In the dark

The mid-eighties – precisely the time when I was going to college and university – were the worst time to live in Calcutta, for eight-to ten hour power cuts daily were considered normal. It is a miracle I didn’t go blind, doing so much reading by candle light. They have left some permanent nightmares: one thing I most definitely would never consider romantic is a candle-light dinner…

Of late the monopolistic state-run power utility from which we are compelled to buy electricity here in Durgapur is apparently going through one of the worst phases in its chequered history: I hear it is on the brink of collapse. As a result, frequent power cuts, from minutes to hours long, have become a part of the daily routine, and no respite is likely very soon. My generator has become a heavy duty necessity, not only because my classes depend on the lights and fans going, but also because I cannot bear to have those nightmares come back.

Almost every evening my house is the only one which is a blaze of lights when the rest of the street is plunged in darkness. Most of my neighbours, well-off as they are, prefer to mope for hours together in the sweltering, stifling darkness. You can at most see a single oil lamp or ‘emergency’ lamp gleaming fitfully here and there.  Strange are the ways of men.

I still remember

Increasingly frequently, my pupils write "I still remember..." when they are narrating something that happened only a few months, or at most a year or two ago. When I use the same expression, I refer to things that happened decades ago.  

In the same vein, the newspapers gush about married couples in filmdom, "still" in love three months after getting married...

Does this say something about changing memory maps humanity-wide, or what? What does "a long time ago" mean to most people these days?

Interesting map...

If Uttar Pradesh were to declare independence, it would be the fifth most populous country in the world. Yet, when you look at the state's per capita income, it ranks nearly at the bottom of the pile on any kind of international list.

Here is the kind of comparisons that I like to draw in my classes to make my pupils aware of the reality of things. Play around with it and let me know about your reactions.

Brainwashing

An elderly neighbour came over to ask me to fill in an application form to get an extra mobile connection with his landline. A simple chore, and of course I obliged. 

What I reflected upon later was the incongruity between the fact that this gentleman, too scared to fill in an application form on his own, can give the most fiery and learned political lectures in public - I heard him going full blast during election time recently. What a miracle of indoctrination, to be sure. Like today's candidates for engineering entrance examinations, he can obviously perform very well without understanding, or bothering to understand, a word of what he is saying!