Power cuts
TweetPlease welcome another author to this group Blog – Mr Anandan, father of our friend Kumaran. Please encourage Mr Anandan by posting comments and interacting with him. – Priya.
The summer is on; and so is the POWER CUT
When the necessity of power for echelons (fans AC Central AC etc.,) increase in this period;
and ironically the availability of power gets reduced due to numerous causes’
Even the lower strata of the society, in the recent decades have accustomed themselves
to electrical equipments like lighting to almost all of them fans to very few fridge etc/.,
especially people forced to live in crowded areas, small one-roomed hutments.
This is especially true for men even women who have had a hard day out need some rest
to get themselves ready for the next day’s chores. The power cut is quite irksome.
TRUE and ACCEPTABLE.
But hold on a moment!!!!!!
Go back a few decades, may be a few centuries, imagine the plight of the people before electricity was invented…
How much of ancient mankind, even those living in affluence might have suffered????
Probably the truth of the matter may be they might not have suffered much, since power was not invented; they took the vagaries of nature on their strides easily.
They may lament what a weather, terribly hot, cold, windy snow, etc., but their scientific knowledge , advancements and absence of POWER made them to accept the harsh reality as basic elements of nature.
Today, the woman, naturally man also, should console herself (himself) that she is much better equipped than her ancestors who were ignorant of electricity in an ironical manner.
FORBEARANCE should be the VIRTUE OF THE DAY.
Have a NICE day!!!
Appa,
Welcome to blogging. Now you can share your thoughts will others also.
Maybe they won’t argue as much as I do. 🙂
Buildings were constructed very differently – both in terms of architecture and materials – in those days and that helped spend summers (and winters). I guess the current concrete-brick approach is not very efficient against extreme weather.
Our ancestral home in Kanchipuram has cement floor, a central hall with 17 ft ceiling and and a narrow passage from the main door to the hall to channel whatever little airflow there is. It’s so much easier so sit through powercuts there. Another case in point – I had visited the Padamanabhapuram Palace near kanyakumari last year. We were shown a ‘thinnai’ that felt so cool and comfortable to sit on. It turns out it was constructed using a special mixture of construction materials that included sunnambu, lime & eggs among other things.
Maama, great to see such a long blog from you.Even though its a bit late, its latest!!!
Now coming to the topic:
Although i agree with your analysis and we have to appreciate what we have compared to 100 yrs ago, the challenges we face today are not the same. It was more peaceful, less crowdy, more harmony and most importantly, less anxiety.
In today’s society, greed and anxiety caused by peer pressure is predominant and people tend to tackke it with more and more earthly pleasures or necessities.
Having said that, we also tend to habituate and get too adapted quickly to what we have.
If you have powercut, the entire lifecycle balance gets affected.
Anyway Great post! Lets see more of them!
Raja
Nicely written sir!
It felt like reading a poem. I was able to relate to it well as we spent a full day today without power due to a scheduled shutdown.
Welcome aboard Anandan Sir. Interesting perspective on power cuts. As a kid I remember playing all the time in the hot sun never complaining about it. Now all it takes is a few minutes of the hot sun to get irked 🙂
Interesting and very apt article Sir…extreme consumerization on one end and poor planning of resources on the other hand by the so called powers are adding to our woes.
KUMARAN;
You may be correct, I am not sure; anyway others dont instruct me like you, but I beseech you to slow down your speed of teaching. I think you deserve a mild pat.
Mr. Seshadri.
Thank you. But in these days considering the construction costs high ceiling is not preferred. In fact people go as less as nine feet.
Mr. Raja
Thank you for equating me to Superstar by quoting his famous’ lateaa vandhalum latestaa varuven”
DearShri Ganesh,
I am enamoured when you almost made me a poet
Dear Rajagopal Sugumar
I pray you go back in the timemachine to become a child
Mr. Mouthu
I wish you to get enormous powers to do what you would like to promote the power conditions
Anandan,
Its nice that you brought up this topic.. i wish, that you could have gone a little deeper on this issue…
The power cuts are just one classical example of how urban centers are unsustainable on its own.. Reason: There is no consideration of life.. while educated people speak only about individual rights, the government beurocracy is busy with implementing rules, whereas legistlator enacting laws to satisfy economic interests of corporate companies.. So a city or urban centre in india means, just a pack of houses, for people to live.. no consideration for environment, water resources, food production, and then health aspects..
