Start the Commotion

At around 4:20pm (Toronto time), on the 14th of August; Canada and the US experienced a black out. All hell broke loose as the traffic blocked the roads, caused by the dead traffic lights. As the malls darkened giving everyone a chance to steal something, and the elevators shut down, causing people to walk several fleets of stairs to get to their respectable destinations, not to mention the people who were stuck in elevators when this took place. While all this commotion went on, I sat at my friends’ house wondering why the television went off, and how I would know when the delivery boy brought our order. At the end of the evening when all the food was gone and we were bored out of our minds, and our phones got signal again, we heard the tragic news. The power had gone, big time! We would have to go home get our candles out and pray that there wouldn’t be another terrorist attack. Yes, a terrorist attack. One was expected in the next 48 hours. The light went and people thought it was terrorism. Well, it was, in a way. People in the states were stealing and there was a lot of terror/fear in the air. Anything could happen in the darkness.

On the other hand, Canadians were at peace. People cleared the roads and obeyed rules. Why wouldn’t they? I live in the safest country in the world! Canadians still fret, but us desis in Canada, we pulled our grills out and had barbeques, slept in our basements and made the most of the darkness. Why wouldn’t we? We were after all from a ‘third world country’ that had seen enough disasters in everyday life, to even start to care about a tiny issue of insufficient light. I fail to understand what the big deal was. I did not understand the need, the urgency, and the panic that people all around the world faced, just because the lights went out. In a country of system and order, the slightest problem that occurs is seen as a major one. The slightest deviance is shunned, and the slightest difference in every day life is feared. Coming from a land where the electricity and water going is a part of every day life, disease and death is normal, and poverty is practically ignored; seeing the problems here and how people get worked up about them is new to me. The light went? Big deal? It’ll be back! But I guess I’m the only one who thought so.

Its not because I’m from an ignorant country. It's because I’m immune and comfortably numb to a lot of things that are new to people. I’m from a country where it doesn’t rain for days on end, and when it does, the city is flooded, below sea level. We move on though, we just let things happen. There is a lot of things that you can not control, like life and death; the weather; how people react; and when the machines fail. I am not sure what the world is coming to, or how we’ll get anywhere if we get so caught up in this madness. To be anything in this world of chaos, one must have chaos in ones self. Not let things like black outs bother us. So all I have to say for everyone after this episode is, to chill out, and start the commotion.