Why did the family stop using their phones?

The lights went out at eight, in the middle of the news, and the fan slowed to a stop like a tired dancer.

For the first few minutes everyone in the Joshi family did the same thing: they picked up their phones. Then, one by one, they noticed the batteries. Papa's was at twelve per cent. Maya's was at five. Grandmother's phone, which she used only to call the vegetable seller, had been dead since Sunday.

So Grandmother lit a candle. And because there was nothing else to do, she began to tell a story about the year the river flooded and her father rowed the whole family to the temple on the hill in a boat made from the doors of their house.

Maya had never heard the story. Neither, it turned out, had Papa.

"You never told me that," he said.

"You never asked," said Grandmother. "You were always doing your homework. Then you were always doing your work."

The candle burned down. Grandmother told three more stories, and one of them was about Papa as a small boy, which made him put his face in his hands while Maya laughed until she could not breathe.

The lights came back at half past ten. Nobody moved to switch on the television.