Worst is the case of blind support for such urbanisation by education people ( sastwingees community included by implicit).. for eg, the expansion of Chennai in to sub-urban navalur and till siruseri is being hailed as economic success.. while in actual, we have destroyed so much marshland forests (eucalyptus, savukku etc) on the entire stretch, destroyed livelihoods of all people living there, making them economic refugees, the area has become a concrete jungle within a span of 10 years..
Is this called development?
Nature has its own eco system to balance itself.. In rural areas, the house ceiling is laid with palm leaves, which makes the interior cool.. so as the Thotti kattal veedu, the traditional house.. the very design itself creates so much aeration, and in old houses, the use of kaarai (mix of lime, sand etc) resists the heat…
Its time for the educated people to really think over..
The concentration of human settlement is an important factor in climate.. for eg, bangalore retained its natural climate, before IT companies started pouring in.. the trees were preserved and buildings constructed without destroying eco system.. but when population was allowed to concentrate unchecked, the temperature started rising .. we can see many people complain about summer in bangalore in the past few years..
Same is the case with chennai.. the unchecked concentration of population affects everyone.. instead of spending 10,000 crores for underground rail system, if we had used that amount to create facilities in all district head quarters and taluka head quarters, people would have not migrated to chennai itself.. and there is no need for over bridge or underground rail.. population would have been less, with more spaces to live, less congestion, less traffic..
So far, we never had discussed about these aspects, inspite of suffering so much.. i wish, in coming days, discussions take place on these aspects which affects our daily life..
Welcome to Sastwingees Anand Sir.
I think you touched a very common yet widespread subject. Though I am in NJ, with the onset of summer, I could feel as if I am at Nellore or Chennai. Nice feeling as I am not feeling homesick anymore. (Here in NJ most of the houses have heating but not much cooling).
When we were kids, we used to erect “Palm leaves Pandiri” from March to September outside our home. Then we used to spray water on the top of the Palm leaves. And our home was 150 years old one – lime and mud construction. It used to be very cool inside. And we used to sleep on the roof top.
I think there may be innovative solutions for natural air conditioning with little incremental cost even in cities, if builders are ready to invest. One random link I came across – http://www.i4at.org/surv/aircond.htm
And of course – trees, trees and trees. Not a short term solution, but every rupee worth investing,.
Mr. CA,\
good to read your maiden exercise in writing about the addictions to modern inventions. I must say that what was considered as a luxury yesterday is today a necessity. One must remember that the most permanent thing in life is CHANGE. So as time passes priorities change and one cannot ever say that anything is good or bad. as shakespeare says, “there is nothing good or bad. thinking makes it so” we must therefore adapt to the changed energy sources. In 100 years from now, there may be some unimagineable changes.
Anyway it is good to see you essaying on “current” topics “powerfully. Pun may be the lowest form of humour, but it still evokes a sense of pleasure and happiness. keep it up.
Hi Sir
Thanks for writing this article. It’s a brilliant one indeed ! Agree with points made by Senthil & Vamsi.
As I write this, I have spent my last six months in the city of Singapore, a city I would like to call the Asian wonder.
It is very much like Chennai, in almost all respects. Except for the obvious of course.
The climate here is real humid and hot, but one does not feel it much. Of course, most building are air conditioned…but I think the real saviour are the trees. Where ever you go in this city, there are trees, trees and more of them.And not the fancy ones (ref – trees planted on OMR) , the real shady trees.
Add to it some real good planning by the authorities while giving approval to construction projects. Almost all building I visited here have good all round ventilation. It’s amazing how they achieve it in such dense population.
So it really has got nothing to do with development/growth. Some good planning and implementation can cure this ill. And I don’t think , anytime is too late to start. We should get our act together in terms of building regulations (like Chandigarh, for an Indian example) and then go full throttle on planting trees. If not us, at least the next generation would be real ‘Cool’ !
My boss just told me this morn that 50 years ago, Chennai & Singapore almost looked the same …and Chennai was better in some terms . So may be 50 years hence…we shd make some Singaporeans write the same thing the other way .
iyer thank u for reading my article . thank you. I shall try to write again on BEAUTY