Wired868 Wired868 for smart sport news and opinion
Last Saturday, just before the tea break during the West Indies Test against Bangladesh, I scurried to my kitchen to prepare some herbs for the bhaji rice I was planning to cook on Sunday.
It had been pouring heavily, thunder and lightning dropping a menacing feel to the afternoon. Suddenly, a loud explosion, even louder than the thunder, rent the air and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small red flash heading toward me.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Gallo Images/ Wired868
Instinctively, I pulled away, fearing it was an electrical spark coming from the outlet to my right, as immediately the electricity went off.
It was the beginning of an unusual six days.
With the electricity gone, presumably because a transformer had been hit, I figured it would be a while before the power returned. I decided to make the best of what little natural light there was given the overcast skies, and continued my meal prep.
It was a big decision because lightning and thunder are very unnerving to me, a throwback to childhood when someone had been struck by lightning while sheltering under a tree in the Aranjuez Savannah (which I can see from my kitchen window). My impulse is to just go to bed. Honestly.
As darkness gobbled up my familiar world more thoroughly—all the surroundings were now unelectrified and the stars were hidden in the clouded sky, I sat alone trying to gather my thoughts. Well, maybe not to simply gather them but to corral them into some pleasant space.
Eventually, I concluded that we have become so used to having distractions that it can be a bit disturbing to come face to face with your unadulterated thoughts. No filters.
By ten o’clock the electricity had returned, and I discovered that the Internet had not. It would take six days. I am writing this on Thursday evening, and it was only restored a couple of hours ago.
It turned out that although many areas had been affected with the loss of Internet services from Flow, my specific problem was because the wireless router had been damaged (as well as the electrical cord for a cable box) because of last Saturday’s violent weather.
Were it not for the persistence of my daughter, who kept contacting Flow, none of it would have been resolved. I have a prepaid phone, and I was surprised by the amount of money I spent over those few days to keep it going. It was around $400, because I also topped up her phone so we could talk. In fact, we both realised how often we chat now.
It’s a recent development and it was one of the revelations, in stark terms, of how much of a daily ritual it has become. It was one of many discoveries I made.
My last column had been a struggle because I was unwell. When I dropped off the online accessibility, one of my friends called to say that another had contacted him because she had been unable to reach me.
I explained my predicament, and he came to visit, asking if there was anything he could do as he knew I had been feeling poorly. The following day, my other friend dropped in, and today, they both came.
I am naturally reclusive, and because my mobility is not as robust as it used to be, I venture out mostly to do errands and try to keep it brief. So it was unusual to have the unexpected company; a lovely reminder of how refreshing it is to spend physical time with friends.
I also returned to my books. I’ve read a couple these past few days, one of which I will review at some point because it moved me so profoundly at so many levels, and I wish to shout it out to the world. But in the act of curling up with books, (some of which I put aside after a couple chapters, no longer feeling duty-bound to read to the last page) I felt I was rediscovering my old self.
The days before the Internet. I am not particularly fixated with being online.
I do not inhabit social media platforms. I figure I am far less connected than most people I know. But I do find myself checking things frequently. Looking for more information about whatever subject I happen to be engaging at a moment.
If I’m reading a book, I might try to find out more about the author, same with films, same with dishes I want to concoct. It’s terribly easy to pop in on a site for a quick forage and to find oneself meandering through a maze of algorithm-connected spots along the way.
After the initial jolt to the senses—not being able to read the newspapers online with my morning coffee—I settled down to relishing other lost pleasures. Sometimes, it takes an unexpected event to take you on a journey of discovery.
It was a frustrating experience because I didn’t know what was happening in terms of repairs. Flow was mediocre in terms of support. The Internet returned but not to my phone, when I spoke to the Flow person, she wasn’t sure how to resolve it, but made some suggestions.
The upshot was that it cost me another wasted $100 on my phone. To top it off, my landline is still dead.
That part is the shame.
Seeing a big picture requires a lens shaped by multiple streams of information. If you live within the confines of Read more
Responses to the declaration of a state of emergency have predictably been draped in political flags. As usual, everyone knows Read more
We associate the idea of walking away from something as an admission of failure, of quitting, and giving up. North Read more
The final visit from the trio of Christmas ghosts takes Ebenezer Scrooge to a future—his possible future if he maintains Read more
Comparing Christmas past with what exists nowadays is something I wanted to do as a way of measuring change. It Read more
Everyone has their particular memory of childhood Christmas. It is one of those universally observed seasons that is inescapable. Even Read more
Vaneisa Baksh is a columnist with the Trinidad Express, an editor and a cricket historian. She is the author of a biography of Sir Frank Worrell.
