2. As I walk Down

 The Load Shedding (A Boon In Bane)

So before you accuse me of being like a typical hostel-mess which serves you downright anything in the name of food, for serving you whatsoever may be it in the name of nostalgia let me make it very clear that it's not the load shedding that I miss, but the very events that followed. Remember how every home used to have alternatives ready, generators or inverters in privileged homes and others having that red-coloured solar lamp or that green turned brown lantern and when you ran out of it all you had one and only one saviour, wax candles. 

And once the time limit of an hour or half was over the whole conquest of phone calls used to start. Dialling 222237, again and again, to get the phone line busy all the time and if your lucky stars favoured you and somebody answered your call the set of dialogue that followed was almost always the same. “Hello Power House, Uncle ami ashram schooler eikhan theke bolchilam. Current kon shomoy ashbe?" (Uncle I was calling from the locality of Ashram School. When can we expect the load-shedding to be over)  And honestly, it never mattered when we got the connection back, but the fact that we knew when it will be back, gave such an inner satisfaction. 

Ever faced a power-cut, so long that all your alternative power supplies gave up and you had to survive only on candles. We did that too often during rainy seasons. Planting one candle on each occupied room basis. Those were the time when I used to become the most studious asking my mom to let me study under the insufficient candlelight waiting for an obvious no from her and then showing reluctance from outside and feeling like a boss inside while I closed the books keeping them aside neatly. 

It’s tough to define satisfaction, but for me, that moment when after a long power cut suddenly you noticed the ends of the tube light turning orangish then flickering a few times before illuminating the room has to be one of the most heavenly feelings.

 
The Family Legacy (Lantern)

If there has been anything that is common to all the family legacies it is the green lantern that most probably belonged to your grandma or grandpa. The lantern that was once green and now has turned blackish brown. That lantern which justified the lines "Na Jane Kidhar Se Aya Hai Na Jane Kidhar ko Jayega..."  and was only required either as a substitute of the solar lamp during load shedding or was used to heat a loin cloth to be used for a warm press for body aches.

I remember mostly in winters or monsoons when either my dad or mom would search shelves to take out the lost treasure covered in layers of plastic bags and tied by ropes. Removing a plastic bag followed by another to finally uncover the lost relic. What followed was filling the lantern with kerosene, dipping the wick in the kerosene and then putting the glass cover back. 

Call me childish, but rotating the knob to see how long the wick can grow and consequently increasing the flame to a level till sooty smoke started coming out from the air vents and then maybe covering it with a cloth to see a black coloured circle formed on it had always been an interesting experiment for me. 

So was the part of changing the wick, pressing the lever to raise that glass cover and turning it felt so awesome that time. Never had much idea of the physics behind it but seeing either of my parents do it so made me feel like that surely has to be one of the coolest work ever.  

Changing one loincloth and putting another one on top of it so the warm press that has been going on doesn’t stop was surely a fascinating way of time-pass then.