11 pm

The power cut happened on a freezing January night last year, the kind of night in Shimla where a light dusting of snow is all it takes to plunge the entire lane into total darkness. By 9:00 PM, the electricity was completely gone. To make matters worse, our home inverter was already dead, having exhausted itself started early that morning.I was stuck in the kitchen, sitting by the dim, flickering light of a single candle my mom had lit. Panic was starting to set in because I had an assignment due by midnight. My phone was hovering at a critical 7%, and my power bank was completely drained. In a desperate bid to finish my work, I slapped my phone onto ultra battery saver, switched on the hotspot, and opened my laptop, which only had 30% battery left. I typed as fast as I could, watching the percentage drop.
Halfway through the assignment, the laptop screen went black. Left with no other choice, I grabbed a notebook and began writing the rest of it by hand under the weak candlelight. The next morning, I took photos of the pages to compile them into a PDF and sent it off. The effort felt completely wasted when my teacher messaged back saying the images were unreadable, forcing me to sit down and type the entire thing all over again.The other memory took place on a bumpy ride back from Solan to Shimla inside one of those old, blue local buses. I