Oh how I miss the "powercut" days!

Those days have been residing in few brain cells or neurons as memories, only woken when the bearer is free of the smart gadgets or on a travel with no signals in the cellphone, or battery dead. Poor them!

My childhood had reminiscent of scheduled powercut mostly triggered during the peak hours of the day thats the 7 to 9 pm time. It was then the family would gather up in the verandah as the humid air inside shuns us out of the house to the land of mosquitoes , fireflies ( minnaminugu) and the silver moonlight. All neighbouring homes sans inverters camouflaged in the dark, gave rare visuals to my eyes- the raw and crude nature. I tried to make out figures and shapes from the visible tree branches, trying their best to glisten in the minor canopy of moonlight. Stories ran in the background from amma, sometimes achamma, MemA, or when at amma's home from mammans or ammamma. But achachan remained quiet listening to the creative stories and blunders narrated by others to scream our souls out. Rarely he contradicted, he devoted his eyes to watch over the possibly scrouching thieves whose reaping and harvest time were this. Sometimes his flashlight streaked few metres away to check them around, but never frightened us with grave stories and possible mishaps unlike the big ladies of the house. His sons or the other men of the house were in the middle east and so he knew his heavy responsibilities. All sat longing for power to be back, by listening to crickets around, making their presence known to humans.

At amma's home, when the big ones sat in the steps gossiping, I would be roaming around( not far or in the viscinity as I am quite afraid of the dark) just couple of steps away from the ladies, mainly to stamp over a kind of beetles with white blood(hymolymph) and to hear the pop sound when it is crushed. My joy was utterly in it (unsuccessful sadist in the making), to see the splash of white blood and hear the pop sound. Yes, I was cruel indeed then but not now for sure.

So the waiting longs for half an hour or an hour, and when the power gleams once again, the "chimmini villaku" or candle flames are blown off with ineffable joy and spirits more in parametres than blowing the candle flames over the birthday cake. Noise from tv in and around home would be  live again and the clatters in the kitchen preset to the dinner overtakes the crickets' chirps. Sometimes the KSEBs bluff us by cutting the power again in the next second.
All these are now a mere memory. Inverters are one among the spoilsports here and not to forget KSEB that cancelled the frequent or daily scheduled powercuts. But even if it is initiated now, I can forsee how from elders to juniors at home, will sit with gleaming cellphones and tabs in their hands. The rarely seen fireflies from the distant would think that their same breed creatures but monstrous have appeared  and of course they will have inferiority complex. During the powercut chat time in the past, the elders had told that it is the fireflies that show the way and lead the thieves, now with lights around, their help is never required for the thieves, and the inferiority complex in them might have made them suicide and thus they are in the verge of extinction.

The new gen kids will surely miss these delights. But just for a day, when there is no power, switch off ur gadgets and inverter, accompany them and sit on the steps of the verandah, and narrate stories and let them make out shapes from the dark and make few memories to be neurons in their brain that rest forever.
P.S choose good natural view when u give this experience to them, and not the concrete buildings.