Delhi temperature hits 50.5C as India's capital records hottest day

Back in the day, in the summer months, it was routine to see:

* power cuts of several _hours_ a day (two or three stretches of 1-2 hours each).

* water supply for only an hour or so, or maybe 2 one-hour periods (morning and evening).

They would rotate the supply around various neighborhoods, to avoid a complete collapse of utilities. We all learned to collect water in giant buckets and tubs for daily use.

At least in the past, there were alternatives to ACs: swamp or desert collers were a common one: they were just big box fans with evaporative mats through which a small pump would drip water. In dry climates (like northern India in the summer) they work amazingly well (they could cool a room down by 20-30 F easily).