Being a Pakistani citizen, load shedding is not a new concept. You can hear every other person lamenting it and the ways they are affected by it. Now that the summer season is here, the absence of electricity serves as the last straw.

Personally, load shedding affects my work and personal life in multiple ways which I am going to write down in this blog and I hope you can relate to them too.

·       The Scorching Heat

Living in Punjab, where it is really hot nowadays, load shedding momentarily stops life. It is overall so frustrating when the light goes off every other hour. As they say, good moments pass in a blur. The hour that we have electricity goes by so fast. It feels like every task, whether work, study, or house chores, was just begun but came to a halt.

Living on the first floor, the sun shines down in my room from afternoon till sunset. Even the closed windows do not help in keeping the heat outside. To save the backup for the night, I use minimum energy during the day. It means compromising on the absence of a fan too, sometimes. The heat becomes unbearable. Even bathing does not help much. The water feels like coming from a geyser.

·       Delay in House Chores

Being a mother, student, and teacher, it becomes really overwhelming to manage everything. Given the strict management of time and schedule of things along with the clock. And then there comes the load shedding. Laundry, cooking, cleaning, and almost everything gets delayed because of no electric supply.

I do not know if it is only me or if someone can else relate to it too. I feel really flustered when the electricity comes back. The washing machine needs to be loaded, the washed laundry needs to be ironed. The absence of light often delays my tasks.

·       Break in Working Hours

 I plan my day so as to get my online tasks time coincides with the entertainment time for kids. This gives me uninterrupted space to complete my tasks for the day. Kids get annoyed because their entertainment time is fixed and the absence of light pisses them to no limits. Hence my work time is affected.

 Although I am a flexible mom I do not give too much relaxation because it hurts their sleep. Most importantly, the gadgets need to be charged when the light is back. If by any chance, I forget to plug in my power bank or any gadget, it freaks me out because it means nothing and literally nothing can be done during the outage hour.

·         Interrupted Sleep

I guess the most affected by load shedding is sleep. Even the backup power runs out because the unavailability of light at alternative hours does not let the batteries charge during the day. Moreover, the absence of light near bedtime disturbs our schedule.

In summer, when we cannot sleep without a fan, the absence of it not only frustrates but the mosquitoes hovering around find good prey. Moreover, if there is backup, not more than one fan is used. So all the family members have to huddle up in a small space and the sleep does not remain that comfortable.

·       When Water Runs Out

Water is a basic necessity. There is no survival without it and if the water tank runs out, it feels apocalyptic. Specifically, in our area, the water supply has fixed timings and if the power goes out at the times coinciding with the light supply time, it gives me such a scare.

And then comes the unexpected load shedding where light remains off on any random day for 5-6 hours straight, unannounced. This is such torment in the name of maintenance which never seems to have worked out. There is an outage on a minor dust storm or a few drops of rain. Although we are living in an underdeveloped country, the basic amenities should be the first focus of the people in charge.

Conclusion

In short, load shedding affects the daily flow of life. It affects both the personal and professional life of every individual on so many levels. Thank you for coming to the end of my writing. I would love to know from you in the comment section how load shedding affects your personal and professional life.