::9VasanthappaGardenWasBlackedOut:

I’m going to the consumer court…
I will write this in the press…
9, vasanthappa garden is not in the flood affected belagavi district..
I need power in the next 2 hours…

I said, all these.. but, still WE didn’t get power at home. #9, Vasanthappa Garden is my address, which is in Indira Nagara. One fine Thursday night(22nd October 2009) when i reached home at around 11.00pm, there was not power only at our house in the complex. Guess we didn’t pay our electricity bill for last month (September) and the last date for this month (October) is 28th October.

I was the one who was paying our electricity bill every month and my fellow buddies at home got no idea on this. Unfortunately, I had to go to Davangere on Friday morning, we could not pay the bill on Friday as well. So managed to pay the invoice on Saturday by cash in a vending machine. But power didn’t find way to our home that Saturday, Sunday and Monday too… We are all pissed off finally made a complaint to the central customer care at 10.30pm, when i came from office. I was totally occupied with so many things at work and could do only that at 10.30pm.

Tuesday, we got some hope, as there were some 18 calls from the Customer care starting as early as 7am till 4.00pm. They wanted us to go to this domlur EB office and show the paid in slip. We did at 9.30am sharp. And, as nobody was at home after lunch time, to check the electricity, we had to confirm the customer care only by 8pm.

The first four sentences of this write up was spelt out on Tuesday morning, when i was getting calls after calls from the customer care.

I learnt couple of things from this exercise.
1. As a consumer we should be aware, what to do when. Eg. The moment you pay your late bill, go show it to the local office. The Govt Office employees will come, if NO BILL WAS paid.. but, wont track, if its paid.
2. Was bathing in the chill water every day of these 5 days, that too 2 days, early in the morning.
3. Was able to live without power for 5 days, in spite of living in the gadget era, in spite of living in the heart of the city.:)

Anyways… 5 black days gone.. NOW, found some time to write this. Few images from one of the black days here..

Special Thanks to Shwe / Prags for allowing me to charge my camera / blackberry, before my trip to Davengare for a photo shoot.