The city's normal daily routine ground to a halt yesterday for the first of three days of official mourning - car horns were silenced, construction halted, shops and restaurants shuttered tight.
The lost power closed retail stores and halted Internet shopping, canceling purchases or delaying them until next week or next month.
Now, after the terrorist attacks temporarily halted online shopping and claimed up to 5% of some e-tailers' third-quarter revenue, the holiday season is going to be even more critical.
The Hollywood-sized scenareadseads like this: email, telephone and television services would go dark, media organisations become unable to gather and disseminate news, governments struggle to communicate emergency information, commerce grinds to a halt, shops run out of food, the transport system collapses and electricity supplies are be severely disrupted.
Business would grind to a halt, shops could run short of basic supplies and increasingly agitated residents could find it hard to buy fuel and medicine.
I overheard people complaining about the closed shops, the halted commercial life.
A recent attempt to seal thousands of illegal shops was halted by a coalition of traders who could vote the Congress party out of power in the Delhi municipality.
In Germany, media from across the political spectrum applauded the communal underpinnings of blue laws in the wake of a 2009 court decision that halted the advance of Sunday shopping at no more than three weeks in a row.
Among the new rules initiated by the king: oncoming traffic will be permitted on the road opposite a royal convoy, the period for which traffic is halted will be reduced, and shopping malls do not have to close their doors to the public if a royal family member shows up.
The club, which opened after the City Council halted the establishment of new shops, said the moratorium violated the state's Compassionate Use Act.
