Tea takes a backseat in homes amid fuel crunch

Gaya: The panic-like situation created by LPG shortage is also having a social fallout. According to one account, a person, preferring anonymity, visited an acquaintance living near the railway bridge in the western part of Gaya town on Friday evening.

As per usual courtesy, the host asked his homemaker wife to prepare two cups of tea.To the shocked surprise of the visitor, the normally pleasant homemaker almost bluntly said that very little gas was left in the nearly empty cylinder and meal preparation, not tea, was her priority. Almost sheepishly, the host apologised to the visitor, who in turn laughed it off. Similar, and sometimes less blunt, stories are doing the rounds in the social circles of the town.

On Saturday afternoon, Masoom Aziz Kazmi, a retired IPS officer now living alone in his sprawling White House Compound residence, said he was out searching for an induction stove as his nearly empty gas cylinder could run out any moment. When reminded that his large house might still have the brick-built coal oven, the retired officer said his kitchen maid had refused to revive the coal-based oven as she could no longer bear the smoke.

At Anugrah Narain Magadh Medical College Hospital, Jeevika didis managing the hospital kitchen are ready with a “Plan B” if the crisis deepens.Confirming the “Plan B”, hospital superintendent Dr KK Sinha said the didis had got several earthen stoves built so they could instantly switch to coal in an emergency. They have also pooled personal LPG cylinders to keep the kitchen running, and the SDO had arranged for some unused domestic LPG cylinders of the hospital to be refilled.Two meals, breakfast and evening tea, are served to nearly 1,800 patients and their attendants daily, said Dr Sinha, adding that he would do his best to keep the hospital kitchen running.Samosa lovers in the city are also feeling the impact as several popular eateries in different parts of the town have stopped making samosas.According to Jitendra, a resident of Rampur, samosa for him is not just another snack but an addiction.A leading dealer of electrical items with a showroom near Golpatthar and A P Colony said the demand for induction stoves had almost doubled. The supply was somehow being managed, but nothing could be said with certainty about the immediate future, the dealer said.