Fourteen hours of power cuts that numb the lives of Kathmanduties every day, a difference of one or two hours hardly matters. The small red flicker by my bedroom door lights up ever so infrequently that when it does, it jerks me from my sleep. I would get up to recharge my phone or to check my email, only it is often about two in the morning.
It is perhaps intentionally the most inconvenient of hours that Nepal Electricity Authority decides to authorize electricity to Nepal.
Not just a few of us have had to embarrassingly tell offices the skype conference call will need to be rescheduled because of “loadshedding” - few in the western world seem to understand this concept of dialing “No Light” to ask when the lights will be back.
And yet, few more in the southern hemisphere seem able to comprehend sleeping at odd hours and waking at odd hours to get work done. In Spanish, the loose translation for our “Nepanglish” loadshedding is Se Fue La Luz. Annery Miranda, an American college friend of Dominican Republican descent, recently visited her motherland and blogged to say it meant, “The lights left.” So, it would seem tragedy has not only struck our beloved Nepal.
A childhood friend from another lifetime in Hong Kong, Chika Kitaoka, had decided to visit Nepal over her Easter break last year. She was requested to deny herself her daily shower, to only flush when it was the solids and to brush with that mug of water. Silly and rude it seemed, but even the outskirts of the city had begun to feel the sharp pains of Nepal’s notorious acute water shortage. Water had not been pumped into the storage facility underground for a week and it was a matter of principle against ordering in a truckload - the year before my mother had discovered that the quality of water delivered by the truck stooped below that of the government.
Of course it was not only the water shortage, there was also the “electricity shortage.” It was clearly a task for my friend who called the city with “light pollution” home. It was, indeed, the year 2010 and man had landed on the moon but yes, there was no water in our taps.
The US Department of State, as directed to by Annery, had offered explanation on Dominican Republic’s (DR) electricity shortage and their website did offer some explanation for Nepal’s too.
The government is obliged to deliver these basic amenities, but perhaps we as citizens can also decide to be mindful of how we in our daily lives waste the precious water and electricity, the limited supply of unlimited demand.
While the DR’s issue was “due to low collection rates, theft, infrastructure problems, and corruption, distribution losses remain high” Nepal’s ranged from the planned West Seti project experiencing finance trouble with the Australian company pulling out of the project and the Department of Electricity Development finding it difficult to attract investors (though two other had been awarded to India).
The demand for electricity was increasing at 12 to 13 percent on an annual basis in Nepal as the supply through mostly “run-of-river” hydroelectric projects just could not keep up. Papers, blogs and candid conversation will offer you many more startling statistics.
As my Hong Kongese friend packed her dirty laundry and unopened sachets of shampoo she mentioned she would be more cautious with her usage of water and electricity when home.
Lights and water were not going to be snatched from her easy reach anytime in the foreseeable future, but it was also a word to the wise for those of us stuck in lines with empty buckets or dialing a little legislated private khane pani supplier.
It is, after all, possible to turn the lights out when exiting empty room, to limit our use of hair dryer and heaters. It is also possible to brush our teeth with one mug of water. And, as desperate times calls for desperate measures, to successfully shower with a mere bucket of water. Who knows, it may even be feasible to celebrate a wedding without lighting the entire exteriors of a building simply because the host can afford it (even when the state cannot).
For all the woes of the shortages, perhaps we can take this frustrating lesson to consider evolving into more environmentally friendly beings. True, only a fraction of the population can afford to solar power their house, but will the exorbitant price of Rs 70, 000 not decrease with economies of scale, as it becomes more readily available? When toilet flush can be augmented, showers shortened and kitchen water recycled to water the plants instead, can households not use established techniques to harvest rainwater more effectively for daily use?
While we wait for the various arms of government to coordinate and react to the shortage, active citizenry calls for the bare minimum in response.
The state is incapable of effectively managing the little water and light we have over night. That we have the fabled second highest amount of fresh water (next to Brazil, we say) will not amount to anything if none of it is managed effectively. The government is obliged to deliver these basic amenities, but perhaps we as citizens can also decide to be mindful of how we in our daily lives waste the precious water and electricity, the limited supply of unlimited demand.
sradda.thapa@gmail.com
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