Powerful Outage

A week ago, my daughter and I were playing scrabble. Human interaction winning over screen time is a rare occurrence for our household and I was thoroughly enjoying this novelty. Between finding the nearest Triple Letter/Triple Word opportunities for Z's and X's and practicing basic addition while counting our scores, I felt that it was a great activity for analytical, mental and conversational stimulation. She was still laughing at her favorite word from the evening (T_RD, she used her blank on this one) when we heard a fire engine. I hope everyone is OK, she said thoughtfully. Just as she finished her sentence, we lost power.

I called up the non-emergency line and found out that some kid drove into a light pole by our neighborhood, got his car jammed up in live wires. They had to cut power to the lines to safely rescue the kid which meant that we were not going to have power for at least another six hours.

Extended power cut was a unique experience for Raaga, it was more of a revelation. Given that it was smack in the middle of Sunday's prime time, it hit her very hard. She is terrified of the dark. She hesitated to play or eat by candle light. She found out the hard way what works and what doesn't without power around the house- the hardest one was the water dispenser from the fridge.  I wish our phones did not work as well so certain members of the family did not go nuts checking out the status of Sunday night football. Nonetheless, It gave us all a reason to take a break from the ordinary and enjoy life in its simplest form. It also gave me an opportunity to recall some of the most cherished memories of my childhood.

Even back in the day when the fan, lights, radio and mixer grinders were our only items that ran on power, we were quite disrupted by power outages. We lived in a small rental home back then, one that overlooked a pretty busy street from a distance. I probably was three then, maybe four. My dad would take my sister and I out to the main door, sit us on the steps and tell us that we would get the power back by the time he finished counting till three. He would say 1....2.... and would just never say 3. It made us laugh as much as it annoyed us. He would sometimes make a game out of it and ask us to guess which side of the road the next vehicle would come from. He would also make it an evening of random jeopardy, asking us math questions or capitals of all the states in India. Tripura-Agartala. Manipur-Impal. I so liked the sound of those places! I beamed with pride whenever I answered something right. Especially those capitals.

Our power outage might be a one off thing but it definitely was a bright moment in my parenting. I am guessing Raaga will remember our scrabble game next time she experiences a power outage. Maybe she will remember mom's favorite story from her earliest memories of life. She might even relay this story to her little ones on a powerless night in the future. I will just pray for an odd evening or two of power outage, ones that will instantly brighten her life. I am convinced, they are that powerful!

Can you spot Raaga's favorite word from the night? :)