Act I

Area: Boring Canal Road

Time: 11.20pm

Stage: Pitch dark

Action: People sweat, restless kids cry. Frantic calls to Patna Electricity Supply Unit (Pesu) control room of no use. Number busy

Relief: 2am

 

Act II

Area: Anandpuri

Time: 11pm

Stage: Pitch dark

Action: Grown-ups sweat, sleepy children roll from one side to other on bed. Efforts to inform the Pesu control room about the power cut fails, as number remains ever busy

Relief: 1.30am

 

Act III

Area: Ram Nagri Mor

Time: 1pm

Stage: Pitch dark

Action: Restless people come out on porticos. Pesu control room number engaged

Relief: After 3am

Residents of the three upscale localities huffed and puffed on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday as power played truant for over two hours. Each time they called the Pesu control room rubbing sleepy eyes, the number was busy.

Deprived of a good night’s sleep, a few were irritated. They screamed. Restless kids wailed. But the “busy” status of the Pesu control room number did not change.

The residents of the Boring Canal Road area were feeling the “heat” right from the evening. Low voltage amid high humidity compelled several people to stroll outside home. As the clock struck 11, they pulled themselves back home to catch a sleep, if possible. Barely 20 minutes on, the power tripped.

Whispers of discomfort turned into screams in a matter of a few minutes in every apartment in the area. Moms’ lullabies had no balmy effect on babies.

After 10 minutes of hue and cry, a generator restored power in an apartment. Its residents were relieved and went back to sleep.

Realising it was a temporary solution, Dharmesh, a resident of a second-floor flat in the apartment, dialled the control number (0612-2280024) of the Pesu. But it was busy.

Dharmesh tried again. The number was still engaged.

As soon as Dharmesh hung up, the generator dried up. Diesel over, it stopped supplying power. Doors of several flats reopened and people started cursing the guard.

“Main kya karoon? Kal se light ka yehi tamasha hai. Diesel khatam ho gaya hai (What can I do? The power play is continuing from yesterday. The diesel is finished),” the guard said and walked off.

Dharmesh, too, was infuriated. He called up the Pesu control room yet again, but the number was still busy. Frustrated, he redialled the number at least 20 times in 20 minutes. But the number remained busy.

Giving up hope, he dialled the landline number (0612-2540763) of the Pesu sub-station at SK Puri, responsible for managing the power supply in the Boring Canal Road area. But that too was busy.

Disgusted, Dharmesh was awake till 2am, when the power was restored.

Around 11pm, Anandpuri also plunged into darkness. Ravi, a resident of a rented house in the area, was clueless on how to keep his three-year-old son quiet. Unable to bear the humidity in the dark, the toddler went on crying.

“The power went off around 11pm. My wife and I are taking turns to wave a hand-fan. I made calls to the Pesu control room and the SK Puri sub-station, but the phones were busy,” Ravi said, standing outside his home while taking a break from fanning his son.

The power was restored in the area around 1.30am.

Barely 4km away, the power tripped at the plush Ram Nagri Mor area around 1am, when most of the residents were asleep. They woke up sweating.

“The humidity was very high on Sunday. The power went off around 1pm and returned at 3am. Some of the people spent the time sitting in their porticos. The outcome of repeated calls to the Pesu control room number was the same: engaged tone,” Akhilesh Kumar, a resident of the area, said on Monday morning.

One can easily gauge the scene in other localities of the city from the bleak power scenario at the three upscale areas on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday. But SKP Singh, the general manager-cum-chief engineer of the Pesu, was pretty satisfied with the work done by his team.

He said: “There were power cuts owing to certain faults on Sunday night. The power at the Boring Canal Road area was restored by 1.30am and at the Ram Nagri Mor area by 3am. This shows that Pesu did its job.”

On the busy phone lines, Singh said: “The numbers were busy because officials were making calls to discuss how to restore the power. Within two months, Pesu will have a toll free number. People will be able to register their complaints there and know when the power would be restored.”