Power cuts are a common thing in Delhi. So I didn’t pay much heed to the fact that some of my lights didn’t work when I came home from work. Clearly my Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) had taken over, which only powers some of the electric circuits I need for not standing in complete darkness, but not all of them, as the batteries – even though they are the size of a small fridge – would for sure empty in no time when I’d connect the UPS to my ACs.
But when I came home again a couple of hours later, power still wasn’t restored. Too tired to take action so late at night, I sank into my bed and hoped the monsoon had cooled the air enough so I could find sleep without the fresh wind and the soothing tone from my AC. Turned out I could sleep at 26 degrees celsius (plus 2 or 3 degrees, as the walls of my top floor flat store some heat of the day).
Still no power the next morning. I woke up to the horrible peeping my UPS uttered as the batteries were empty now. So I called my landlord – and it turned out I could have had power all along, if I only had turned the fuses.
This solved, the UPS still clicked weird. My landlord’s son came to my rescue, as I stood helpless in front of it. I revealed to him that I had no idea how these units worked as we don’t have them in our households in Germany. “So how do you bridge power cuts then?”, he asked. When I answered that there are virtually no power cuts, he gaped at me in huge disbelief.
Delhi Encounters 