India, Feb. 9 -- It began as an ordinary Sunday - the kind that promises little and delivers peace. I was halfway through my morning tea when the unthinkable happened. The Wi-Fi went off. The tiny symbol on my phone vanished, and with it, civilisation as we knew it. For a moment, the house fell into stunned silence. My son, home from college, stared at his blank laptop screen as if it had suddenly forgotten its purpose. My niece, whose fingers are usually glued to her phone, let out a gasp that could have woken the neighbours. Even Alexa stood mute, robbed of her reason to exist. "Don't worry," I said bravely, channelling the spirit of a freedom fighter. "It's just a few minutes." But deep inside, I too felt the tremor of panic. What would happen to the day's news, the pending emails, the WhatsApp jokes, and the comforting scroll through other people's lives? Minutes stretched into hours. I made the first attempt to restore order - restarted the router, unplugged it, replugged it, and even whispered a prayer. Nothing worked. Finally, my wife, calm as ever, suggested, "Why don't we just... talk?" The suggestion hung in the air like something exotic. Talk? Without emojis? Without background music? Yet, we tried. At first, it was awkward. The children looked up from their lifeless gadgets, blinking into real human faces. Then slowly, conversation began to flow - like an old river finding its way after years of drought. We talked about the last trip we had taken before life got busy. We laughed about the time we got lost in McLeodganj and ended up at a Tibetan cafe that served the best momos of our lives. The house came alive with voices again. Someone found an old deck of cards; someone else rediscovered the guitar. The smell of popcorn drifted through the living room as we watched the rain instead of a screen. It was astonishing how quickly the rhythm of life returned to something we had almost forgotten. By evening, we had lost all sense of digital time. My niece, who normally scrolls through a hundred filters before posting a selfie, looked radiant in plain lamplight. My son declared that "offline life" was not so bad after all - though he said it the way one might compliment a museum. Just when the day had turned beautifully quiet, the Wi-Fi light blinked back to life - a tiny green eye glowing in the corner. Instantly, all heads turned. For a moment, no one moved. Then, like moths drawn to a flame, everyone reached for their devices. The spell broke. As the familiar tapping resumed, I sat back and smiled at the irony. The world had returned to "normal" - fast, connected, and slightly lonely. That night, when everyone had drifted back to their screens, I sat by the window with a cup of tea. The rain had stopped, but the air still smelt of wet leaves and quiet. For the first time in weeks, I felt unhurried. No notifications, no buzzing - just the hum of crickets somewhere outside. I realised we hadn't really missed much in those few hours. In fact, we had found something we didn't know we had lost: The sound of each other's laughter and the comfort of unplanned moments. That morning's breakdown wasn't a breakdown at all. It was a reboot - not of the router, but of us....