My tryst with AC going poof

There is a saying in Odia - MANISHA SABU THARU BADA SUBIDHA BAADI PRANI (Humans are creatures of comfort). No wonder I was vindicated in last 24 hours.

I normally set my home temperature at 78°F (25°C) in summer. Yesterday afternoon no sooner I entered my home, than I felt a burst of warmth, not the usual cool comfort of humming sound of the Air Conditioning on a  summer day. I instantly suspected that something was wrong with my AC. Soon my worst fear came true. The thermostat read 84°F (27°C). It was tell tale sign of the Air Conditioning going poof.

It wasn't until the next day afternoon the AC mechanic arrived. Fixed my Air Conditioning Unit cost me a cool $278. As the unit started pumping out pleasantly cool air wafting across my house, it was literally a breath of fresh air for us. The humming of the AC circulating fresh air sounded like music to my ears. The sight of the slow climb down of the thermostat from 84°F to 78°F felt so comforting.

The outside temperature was 92 degrees (33°C), nothing compared to the Indian summer heat of 40°C (104°F) I was accustomed to, much higher with the heat index if you take the sweltering humidity into consideration. During this time of the year we go through the phase of ANASARA GULUGULI (muggy) days in Odisha. The almost static air, pregnant with water vapor and barely moving a leaf on trees becomes unbearable. One feels like a melting man with hardly any relief in sight. We all took solace from a free Sauna bath.

Without access to Air Conditioning we can adjust to the environment, vindicating Darwin's theory of the survivor of the fittest. Humans being intelligent animals readily adjust to the situations and cicumstances. That's why we survived whereas the dinosaurs, mammoths and mammoth number of animals part of the fauna couldn't.

Yet we didn't complain and suffered the heat of the summer and humidity into our stride those days when Air Conditioning, now ubiquitous, was strictly a luxury item - a fantasy for the Indian middle class. But nowadays just 90 degree Fahrenheit heat with lot lesser humidity makes me feel like a fish out of water. 24 hours without AC felt like eons. Man is definitely without any doubt a creature of comfort and I am certainly not an aberration. Just 24 hours without AC in summer vindicated this fact.

During World War II at the time of relentless Nazi Bombing the British Royal Air Force fought bravely against the air blitzkrieg of Germany's Luftwaffe. Winston Churchill, then British war time Prime Minister said this about the Royal Air force - "Never in the History of mankind so many were dependent on so few", a tribute to the contribution of the handful of pilots who stubbornly defended the entire English population from the Nazi onslaught. Same can be attributed to AC - "Never in the history of Mankind, so many humans were dependent on a mechanical unit". When in the summer month of July, 1902, a 25-year-old engineer from New York named Willis Carrier invented the first modern air-conditioning, little he knew his invention would be indispensable a century later.