The night GE electrified an ancient Himalayan village
The night the 700-year-old mountain oasis of Rakuru was to see its first electric light, the whole village gathered in the largest room and waited for someone to flip the switch. But nothing happened.
“We scrambled in the dark to look for the problem,” said Shantnu Mathuria, a GE Power employee who had trekked to the isolated spot in Northern India to bring electricity to the people of Rakuru. They found one loose contact and then tried it again. This time the room lit up with bright light. “The people were hugging each other and dancing,” said Shivani Saklani, a GE Power project management specialist who also made the journey. “The experience was so powerful it made me cry.”
Perched like a snow pigeon’s nest 13,000 feet high on the granite flanks of the Karakoram Range, Rakuru consists of eight stone homes surrounded by fields of wild flowers, barley and green peas sustaining approximately 70 villagers. But since this summer, it’s also a beacon of light shining across the stark, treeless landscape.
pulse.com.gh
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