Sorry, Load Shedding!

This message in glowing red stayed with us through two-thirds of the screening of “The Japanese Wife” at Priya cinema at Gariahat, Kolkata yesterday 10th April, 2010.

This summer the mercury has already crossed 40 degrees Celsius much earlier than customary and Kolkata and West Bengal have been reeling under severe power shortage and mismanagement of the little power that is available. There have been widespread protest and people in the districts have taken to the streets to protest.

Meanwhile the cavernous movie hall was cool enough and the humming fans kept us comfortable through the rest of the movie. Still, power cuts during movies are something unheard of these days of glitzy malls and multiplexes.

It takes me back to my childhood in Bhagalpur in Bihar where interruptions due to power cuts was a far more regular affair. Every time the power would go off and the hall would be plunged into darkness, one of the ushers would light his torch and go down to the generator room to hand-crank the heavy diesel generator to life. There would be cat-calls and wolf whistles till the generator came on.

The cinema would then emerge from the monotonous darkness of the neighbourhood - irregularly punctuated by feeble kerosene lamps- a fairy tale palace with its myriad colourful lights blazing. The hero’s dialogue or maybe a love song sequence – suspended mid sentence by the power cut – would again boom out in stereophonic effect through the open doors, the images would start moving again in Eastman colour.

The doors of the movie hall were opened at night to let in the cool night air –these were times before Air-conditioned movie theatres came into being. The movie hall is called Jawahar Talkies, and is still in operation at Nathnagar, Bhagalpur.

The power situation is a little better, and the neighbourhood is now much more crowded. Almost everyone has an inverter or maybe a generator connection from neighbourhood electrician who has built a profitable business out of providing power when the state utility fails in its task – which is very often.

India does not wait for its lethargic state machinery -it finds viable alternatives. In the meanwhile all that the power ministry can say is: “Sorry, Load Shedding!”