We have become spoilt with amenities
We take a lot of things for granted. An unexpected two-hour power cut felt like a bolt from the blue. Although there was an advance notice issued to all the tenants of the building, I had forgotten about it. So, when I was sitting on my sofa and suddenly, my whole house went silent, I began to wonder something was amiss.
Then it struck me that the electricity had gone out. Everything in the room came to a halt. The faint murmuring of the refrigerator died out. The fans in the bathroom and kitchen came to a halt. The television and the phone went silent and the internet connection disappeared. For a moment I felt completely out of place and powerless. I realised how conditioned I had been to think that everything must always work without a hitch. The whole experience made me a little philosophical about life and the world we live in.
Firstly, it was about our inevitable dependence on electricity and how we take this facility for granted.
A common household in a city around the world has several electric and electronics appliances that simply don’t function in the absence of electric power. In places where power disruptions are frequent, it is difficult to imagine how people get by.
Such occurrences are not common in the UAE. Yet, when they happen, we don’t know how to function. We are used to the many comforts that a country like the UAE has to offer, such as uninterrupted flow of utility services like water and electricity, in addition to other infrastructural facilities including transport and communication services. This makes the dwellers of the city think that such amenities are evergreen and everlasting.
The power disruption that took place made me brood over the prospects of living away from the maddening crowd in a faraway location. I have always felt that, as human beings, we are hardwired to contemplate a life in a rural setting or even in a jungle. The development and expansion of urban life has gone far ahead than our genetic and psychological make-up could even catch up with. If you ever feel like you need to escape the noise of a city, you should take refuge in a lush green forest. Only then can you be alone.
The reader is a resident of Dubai.