Karachi Monsoons

It’s a beautiful evening here in Karachi, light breezes, bright and sunny yet not too warm, just perfect. The rain hasn’t fallen onto our land till now; however, the way wind is blowing it appears that monsoon is just around the corner.

Monsoon is a blessing for the children here and not so much of a favourite amongst the adults.

Karachi although has inherent beauty and grace but like human face it requires constant maintenance and care. Albeit there have been a flood of overheads and underpasses, thousands of tree plantations within this metropolitan however these are merely cosmetic changes; they are similar to several cosmetic surgeries done on a 60 year old person’s face who has unhealthy eating habits, who is a chain smoker and an alcoholic so whatever beauty procedures you would do on such face would not last for long, and sooner than later the ugliness, the scars and marks of such surgeries would appear.

And one of such scars become evident in Karachi when the monsoon season arrive the roads become immobile due to over drainage from sewerage lines, traffic signals cease to function because there is no electricity in the city for several hours during rains and if we need 30 minutes of commute in normal days then during rainfall it might take us 3-4 hours and sometimes even longer mainly because of the traffic jams. So we Karachites have a love-hate relationship with rains.

Irrespective of how pessimist is our version of rain is, we always enjoy the dark clouds, raining flowing down from the sky in abundance, the aroma of pakoras (deep fried, spicy pastries made from gram flour) and the joy that it brings to us which reaches us in our core, even if all this lasts only for couple of minutes.

A very Good Evening to all you.

 

Sonya. (Day 93)