Load shedding. Say, whaaat?

Load shedding. Sounds very sophisticated. Something from a specialty book you are unlikely to understand. But in simple words is just that: blackout. No electricity. Electricity companies sheds the load off of the electricity grid. And how do they do that? It’s very simple – they shut off electricity to parts of the city. Such is life in Nepal. You know that talk about the right to basic infrastructure that’s often given in the West? Yeah, you can forget about that in Nepal. Here, the first thing you ought to do is buy some candles. Always, always have candles in the house. And matches. Or a lighter. Otherwise candles really don’t make any sense, now do they? Notice that candles will be your last resort when other lights fail to light-up your world. After that, stock up  with a whole bunch of light-producing devices, either electrically charged or run by batteries. Always keep them charged. Keep your cellphone charged. Given it has a flash-light. Your house should also have a big battery, popularly referred to as the inverter. This bad boy gets charged when there is electricity, and then happily provides you light when the electricity company decides to shed the load in your neighborhood. Useful little things. Generators are also ruining the environment tremendously and adding to already unbelievable amount of pollution in Kathmandu.

So what do you do when you have a load shedding even in the posh hotel you stay in?


First and foremost, take a romantic shower. Yes, shower in the candlelight. And it would be romantic if it wasn’t sad, actually. Read. Stare at the wall. And, yes, play cell phone games. There is nothing else to do when there is no light. And yes, learn to walk around the room in the dark.

As daunting as it may sound, it’s actually not that bad. Somehow you get used to it fairly quickly. Or maybe I’m just saying it to make myself feel better.