Blackout

Expect the unexpected, especially in this city, in this area, in our taman. We were happily going about our evening business yesterday, having got back quite late from a long day at Sunway Lagoon (a failsafe way of keeping the troops amused) and dinner at the Bom Corner when suddenly the lights went out. All of them. We were not entirely plunged into darkness as the kids have all sorts of gaming devices which emit fairly bright lights, and the house just behind us, which sticks out a bit further into the road than us, has lights in its garden which shone into our downstairs rooms, but it was still quite startling. The kids were a touch panicky at the beginning but rapidly came to terms with the situation. And what exactly was that? Essentially two streets of the taman had lost power, ours and the one in front.

Noi and I went out to ask for some matches, having tracked down a few candles in the house, and soon came across the power people in a big lorry obviously trying to put things right. Our neighbour from across the road, Mr Lian, who is the Secretary of the Residents’ Association, and a very helpful guy, had called out the authorities even before the blackout took place (I think; the story gets a bit confusing here, but it seems he knew there was a problem in advance but the workmen didn’t want to deal with it right away for reasons connected with overtime.) He predicted it would take a couple of hours to get the power back on and kindly provided us with the matches we needed.

In the event his prediction proved correct. It took another hour and a bit for the lights to shine again. In the meantime we huddled with the kids downstairs with a couple of the french windows open for a bit of a breeze and, paradoxically, a thoroughly good time was enjoyed by all – except, perhaps, me, as I’d have liked to have got some shut-eye but the excitement of the gathered multitude was such that sleep was not possible in the swirl of conversation, excited reminiscence and the like.

Oddly I was reminded of the blackouts we regularly suffered when I was a youngster, usually the result of some public sector workers somewhere going on strike. These invariably took place in winter and the excitement was strictly limited. Indeed, I recall a distinct atmosphere of dreary familiarity about the events and a sense of battling enormous inconvenience. Paraffin heaters were the order of the day and such is the power of memory that I can smell ours even as I type.