A Midsummer's Nightmare: The Survival Guide. Review on General Tips on the Summer Season

Had William Shakespeare been alive today and had been in North India, this could very well have been the title of his next play.

Thanks to the ever rising mercury and the ever increasing needs for electrical power, summers are a nightmare these years. With the power supply falling short of needs by few 1000 Megawatts, the situation in North India is similar to what our great grandfathers could only have witnessed in villages. They lived without electricity and hence the downstream electric goods like ACs, Coolers, Refrigerators, Microwaves, Fans and lights.and still lived through summers, winters and monsoons.

Technological advances have made out lives easier(and us lazy), but imagine what would you do of your high end AC if there is no power to run it. Yes, you can buy a 10 KW inverter or a big DG set. The former would cost a bombshell, while the latter would run on fossil fuel costing something.(Plus psyxx has already advised us to save fossil fuel)

While I agree that my review is not going to bring the mercury down, but I thought it would be a good idea to share some means, to keep ourselves relatively cool throughout this summer, which work WITHOUT electrical power.

Necessity is the mother of invention, no matter how wierd. Here are a few wierd ones:

#1. Water for bathing: Assuming that water is in fair supply, the overhead tank gets heated nearly enough to dip your tea bag, add sugar and sip. That's not the ideal temperature of water to trickle out of the shower / taps and fall on your skin. If you have a geyser, use the stored water inside it as reserve capacity, mixing it with the water from the overhead tank, to bring the temperature of bathing water down. The geyser once replenished will take care of itself in some time. Ever though of using geyser for cool water?

#2. Drinking water: Use an earthen pot to store potable water. This is still the best way to make cool water available when the state electricity board can not make electricity available. Additionally, drink more water than you usually do.

#3. Hand Fan: Remember, when there is no electricity you can either choose to sweat it out(i.e. lose water) or to use something to blow some air, especially on your little ones, who refuse to sleep in the night without a fan. I know it sounds too rustic, but a city without electri-city is worse than a village. It also provides some needed exercise to your hands, once in simple harmonic motion.

#4. Food: Have items that cause a cooling effect on your body like cucumber salad or cucumber Raita or Mint Raita. Daya had mentioned the recepie in his review on the same topic. Aviod consuming things like Kesar(Kesar Pista ice cream)etc, as they have the reverse effect.  Reduce consumption of tea, Bailey's etc.

#5. Ice: Save ice cubes in a thermos flask or some insulated container, so that its available hours after the power cut. This option does need a few hours of power supply per day.

#6. Khus Mats: I am not sure these are readily available in bigger cities anymore, but if available, these can be used to keep the natural flow of air cool. These can be placed across windows or portions of doors, again depending on the map of your house.These would give your house an overwhelming ethinic look. Those who are too conscious of the same, may choose to overlook this suggestion.

#7. Light Candles: Since this is a greater emergeny than what emergency lights can handle, lets go back in time and use the age old candle.

#8. Mosquito Coils: If you happen to share your neighbourhood with mosquitoes, you might want to keep a mosquito coil or two handy. Liquidators and mats need the scantily available electricity again.

#9. Spend time at the Malls: Find a reason to visit a local mall, and if you are a decent window shopper this idea may give some solace. This idea is a strict no-no for impulse buyers, as you would tend to lose more than what you gain.

#10. Don't bunk office: This way your weekdays are automatically taken care of.

#11. Set low expectations:** I feel this is a valid suggestion, because all the above will still be painful if you feel that you deserved to cool yourself in your AC Room, drinking cool drinks all the time watchning your favorite DVD on your home theatre etc. You can crib but no one's listening.

This review is a sincere tribute to Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd. Without their consistent lack of performance I would have never been forced to think about all these methods.

I sincerely pray to the Almighty that the power generation and supply situation in NCR improves and hence the readers of this review find all my suggestions to be useless.