Rain is a blessing, but not for Karachi

Aaaah, the beautiful rain. The amazing weather and the cool breeze during the summer months are almost akin to opening the doors of heaven for those who have been scorched by the sun. The cloudy skies and the slight drizzle that sets the mood alight with joy, whilst bringing a smile on everyone’s face is nothing less than extraordinary. Except only that the face gets instantly splattered with mud which our ‘so-well-mannered’ car/truck/rickshaw drivers spray on pedestrians.

Well, we can’t expect the ‘uneducated’ to demonstrate decency when even our ‘educated’ bureaucrats running the city’s administration are sitting comfortably in their offices, immune to all the chaos that surrounds them. The question remains as to why would they be bothered by the problems faced by the general populace when they don’t seem to be facing the problems the ordinary folk do. They don’t have to wait for public transport in the rain, unsheltered, as they have been provided the latest luxury cars by their respective departments.

Now, this may sound like a rant and frankly it is, but these issues have been raised countless times in the media. What does the KMC do all year round when its only job is to ensure efficient administration in the City of Lights. Yes, it is quite effective when it comes to cleaning up the city, but only when some ‘great personality’ is visiting. What about the drains and the nullahs which have been clogged with garbage for decades now. It’s not as if Karachi doesn’t have the infrastructure to operate as a modern city; it’s just that our ‘extremely well-organised’, ‘highly educated’ bureaucrats are not bothered enough to do their jobs.

There may be those who would start presenting a list of all the things that the KMC has been doing in recent years, but to be honest, I really don’t care. All that matters is that when the skies open from above, this should remain a blessing for Karachiites; instead what we go through is a nightmare. The general populace is the one that suffers. They are the ones who have to endure wading through Karachi’s muddy roads and lose more than just their worldly possessions — their sanity.

Obviously, this small write-up isn’t going to change anything but an average Pakistani can’t do more than just hope for things to improve. After all, it is hope that drives us and is apparently more reliable than our administrators. So let’s hope that one day the administrators actually do something concrete rather than the face-saving activities they usually resort to. Fingers crossed.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2015.