电力短缺印度大国崛起中的阿喀琉斯之踵_BEC初级作文

电力短缺印度大国崛起中的阿喀琉斯之踵

In India, a power outage is not a big deal. On my first day at the newsmagazineIndia Today, when the lights cut out and my computer zapped to black, no one seemed to skip a beat. And why would they? This happens all the time in Delhi, and -- my coworkers assured me -- everywhere else in India. Moments later, our Chai wallahs had left their post by the steaming cauldron of milky tea to start the generators, which were kept on hand because this happened all the time and was not a big deal. By the time I left the country I was similarly inured to the regular irregularities of life there.

在印度，停电不是什么大事。笔者抵达资讯杂志《今日印度》（India Today）的第一天就遇到了停电。突然之间，灯全灭了，电脑也黑屏了，可大家似乎都不以为意。有什么必要大惊小怪呢？毕竟，在德里，停电是常有的事，而且我的同事很确定地告诉我，印度每个地方都会停电。过了一会儿，报社的茶博士离开热气腾腾的奶茶锅，去启动发电机。发电机是常备物品，因为停电经常发生，人们已经司空见惯了。我离开印度的时候，对这种“正常的”不正常生活也已经习以为常。

So it's amazing that so much of the Indian response to the largest single power outage in world history, which left nearly a tenth of the world's population powerless, is anger, tinged with embarrassment. It's a terribly irresponsible thing to make generalizations about a democracy of 1.2 billion with 35 regional languages, but allow me one: Indians are supremely unflappable. They have to be. The power cuts out, the water does not run, and the most basic tasks can quickly turn Sisyphean in the face of a crazy-complex bureaucracy. The Times of India captured the situation perfectly in a report on power minister Veerappa Moily. Moily was just appointed on Tuesday, during the crises, and in the middle of a television appearance to restore public confidence in the government his interview was cut off...by a blackout.