So, this story is during the time my family and I, ate burnt rice as a delicacy and warm water tasted cool.

It was day three of a building-wide blackout. We recently had a short circuit flare up and blow out our electricity mains. The electric company was doing all it could to restore power. But by this time, every item of food kept in the fridge had gone bad. My grandfather, brother, father and I had it easy. We went to work the entire day and enjoyed cool gusts of the AC as it blasted through our respective offices. We enjoyed a cool drink from the office refrigerator. We enjoyed meals that could be heated in the microwave.

All this time, my grandmother and mum were at home, suffering through the humid heat of a Mumbai summer. My mother would toil in front of the stove cooking up a meal. My grandmother would try to take refuge by the balcony where a breeze might just decide to show up and fan her. But even the balcony wasn't safe for long as the sun would beat down with searing heat. It was hot enough to burn up any poor soul who decided to walk out in the sunlight.

It was a similar scene throughout the building I guess. People were frustrated, nerves were frazzled and tempers flared higher than the temperatures all around.

On the evening of the day three without electricity, my mum had had enough of everything and just cooked rice and dal for dinner. We came home to a tiger growling dangerously in her open cage. When we sat down for dinner, my dad was about to ask my mum why she hadn't cooked anything else. But the look he got from her would have stopped an elephant in its rampaging tracks... he, was a mere mortal.

Very quietly and diligently we took our first spoonful and realised, the rice was burnt at the bottom, and not the good kind of paella burnt rice, but the bad kind. So, we ate a spoonful of dal to try and wash down the rice. It was salty. Not overly so, but just that teensy amount of oversalted-ness which becomes annoying and not angering.

We knew mum must've tasted it as well as her face grimaced with each byte. But she ate it with a stoic resolve, almost the same resolve with which Gandalf proclaimed... "You... Shall Not Pass!".

I knew not to suggest getting some home delivery Chinese food or something similar. We had already paid a huge amount to get the electricity restored, and even suggesting takeout would stand grounds to be either boxed across the ears or get an earful.

So, that night all of us ate burnt rice and salty Dal. Soon hunger overpowered our taste buds and the burnt rice tasted so good it would rival the best pilafs, even the water in our glasses had turned warm from the heat of the night. But even that tasted cool to our throats. Somehow through all this, we realized...

Do we all just suffer from first world problems?