It was 5 minutes before 4 o’clock. I was getting ready for my afternoon nap. I had also planned to draft some posts for the week, so I had both my phones and my iPad with me.
As I bent down to pick up my bottle of water, I suddenly heard a VERY loud, VERY scary alarm sound. The kind of sound that instantly makes you think either the world is ending or one of your devices has finally decided to self-destruct.
For one full second, I genuinely thought my electronics were about to burst into flames.
Turns out it was the presidential alert about the heatwave in Vidarbha and other regions.
Now I don’t know whether 45°C is going to kill me or not, but this dramatic horror-movie-level alert almost did.
And honestly, does the government really need to scare the life out of citizens for things we are already painfully aware of? Heatwave? In May? In India? Thank you, Sherlock. Without that alert we would’ve all been sitting in 45-degree weather going, “Hmm… feels slightly warm today.”
Also interesting how the government can instantly blast everyone’s phone speakers for “breaking news: it’s hot outside,” but for major things like demonetization, somehow the communication strategy was just “surprise, good luck everyone.”
I understand the reason behind the alert, but did they genuinely think we didn’t know it was hot? Agar woh alert nahi aata toh humko pata hi nahin chalta ki oh shit, garmi hai aur hum log shayad aaj bhi sweater pehen ke ghoom rahe hote thinking, “Nice weather today.”
It’s 45 °C today and thanks to this alert, feels like 90°C.
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Shabana Mukhtar