Obligatory comment about India taxing air conditioners as luxury goods while people are literally dying of heat strokes every summer
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).