Adnan Farooqui

*The above photos shows the crowd around a kesc truck which came to the locality after 3 days of consistent power breakdown in the Badar and Shahbaz areas.
Thanks to Ijaz for the images.


On Friday evening, Karachi witnessed a cloudy day, with black clouds looming in the skies above threatening to rain, was only just what people had wished for. I took my usual drive down the infamous "Do Darya" (a remote point of the seaside) or better known to the people as DP. As the weather was pleasant with the much longed for chilly breeze blowing, there was a huge crowd there, everyone from families with 12 children to high school children on their make believe dates with their alleged "soul mates". Then came Friday night or Saturday morning, with the city getting rain in the wee hours of the night marking the start of the so called monsoon season for Karachi. I am damn sure that many people had wished for this rain to be majestically bestowed upon the karachiites. One thing is for certain that we, the more sensible of all karachiites, think of the mess and (honestly speaking) the sh*t we get into whenever it rains in Karachi. Whoever thinks that knee deep water, submerged houses, back flowing drains, water filled underpasses are a blessing in disguise, needs a reality check and a kick on the as* from my side. I have seen my fair share of rain and snow in Murree, believe me I have been caned on the as* with an iron rod in negative thirteen degree centigrade (-13°C) while it was raining with hail, and whatever you think you have done is painful you are probably just another F*ing retard. So wishing for rain here in Karachi just isn’t my piece of cake. Is it just me or whenever all hell breaks loose over the city, I am left alone to deal with the troubled times. Take July 17, 2009 for example, the day when all of Karachi was left without electricity for about 12 to 16 hours and I had to spend the whole night on top a ledge protruding from a overhead water storage tank, having to bear the lovey dovey talk of a friend with his girlfriend. I had surely wished to die there and then. The same thing happened this Saturday with everyone leaving for the village to witness the extraction of a new born child from within the depths of one family friend’s daughter. (And yes what you just read was sarcasm). I willingly excused my self from the little trip, hoping to get some free time to kill with some friends with out the tension of reporting back after every call. So Saturday was mostly a day spent outside of the house, with me having no intentions of getting wet in the rain, I called a close friend, took the wheel of his car, thought the most slow car I have driven till now, and drove through the whole morning and afternoon. What surprised my friend was my occasional hitting of his car’s steering wheel and yelling of “bhaag paro bhaag” whenever I thought that the car was dropping speed, this continued until I got a smack on the head telling me that paro was the long lost love of devdas, while this was the car bought from the hard earned money of his father, so I should respect that or step out of the car immediately. Seeing my options closed, I chose to turn up the volume and drive on, while an unusual smirk on my face bothered my dear friend very much!. All was well till that moment, I went back home, picked up my own car, picked up some friends of mine, headed to a usual hangout, ordered the usual things and watched the rain, which had picked up much speed by then. As fate would have it, my phone was dead, by dead I mean literally dead, it wouldn’t start or anything, so I was basically out of the house and incommunicado. For those of you who know me, might just know what I might get into even though no one was in Karachi. I, trusting my instincts, knew that I should head home because I knew my landline would be ringing off the hook and I would be in deep sh*t if it was not answered within the three call limit!. So this naturally meant that I would have to run through the rain, as taking my car was not an option because the roads were flooded with water and I couldn’t risk my engine getting stalled. Leaving it parked there, I vaguely remember picking up my jeans and running mad all the way in knee deep water from Saba Avenue all the way to Shahbaz with rain coming down as fast as it could. Though i thought that the new wallet I had bought was too over priced and I had been ripped off, but it held up pretty well in the rain and I actually found out that it was indeed original leather :D. I reached home, soaking head to foot, I was pretty surprised to see that we still had electricity. After a little while, there was a big bang in the transformer across the road and there went my electricity for four, yes FOUR! Whole days. As fate would have it, my generator literally fried it self, I mean I could see yellow flames from inside the generator after what seemed to be half an hour from the transformer blast. I knew I had no luck because it was night, and the next day was Sunday. So then began my agonizing wait for the electricity, I was getting rumors about cable faults along the entire Shahbaz region, which made it even worse. Monday came with me calling the repair guy like a million times until I lost it and told him to go screw himself, then I knew that I was not getting electricity any time soon. Somebody tipped me off that they were going to vandalize the kesc office at badar, I went along, threw some stones, said some pretty bad words at the top of our voices but still Monday went with no electricity. That was the limit, I found out that tyres were being arranged and a full scale riot was being planned behind kfc, what better did I have to do ? Though i avoided driving down that locality later the same night concerning fears of my car being stoned and burnt, after all it is the second love of my life :p I confirmed my presence with the people, burnt tyres along the roads, blocking the whole of the 26th street at around 1 am in the night. The best part was the chanting of slogans, the most hilarious of those I heard were “kesc ki maa ka p*****!” and ”maa c***** bijli waloun ki!” with the occasional chorus of “bijli doh! Bijli doh!” it was really worth it as electricity to the area was restored at around 6 in morning. I woke up at 7 and am still typing this blog post. Rest assured, if I hear anyone telling me that we need more rain, he is going to have his head up his own as*!
Peace everyone! 