Blinding lightening followed almost instantly by a deafening
crash of thunder! The lights go off as
if struck by ..........what shall I say .... Lightening? We race around the house unplugging all our
electrical devices – we have to do this – after our modem blew up three times
when we forgot to unplug it during such storms.
I have never witnessed such
storms in Bombay, I have never seen sparks flying out of the electric sockets
each time the sky lights up in a brilliant flash. The wind whips up a frenzied song in the
trees and the rains lash the tile roof, the swaying trees and everything
around. But the time lag between each successive lightening and its
accompanying thunder increases – signalling that the storm is racing over the
landscape at a tremendous speed.
Within a few moments it has
passed, adrenalin levels are back to normal, the dogs are out of their hiding
places with the expression “Afraid of the thunder – aww come on – not me!” and
the cat gives a bored yawn as if to say “Lets get on with my meal – shall we ?”
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| Of course I am not scared, I just like to sit by the candle. |
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| How can you let a storm upset our meal-times? |
So everything continues except for the
current – which we yet do not know; will show up only tomorrow evening at 6
pm. The lightening has struck a massive
tree about 250 metres from our house and it has come crashing down pulling down
a whole lot of wires – electric and telephone along with it.
So no current, no phone, no internet.
But we are used to it now. Mobile signal too is weak and messages
sometimes go several hours after we have pressed the ‘Send’ button. And we are trying hard to conserve the
battery since we don’t know how long the blackout will last. And mind you this
has been a common occurrence all through the past 4 months.
And we were managing just fine ..... until I
got onto the WhatsApp bandwagon. The
current would come on for about an hour, the wifi would be switched on and my
phone would start turning somersaults trying to assimilate the slew of messages
in all my groups.
Hi’s, hello’s, pranaams.............
Jokes, limericks, one-liners.............
Emoticons, emoticons and more emoticons..........
Birthday wishes, Friendship day wishes, Fathers day wishes......
.....and some more emoticons.....
Ooooooooooooooooh! blink blink blink My
phone battery is draining out faster than a ‘Kiwi-drainexed’ clogged drain.
Zzzzzoinnnnkkkkkkkkkk. And my phone is knocked senseless – dead to
the world and all its messages .....
And yes, by now the current has gone off too. Looks like another few hours of blackout.
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| Don't tell me you need that huge flashlight to see in the dark! |
So then folks.... please don’t mind, will see you all on
good old FaceBook!
