Deepavali is a festival of lights. But when there is a power outage on Deepavali, it is no longer Deepavali. Call it mother nature's Deepavali prank, if you will, the Northeast monsoon has washed out the most of Deepavali in Ooty... which meant that there was no opportunity for fireworks in the outdoors. And to rub salt in the wound, there has been a power outage since noon in most of the city. Later I realized that all our neighbors had their power restored but it was only our house that was devoid of power. So I complained to the TNEB as usual in the sincere hope that the kind folks at the TNEB will send a technician home and restore our power in a few hours. But that was not to be... I was told that most of them were on a holiday and the few who were working the holiday shift had been busy fighting the massive power outage due to fallen trees elsewhere in the city. I was told that it is highly unlikely that someone will come to my house today and restore our power. So Deepavali was as good as gone... It was nearing dusk when I called TNEB again. The folks there confirmed my fears... all the technicians have gone home after their day long ordeal fixing the massive power outage. Upon pleading a lot I was told that although the holiday shifts of all technicians is over some might still be around and if I am lucky they might be willing to take a look at my situation. So I rushed to the TNEB office and as mentioned by the operator all the technicians had left for the day... when I was about to leave without anymore hope, I saw a fully drenched individual seated in front of a room heater, perhaps drying himself up. I told him about our situation and he said he is very tired from cutting down trees that had fallen on power lines in the morning and restoring power in that part of the city. He offered to fix it early next morning. I thanked him and started walking out with disappointment... Seeing the disappointment in my face he called me and said "ok, let me take a look... if I have to climb the electric post to fix it I won't be able to do it today. but if it is something in your fuse box then I can fix it today" I was delighted... there was hope again. When he came home and took a look at the fuse box he said, "this can be fixed but I don't have all the tools for it right now"... but he improvised with whatever tools he had and fixed the issue. Thank You, Rafeeq Muhammed! You Gave Us Light on Deepavali.
