Fireflies are beautiful insects. They disappear only to magically reappear elsewhere at some distance in the dark giving one an illusion of something out of this world. I cannot distinctly remember when was the last time I saw a firefly. Perhaps, it was way back when I was a little kid when evenings were rendered darker by frequent and long hours of power cuts. Fireflies and stars in the sky would scintillate in the palpable darkness the enshrouded us all. Focus would shift from mundane daily routines to more creative ones. A few hours sans television, when the annoying heat forced us out of our rooms onto the terrace to enjoy the pleasant company of each other. We kids used to play small games and mom loved to serve us dinner under the canopy of the open sky. For sure, I used to curse those times when those power cuts used to curtail us from being a part of the great triumphs of the Indian cricket team, but now looking back, I realize those were indeed a blessing in disguise. Everything changed when we got an inverter in our home. The idiot box being incessantly on, people unable to find time for each other, the gatherings, games and terrace dinners and the pleasant warmth of the evenings imperceptibly faded away. The lightning bugs, I suppose they also suffered the same fate and have disappeared in the elegant and bright realm that man has created. Early men had a fairly simple life. Eat, survive and reproduce, the only three things that were required of them. As man