Internet, mobile phones, televisions, laptops, computers and various such gadgets are things we cannot spend our day without. And they were a regular part of our lives during the lockdown days.

So today, I am narrating a dreadful experience I had when I did not get the chance to even glance at a gadget screen the whole day!

It was December 18, 2020, an ordinary day of the Covid-19 lockdown. Well, it was at first. Rubbing my eyes, I glanced at my side table clock. It was already 20 minutes past 12. Well, if you sleep at three in the morning because of a late-night movie, 12:20pm is a reasonable time to wake up.

There was no need for fans in mid-winter, so I did not realise anything was amiss until I sleepwalked to the washroom and switched on the light. Nothing happened.

I called out to mum, “What’s wrong with the light?”

“There is a power failure. The KE team is busy working in another area and will proceed here after they are done there. Don’t worry, the electricity will be back by 8pm.”

“No way! Ughh! Where’s my phone, mum?”

“Look on the dressing table!”

“Where is it? Aahaa! Found it! What… noooo! The battery’s dead!” I screamed in agony.

“Here, take this light and try to use only when needed!” mum was in my room and she tapped sharply on my shoulder. I took the emergency light grumpily and went to the washroom.

The rest of the day was a total failure too. There was no charged gadget in the house. As electric shutdowns were so uncommon at my home, the generator was also not in working order. The power bank was taken by my dad to his office. The only charged phone belonged to my grandmother — a touch mobile with no games, no WhatsApp, no mobile data and a boring keypad phone.

To me and my siblings, it was the worst day of our lives. And, to our utter disappointment, our mum was enjoying it a lot. First of all, as we had nothing to do, our mum engaged us to do all the pending household chores and activities we so much hated. And of course, we obeyed.

We also helped mum in preparing supper and cleaning the house and the tasks were finished sooner than usual. It resulted in mum spending some quality time with us, and she told stories of her childhood and ours too.

During lunch, it was our grandmother who talked. Then everyone, except me and my elder sister, took a nap. My sister decided to so some gardening and I read a book. But after a while, my book finished too.

I decided to play with my parrot, Sterling. I was also ashamed of myself for not giving time to that poor creature, who seemed to be really happy to have me attending to him.

Then my sister and I decided to prepare tea. We first baked some cupcakes and I ran to the nearby shop for biscuits. We made tea for the adults and ourselves, and orange juice for the little ones. We surprised our family with a nice tea and snacks, and they appreciated us.

To our surprise, the electricity came back at 6pm. We quickly ran to charge our gadgets and soon became engrossed in it at different corners of the house. At dinner time, my mum told the whole story of the day’s events to our dad while we ate silently, our faces beaming with pleasure.

After dinner, mum said to us, “My children, today was probably a very dreadful day for you. But if we look at the brighter side, it was a very productive one too. We often ignored Sterling and grandma, but today we gave them time and it made them happy. The garden needed tending and you did that. We also had quality family time. Normally, we are engrossed in our gadgets and our social life, so we forget to give time to each other and to these small, but important and priceless things.”

We nodded in silence and the next day, we took out time for other things besides our gadgets too.

So dear readers, kindly pay attention to the things around you that you often forget about. And instead of being all negative when something goes wrong, do try to look at the brighter side of things.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 11th, 2022