The Day Electricity Came to Town

I must have been in elementary school and visiting our ancestral village for the summer in the late 60's when I was lucky to watch a village lit up with electricity.

Yes, the lights and power, air conditioning, microwave did not exist at one time and I remember how life changes when it does. Before electricity the ancestral village in modern day Telangana had oil lanterns and "Petromax lights" that were lighted at sun down till bed time.

 

 I was not a stranger to electricity as we lived in Delhi, the Capital of India. Large cable drums delivered cables to the village and electric poles were erected to being power to the village. In the absence of electricity, radios were battery operated. Life was focused on dawn to dusk and on special occasions more lanterns were hired.

Later progress would come in the form of electric pumps, until then, bullocks would move in a  forward and backward motion drawing water from wells in a tire and the water would flow to the fields in muddy pathways dug for the water.

Reminiscing this now, I feel lucky that I have seen a world where electricity did not exist.