We finally made it to the U.S. in 2022 to meet our granddaughter born in 2020. Well the pandemic turned many things upside down but at least we were fortunate to meet her after a fairly long gap.
Life for retired parents from India visiting the U.S. is mostly staying indoors since most of us would not be driving a car and unless you are in a place where public transportation is available you will be fully dependent on someone chauffeuring you for every trip. So it is mostly the mobile and smart TV which keeps one engaged from dawn to dusk and later in the evening one can spend time with the grandchildren.
One fine morning, when we woke up, it was a a bolt from the blue when I found I had not received my morning quota of good morning messages with flowers. My immediate reaction was to check my phone for WiFi. Having done my due diligence with acquired expertise in WhatsApp, I was still not able to connect to WiFi. Meanwhile, my spouse, when she got up, cursed her phone for not responding to her command. It took a couple of minutes more to realise that there has been an outage of WiFi in the apartment complex. And we believed such breakdowns would be attended pronto in the U.S. Well an hour later, we came to know that the disruption has been due to underground cable fault and it will take time. As usual, the indicated time span of back to normalcy was anywhere between a couple of hours to at least a full day.
The grandchildren went to school and daycare and others to their workplace. We were left at home without WiFi and the consequential absence of using the mobile or TV since it also ran on Internet. The daily recommended morning dose of soap opera was not available and the mood change was palpable in my wife. And my disappointment with non-availability of cricket. With no newspaper or channel news, no one to chat to except your spouse and no avenue to move out because of lack of conveyance, it was a day which would remain etched in my memory for long. I wondered technology has created marvels, but disruption can be very painful particularly when totally dependent on it. Had this occurred in India, we could have still watched TV through cable and also got on to public transport or the omnipresent autorickshaw to pass the time. Lack of public transport in many developed countries with many owning cars does exclude a section of the local population and visitors from affordable free movement.
On my part, I would have checked multiple times that day on the work in progress towards restoration. The best part was though it was a major breakdown, they brought in mechanical equipment fast to dig with minimal manpower and absolute silence. The required cables were changed, tested and power restored by noon but WiFi could not be fixed. It took till evening to restore normalcy, almost 15 hours without a vital feed in the times we live, WhatsApp!
We finished lunch and to kill our boredom, we were forced to take an extended walk, as the weather was favourable. As we walked, we thought again that while living in India, minor disruptions in daily life could be handled with ease because of extended family and social support from neighbours and adequately connected public transport. In the western world, all this was lacking and hence at times, you were left alone to fend for yourself.
amohan55@hotmail.com
Published - October 30, 2022 12:39 am IST
