- The reader talks about human beings getting too comfortable with big city perks and forgetting the simple life.
- Another reader throws light on the topic of sexual assault and how it affects men too.
- A reader discusses the need for people to pursue hobbies and not abandon them when older.
We take a lot of things for granted. An unexpected two-hour power cut felt like a bolt out of the blue. Although there was an advance notice issued to all the tenants of the building, issued to all tenants in 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 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 realise how conditioned I have been to think that everything must work.
The whole experience made me a little philosophical about life and the world we live in. Firstly it was about our inevitable dependency on electricity and how we take the phenomenon for granted. A common household in a city around the world has several electric and electronic 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 a place like the UAE has to offer like the uninterrupted flow of utility services like water and electricity, in addition to other infrastructural facilities including transport and communication networks. This makes the dwellers of the city think that such amenities are evergreen and will never stop.
The power disruption that took place made me brood over the prospects of living away from the madding 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.
