Flights were grounded; buses, cars came to a grinding halt; road traffic choked; internet traffic dropped drastically; ATMs went haywire; serpentine queues formed at airports and train stations; trains were cancelled; mobile phones were dying and some phones were in ICU owing to disruptions in cell networks; countless candles and torches were lit up; retail businesses were shut; people groped in the dark, some were trapped in elevators, a few indulged in panic buying; Madrid Open tennis tournament suspended. It was darkness everywhere. People’s blood pounded, pulsated with unknown fear.
You are not reading a thriller or watching a horror movie. It’s a real episode that sent shock waves to people in Spain and Portugal. In broad strokes, Monday sets the life-ball rolling after the lull of two silent days. But that mysterious Monday, April 28, 2025, was a different ball game for the two countries. It was believed that around 55 million people suffered owing to a massive power outage that lasted more than 12 hours. Initially, a cyber-attack or an act of terrorism was suspected as the culprit, but later, the two governments ignored both the scenarios. Blame-games were galore, a few put the blame on the renewables, zero-emissions targets. No dearth of conspiracy theories. Spanish and Portuguese governments convened emergency meetings.
What the two countries and some parts of France witnessed was nothing but a blackout in the countries’ electricity grid. Let’s not get into the nitty-gritty of the power blackout as that’s not on the agenda today.
Let’s backpedal the time-sands and flip the map from Madrid and Lisbon.
Chennai, 2015. The city was sinking into a watery quagmire, life oozing out of it. Trees fell like a pack of cards. Wires were dangling precariously from the fallen trees. Water kept on rising from ankle-deep to knee-deep to chest high. All hell broke loose. People screamed. Apartments submerged. Trains were cancelled. Flights were grounded. Frantic yelps and heart-rending yells filled the atmosphere. There was “water, water everywhere, but nor a drop to drink.” The city was drowning in water, but it was not potable. Inside the residential buildings, there were many slips between the sumps and the overhead tanks, thanks to power cuts. Sump water could not be pumped into overhead tanks. At night, the city was buried in the tombstone of darkness. People started using mortars and pestles for grinding. Many kept the overhead tanks open to fill rainwater directly. In short, they reverted to several age-old practices, which were till then mocked at or were forgotten.
You got it right. A serpent raised its head in the garb of floods. The devil was none other than the DECEMBER DELUGE. The deluge turned the flood-ravaged Chennai topsy turvy; people experienced the worst impact of freak weather, probably after a century then. The then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J. Jayalalithaa termed the calamity as “a mammoth of adversity.” Stories of brave survival strategies were abuzz across the social media sites.
Before 2015, Chennaiites would blow their own trumpet of climate – Hot, Hotter, Hottest. Alas! 2015 put a deadly end to their bragging and turned their perception upside down. From then on, every rain haunts them, giving them sleepless nights during monsoon.
A decade on. Even now, if you think of the deluge devil it would, for sure, stir up the cobwebs of buried tragedies and give many a sinking feeling. For, people suffered from a deadly swathe of destruction then.
In both the incidents (Spain and Chennai), truth was mocking at us, hitting us like a slap in the face. Three things were evident, unquestionable and undebatable. One – man cannot control anything and everything, be it nature or fabrication. Two – whether the problems were God-sent or manmade, it was predominantly man who became the victim of endless tragedies. Three – there were lessons hidden in the underbelly of every crisis. Yep, hindsight is the best guru. One must learn from his/her failures or mistakes.
A streak of commonality flows through both the tragic episodes - power cuts. Electricity is the backbone for household chores, arts, science, technology, politics, economy, business, growth, development and what not. When lights are off, our lives will be off. In the realm of finance and money too, it is electricity that plays a major game. It would not be exaggerating if I say that it’s not your hard work, it’s the ample availability of electricity that blesses you with Rupees, Dollars, Euros Yens, Yuans, fame, name and the likes.
You can pin the blame on me for criticising your hard work. But, just for the sake of understanding, let’s play an imaginary game of managing an investment portfolio sans electricity for a fortnight or maybe even a month, choice is yours. I’m putting you in a mediation mode.
Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and savour the air. Bring your thoughts slowly to your portfolio. Pay attention and do not ignore any detail. If you have diversified your investments, find out which are all the financial instruments that would never burn a hole in your pocket owing to lack of electricity for several days. Not just power cuts. At times, you would be away for a vacation. Find out which are all the investments that need your constant attention, your round-the-clock presence, and identify those that care a damn about your absence, power cuts, technical glitches, cyber-attacks and all that nonsense.
Find out if your portfolio can withstand the onslaughts of time, power cuts, technical snags, natural calamities, cyber attacks or even terrorist attacks for that matter. If not, then chances are there that you are digging a burial ground for your portfolio. In the name of investment, you cannot afford to play a casino game, pledging your life, career, earnings and savings.
Ask yourself a question: “If an investment doesn’t defy the odds and survive the uncertainties just a fortnight, what’s the guarantee that it would come as a saviour in my retirement age? Am I investing or am I gambling? Can I rely on it throughout my life, even if there is no electricity for a fortnight or if I’m touring the globe for a few months?”
After the Spain episode, I came across this interesting piece of information somewhere in the social media. I am unable to verify both the original source as well as the probability of reality in this “real” story. Yet, the message could not be ignored. There was a mentioning of an investor who allegedly “travelled from Madrid to Italy” (a few hours of flight travel)” owing to power collapse in Spain. Apparently, he wanted to make some unavoidable trades, might be to avoid losses. If same is the case with your investments, then you should really rethink and re-cultivate your investing habits.