As the mercury rises and the brownouts become longer, here is another one from the archives.
I got an interesting forwarded email in my inbox for a change. It showed the skylines of various major cities of the world at night. There was the Manhattan skyline from New York, the Eiffel Tower from Paris, the Palace of Westminster from London, and from Karachi, a blank, black screen. This email was followed up in the next send/receive cycle by a single line email from one of my friends. All it said was, “Need a generator ASAP”. This was followed up a day later by an email detailing a scheme from a bank through which customers could get instalment loans for the express purpose of purchasing generators.
One more subject has, it seems, been added to the list of topics of conversation in parties and weddings everywhere. Everyone has an opinion on the ongoing power crisis to hit the nation in general and the city of Karachi in particular, and unlike the captaincy of the cricket team or the propensity for certain politicians’ hands to ‘accidentally’ brush against parts of their parliamentary colleagues’ anatomy and be caught on camera and put on YouTube, in this case there are no dissenting opinions. All parties agree that these power shortages are bad, but there is still considerable difference of opinion on what exactly should be done about it.
My personal take on the situation is that since the major culprit is power theft thanks to the thousands of kundas being employed by our enterprising brethren everywhere, the first thing that needs to be done is to remove the illegal contraptions as quickly as possible. This does come with one caveat, however. A kunda being used by the neighbourhood children to illuminate their night-time cricketing endeavours is a perfectly justifiable use of state resources, and these should be exempt from this crackdown. After all, one should not forget the indiscretions of one’s own youth, mis-spent or otherwise.
Of course, this may cause some complications if it comes to light (pun not intended, but I shall take the credit anyway) that many of the places of work and residence of our long-armed brethren, who would presumably be asked to help in this campaign of dekundafication are also on the list of sites to be sounded out.
One reassuring thing I learnt thanks to the recent power peek-a-boo being played out in this city is that you don’t fall off a treadmill if there is a power failure, even if you have built up a decent head of steam. Although there is a moment of existential crisis as you go from running full-tilt to being at a dead stop, but at least you don’t fall flat on your face. This is a bit of a relief to me, as I have got a suit for my wedding that is just a bit, shall we say ‘snug’, around the waistline, and I need to drop half an inch around my waist and then, more importantly, keep it off. I am assuming that all wedding venues have their own independent power supply nowadays. The last thing that I want is to end up having my nuptials in the light of mobile phones.
On alternative, of course, is what I recently witnessed at a wedding; the whole venue was engulfed in total darkness, apart from the generator-fuelled (and very tasteful) lights illuminating the bride and groom in all their finery. So while it was totally dark for all the guests, the happy couple was wreathed in a most apt, surreal halo. This arrangement, of course, has the added advantage that the guests have only a rudimentary idea of the food being doled out to them, and hence are marginally less likely to find fault. Not to mention the video-photographer being thwarted in his efforts to commit to celluloid my battle with an unusually intractable chicken wing, which I did manage to win after a protracted tussle.
You know how people who have just had a baby are completely obsessed by it and can speak of nothing else? Sometimes I feel like the run-up to a wedding is quite similar. There are so many lists percolating in my mind that talk inevitably drifts in that direction, try as I might to keep all talk purely casual. And a new concern has been added to the ever growing list. Ample time must be allowed for in giving clothes, jewellery and all kinds of other orders for the inevitable delays that the craftsmen in question will smoothly blame on power failures; sitting in Ghayas the tailor’s atrium on the evening of your Valima waiting for the suit to arrive hot off the presses is no one’s idea of how to spend a couple of hours.
Everyone is dealing, it seems, with this on-again-off-again relationship that we are developing with electricity in their own way. Some are getting mad. Others are getting generators. I, to the considerable chagrin of those nearest and dearest to me, am managing somehow to find the humour in the situation, although it isn’t the easiest thing to do when dealing with marathon 14-hour outages.
Just last night, there was an electricity failure in our neighbourhood that went beyond the normal shedding of the load that is now so commonplace. One of the neighbours, Mr Nadeem, managed to pull a whole ball of strings and get a KESC vehicle to turn up in the middle of the night. I was on my balcony at the time, eating the much cooler night air, and heard the comment made by the foreman to the watchman of our apartment building.
The foreman asked the nightwatchman if the electricity had returned yet! Yes, actually it has, and we are just sitting in the dark or with generators running because the sound of the infernal machines is pleasing to our ears, thank you very much! I could not help but laugh at the question. It is heartening to know that officials do not shed themselves of their officiousness even at 3 in the morning.
Happy-for-some side effects of this ongoing crisis will, I feel. include people remaining awake during hot summer nights with no cable television to while away the hours and seeking alternate diversions, and the more experimental ones amongst us welcoming the opportunity to shed as much unnecessary nightwear (and accompanying inhibitions) as possible. Consequently, I predict a miniature baby boom to augment the huge baby boom that our fair land has achieved over the last few decades.
Originally published in April 2008. Link to the edited version as published:
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