As a child growing up in the Middle East, Naseer Ahmed could barely recall a power failure. He had spent 15 of his 37 years there. On the odd occasion when the power did fail, it was a moment of celebration. Naseer and his brothers would get their flashlights and run around their apartment building playing 'jedis' with light saber and such. Nothing fazes you out when you're a kid.
There was this one time though, when the power died and Naseer heard the phone ring. He was surprised and amazed and equally shocked: in his world the telephone was an electrical device and needed electricity to run. Naseer called his best friend who lived a few buildings down (who also had no power) and found him to be just as amazed to learn that the phones worked even when the power was out. They talked for what seemed to be an eternity about the new Apple 2e computer games, TV shows and comic books.
Then he grew up and moved back to Pakistan. Naseer leant the difference between AC and DC and, as he continued to read, he learnt of the difference between power supply that powered the light bulbs in his house and the power supply that powered his telephone.
One evening, early in the summer of 2010, there was a power failure that disrupted power supply to over half the city. When he came home that evening, the shrill cacophony of complaints from his family began to thunder in his ears. His neighborhood had a power failure that lasted over 6 hours - at a single stretch! And this, he was told was in addition to the 3-4 hours of load-shedding earlier during the day. There was still no power and consequently, no water just chaos.
Naseer tuned out his family and began the rituals of unpacking from his work mode to his home mode. Changing, unpacking and putting things away as he pretended to be involved with his family's day. His thoughts, however, were still captivated to that power failure some 25 years ago. He thought of shadow puppets he made and how his older brother had taped soda cans on his flashlight with their tops and bottoms cut out to make a sort of aiming sight. Soon enough, he found himself yearning to be a kid again, even if for just a little while. The nostalgia soon evolved into a reminiscence of better and simpler days. "How far have I come?” he thought and "How much better have I become?"
He thought of the phone call to his best friend and that magical phone call that seemed to have lasted forever. The thought brought a smile to his face as he found himself staring at his telephone. This telephone was very different from the one he had used as a child. It had buttons and not a circular dial, it had features like redial and memory storage, but somehow, given the choice, Naseer would have paid good money to buy that telephone set. Without thinking about it, he picked up the receiver and dialed his friends’ phone number: 827-3795.
But there was no dial tone.
He hung up and then pressed the disconnect button a few times, but there was still no dial tone.
His nostalgia and reminiscence disappeared and the engineer inside him kicked alive. He now had something to do! Hastily, he checked the connections, traced the wires, replaced the wires and tried everything, but couldn't get the dial tone. He felt obsessed and out of control and it was as if hearing that dial tone would make everything better; almost as if that dial tone, could spare the misery of a 9 hour power failure (and there still a half-dozen hours till midnight) that his family had to endure; as if that dial tone could make it all better.
Frustrated, he began turning into the 'stereotypical Pakistani husband' who was tired and came home from a hard day’s work. He started to argue with his wife. It was the kids, he shouted, the kids had been messing with the phone and that they have no manners or discipline. He cursed and swore and stomped around in the dark house. He was turning into a madman. The power failure had begun to translate into his own failure to provide for the comfort of his family. He had to get the damned dial tone.
In the dark, his eye caught a red blip. It was his cell phone reminding him that there was a new message waiting. He picked it up and called home. But there was nothing. He tried again and again. Sometimes he would hear a recording saying that the number was out of service, something’s that the number was busy and sometimes he heard nothing. Was the line dead? Did he pay the bill last month? In the dark, he started to rummage through old bills barking at his wife to hold a candle for him. The bill was paid: more frustration.
Somewhere between his quests for the last paid bill and his scolding’s the lights in the house came alive. After 7 hours, they had power. He still had his cell phone in his hand and he dialed his home number once more. He heard the tone in his cell phone and the ringer in his telephone. He cancelled the call from his cell phone and picked up the telephone receiver and heard the dial tone, but what should have brought him sweet relief only filled his heart with regret. His wife and children stood together staring at him very fearful unaware of what was about to happen next. He wanted to apologize and he wanted to explain what he was doing, but more than that he wanted to cry. But he was not a child anymore. Growing up a hard man in a hard world had robbed him of that too.
Naseer later learned that the telephone exchanges are not prepared for 8 hour power failures. So, after their generators run out of gas, the phone lines die as well. No power, no water, no communications.
Nothing. No dial tone.
As he stepped into the shower, he couldn't help but marvel at how quickly his country reversed the course of progress. Not just in the last 2 years, or since the rule of the dictator preceding and certainly not since any era before that. Naseer couldn't help but feel the floor of a brand new low. It didn't matter if it was a budding democracy or transition from a cruel dictatorship or an incompetent crew heading the affairs of the state, in his mind the words echoed, "We have failed."
He got dressed and tried to break the awkward tension by making small talk with his children. His 2 year old son was just happy to see his father smile; his 6 year old daughter was struggling too hard to say the right things to keep her father happy; but his wife just avoided looking him in the eye. "No," he thought, "I have failed."
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