The power of affluence
The conversation came to mind as we endured an almost-30-hour blackout this week
The writer is editorial consultant at The Express Tribune, news junkie, bibliophile, cat lover and occasional cyclist
Every month, soon after the ‘due date’ for payment of the electricity bill a man with a clipboard appears at the gate. He inspects the paid bill, compares it to his printout and peers closely at the meter — all in the pursuit of ensuring that there is no hanky-panky going on and everybody in the electricity cycle is cleaner than clean. I recently asked him how it was that we seemed to escape the worst of the power cuts that plagues other parts. ‘People in this area pay their bills on time,’ said he, so they get a good supply.
The conversation came to mind as we endured an almost-30-hour blackout this week. It took a while to pin down a Wapda person willing to even admit that they worked for Wapda, but there was an increasingly angry small crowd forming around a faulty transformer at the end of the road. Add to the crowd, many of whom were familiar faces, a distinctly irritated gora with a notebook, camera and a prominently-worn press card and the Wapda persons present either ran away smartly or went into rabbit-in-headlights mode.
There had been two replacement transformers by this time both of which failed within minutes of powering up. There had been a plea from local mosques via Wapda not to turn on a/c units when power returned. Well that was never going to work was it? It didn’t. So up rolls Wapda yet again this time with a new and considerably beefier transformer. Power returned around 3am this morning and so far seems steady.
Having got a Wapda person nailed to the wall by his ears interrogation commenced. All the power lines had been upgraded in the last six months so why this problem now? Turns out there are too many people that have installed a/c units in the last year. Too many for the transformer to handle that is. They pay their bills in a timely manner and, this being the hottest that the country has ever been, crank the a/c units down to 18°C and chill. Or not as in our most recent example. Too many huh? Cue Google Earth.
The earliest image for the area I live in held by Google Earth is dated mid-2005, about a year after we bought the house. Our property is in almost complete isolation, open fields to the front and sides, a view confirmed by a scroll through old digital images. Track forward and little changes apart from a few plots getting filled in until 2011 when a building boom gets into gear and accelerates to the point today where virtually all once-arable land has been replaced by housing. And these are not small houses. Most sit on 10-15 marla plots, many are two or three storied, several operate as schools — two on the road I live on — and close inspection of the imagery indicates an abundance of split a/c units. We have three and I am sure we are not alone. The nailed-to-the-wall Wapda man begun to make sense.
‘So why upgrade the wires and not the transformers?’ say I. Nervous laughter from Wapda man. You and your organisation cannot have been unaware of the upturn in consumption in recent times — can you? Shakes head. Clipboard Person comes every month and makes a report that presumably somebody reads? Nods and smiles. So if me and my neighbours come down to your office, burn it to the ground and hang you and your co-workers up by their toes from the nearest bijli-pole you will have no objection? (…OK I made up the last bit but there were certainly some destructive rumblings in the neighbourhood.)
Unhooking Wapda-man I sent him on his way. My bill-paying neighbours nodded appreciatively as I wended my way home, a handshake here, a smile and a nod there, and today it is all a fading memory. I went back to Google Earth and looked across the city as a whole. What was striking was that the poor areas, the bustis, had remained virtually the same size in the last decade, whilst the areas of obvious affluence had grown almost exponentially. Must be a PhD for somebody in there. Tootle-pip!
Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2017.
The conversation came to mind as we endured an almost-30-hour blackout this week. It took a while to pin down a Wapda person willing to even admit that they worked for Wapda, but there was an increasingly angry small crowd forming around a faulty transformer at the end of the road. Add to the crowd, many of whom were familiar faces, a distinctly irritated gora with a notebook, camera and a prominently-worn press card and the Wapda persons present either ran away smartly or went into rabbit-in-headlights mode.
There had been two replacement transformers by this time both of which failed within minutes of powering up. There had been a plea from local mosques via Wapda not to turn on a/c units when power returned. Well that was never going to work was it? It didn’t. So up rolls Wapda yet again this time with a new and considerably beefier transformer. Power returned around 3am this morning and so far seems steady.
Having got a Wapda person nailed to the wall by his ears interrogation commenced. All the power lines had been upgraded in the last six months so why this problem now? Turns out there are too many people that have installed a/c units in the last year. Too many for the transformer to handle that is. They pay their bills in a timely manner and, this being the hottest that the country has ever been, crank the a/c units down to 18°C and chill. Or not as in our most recent example. Too many huh? Cue Google Earth.
The earliest image for the area I live in held by Google Earth is dated mid-2005, about a year after we bought the house. Our property is in almost complete isolation, open fields to the front and sides, a view confirmed by a scroll through old digital images. Track forward and little changes apart from a few plots getting filled in until 2011 when a building boom gets into gear and accelerates to the point today where virtually all once-arable land has been replaced by housing. And these are not small houses. Most sit on 10-15 marla plots, many are two or three storied, several operate as schools — two on the road I live on — and close inspection of the imagery indicates an abundance of split a/c units. We have three and I am sure we are not alone. The nailed-to-the-wall Wapda man begun to make sense.
‘So why upgrade the wires and not the transformers?’ say I. Nervous laughter from Wapda man. You and your organisation cannot have been unaware of the upturn in consumption in recent times — can you? Shakes head. Clipboard Person comes every month and makes a report that presumably somebody reads? Nods and smiles. So if me and my neighbours come down to your office, burn it to the ground and hang you and your co-workers up by their toes from the nearest bijli-pole you will have no objection? (…OK I made up the last bit but there were certainly some destructive rumblings in the neighbourhood.)
Unhooking Wapda-man I sent him on his way. My bill-paying neighbours nodded appreciatively as I wended my way home, a handshake here, a smile and a nod there, and today it is all a fading memory. I went back to Google Earth and looked across the city as a whole. What was striking was that the poor areas, the bustis, had remained virtually the same size in the last decade, whilst the areas of obvious affluence had grown almost exponentially. Must be a PhD for somebody in there. Tootle-pip!
Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2017.