What was I thinking about ? Being blessed to have water as well as electricity running 24 hours!
We were lucky residing in the state of Kerala with plenty of rain, and a well within our premises that was always full and sufficient for our needs. But during my vacation trips to some of my relatives' places, I have been exposed to water scarcity. Water supply restricted to a few hours per day, or in worst cases, few hours on alternate days! There would be huge drums or barrels that would be filled up to be used till the next scheduled hour for the taps to start working again . My aunt lived in one such place, and was so skilled at the art of operating a kitchen with minimum water . Imagine washing a load of vessels with just a pail of water. Mind you, this person was adept at and particular about keeping things spic and span !
Though water was not a concern, we used to have voltage fluctuations and fixed periods of power interruptions for load shedding. As a 7 or 8 year old I had no clue what "load shedding" or "voltage drop" meant though they were added to my vocabulary and were used quite often in daily conversations. To me the former meant that all lights and fans went off while the latter caused fans to rotate slowly and tube lights to keep flickering in an annoying manner.
Electric appliances would usually be fitted with a voltage stabilizer then and one such brand was V Guard( I think they are still around). The 80s and 90s kids would be familiar with the catchy jingle that used to be played in the advertisement . It depicts a lady trying to set jelly in a mould in her refrigerator. The jelly sets properly only after she fits the V guard stabilizer.
In fact the ad has three parts. I recollected the scenes of the lady with the fridge and the group of dancers whose music system gets interrupted. But I could not remember the first part. Anyways there's nothing that's not there on YouTube and I found it !
Had no idea that the jingle was composed by our musical legend and Oscar Winner AR Rahman.
Todays tune on my lips is " we got it right with the V Guard...."
