance outage.
Prita was upset at not having power all day after not having it all night, but didn’t worry too much. The promised 5pm could stretch to 6 or even 7pm without affecting our evening’s menu. But when the power hadn’t returned by 6pm, I called our friends again, and was told that repairs were under way, but they had no idea when power would be back. By now we’d been without power for over 24 hours except for a brief 45-minute stretch in the morning. Prita was willing to put her work in the fridge and order dinner from a good restaurant but the fridge wasn’t working either, so, for the second night in a row, we had to make do with creamy currry.
Next morning, our visitors were due to leave sometime in the morning: they were in no hurry because they live only three hours away and we were still enjoying being together. Besides, the power had returned in the small hours, while we were still asleep, and they had enjoyed hot showers before sitting down to a breakfast of home-baked bread and scrambled eggs. Into this pleasant scene came my fixer friend Murthy with another man in tow, called Vasant, stocky and strutting, with a walrus moustache and a vague air of menace. “A man of influence,” Murthy said. “We have a meeting nearby, and we’re early, so I thought I’d drop in.” I was about to offer him a drink – I’d got some good scotch for my friends – when he added. “A cup of tea would be welcome.”
“You’re lucky,” I told him, “that we have power.”
“Why?” he asked.
I told him about the extended power failures of the last couple of days. “Mostly because of corruption in the power company,” my friend, an engineer, added. “You can see that the quality of the material they use, the sheet metal and the cable and even the poles, is nowhere near what’s required. So our mean time between failures is less than half what it should be, with all the usual consequences. Long power failures, lower productivity and higher costs all around. It’s worse in these coastal areas because everything rusts faster.”
“How can you say that’s bad?” Vasant asked.
“We’ve been without power for 30 hours,” my friend said. “Imagine a small factory being without power for four shifts.”
“You are seeing only one side,” Vasant said, his voice grating. “This is a society. Other things also matter.”
“Like what?” my friend asked.
“Like jobs and business,” said Vasant. “See, where only three linemen are required the government employs twelve. They all have to work, no? We have many battery companies here. Inverter companies. All small-scale. All with their service people. So much business. Then there is the replacement trade. So many small-scale companies make transformers, cables, poles, high-tension equipment. All business and employment from some small variations in quality. Opportunities for so many people.”
“Look at Mumbai,” my friend said. “Very productive city. They don’t have power failures.”
Vasant laughed. “Also no space, no water. This is a house with a garden. Can you afford to live like this there?” He shook his head. “Don’t compare this with Mumbai.”
“In that case,” said my friend, “why does the power company shut off the power when there’s an electrical storm? Let them leave it on. More damage. More work.”
Vasant was taken aback. Then a smile spread over his face. “Good idea!” he said. “I will suggest that to my friends in government.”
