December 05, 2006
Here comes the rain againNews
The amount of havoc wreaked in Karachi by the weather over the last few days has been insane.
With 51mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours (whatever that technically means, all I know is that my mother spent most of her day scurrying about in the rain with a trowel in order to re-plant her seedlings in parts of the garden that were elevated enough to rise above it all), things have been kind of nuts. While I haven’t really been out of the house much, since everyone in Karachi magically loses the ability to drive successfully if it’s pouring, my short stints have seen a fair amount of damage done to parts of the city.
While the actual numbers are listed in the linked articles, so far people have died from the cold, from being electrocuted as live power cables snapped and fell into the water through which they were wading, and a number of shops and businesses have shut down because the streets are (were) flooded and there’s no access to them. Karachi’s most notorious underpass, which was designed to keep traffic flowing smoothly was temporarily the city’s most expensive wading pool, and all the while, power outages continue to make their presence felt—I’ve spent most of today trying to make sure that all the power outlets in the house are turned off so that the electronics in the kitchen and assorted rooms don’t blow up from sudden current surges. While it’s somewhat understandable that a desert city may not necessarily be well-equipped for rainfall, one would think that annual monsoons would have indicated to the municipal authorities that SOME sort of drainage system is in order.
As a bulletin from the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights states, apparently,
of the 350 million gallons of waste water Karachi produces every day, only 30 million gallons are treated by the Karachi Water and Sewage Boards three treatment plants (two built by foreign loans), which have the capacity to treat 151 million gallons. All the rest flows into the citys 9 natural drainage nullahs (canals/lanes), and out into the sea - untreated. Foreign-financed infrastructure projects may be bankrupting Pakistan, but for the banks, the big construction companies and the high-flying consultants, they are real money-spinners.
I’m hardly an expert, but having seen the amount of construction work going on in various parts of the city, particularly the (oft-described as “upscale”) ares of Defence and Karachi, I’m not sure that anything substantive is really being accomplished. I think the best analysis to date that I’ve found of the problem is in one of Pakistan’s better-selling monthly news magazines, Newsline, which has a rather good article on the problem, and discusses the issues rising from the summer monsoons that effectively crippled the city this past summer, in July. Some choice quotes:
It started with some rain. Then before you could say the word “infrastructure,” the city flooded. The mayhem that followed was of Katrina-like proportions: power outages, telecommunication failures, collapsed roads, sewage in the streets, car breakdowns, stranded workers, five-hour commutes, flooded businesses, crores of inventory soaked and ruined, inaccessible hospitals and electrocuted pedestrians.
On July 30, some dark clouds rolled into town and dumped 67 mm of rain on Karachi. Then on August 17, the monsoon showered the city with 56mm. So, less than three inches of rain hit the city on each occasion. Three inches. Three inches is less than the depth of a coffee mug. Three inches is the length of an adult’s index finger. Clearly, ‘torrential downpour’ shouldn’t be used to describe three inches of rain. Moreover, three inches of rain should not be associated with the words ‘state of emergency.’
The rains that happened in the last few days haven’t had quite as catastrophic consequences as one would have expected on the basis of the article, but they’ve definitely messed the city up substantially. One of the major problems has been the covering up of the nullahs, the drainage canals, by housing developments that while not technically illegal, shouldn’t have occurred in the first place, were it not for incompetent or possibly corrupt land zoning authority regulators who seemed to think that allowing construction work to block drainage sites wouldn’t cause any future problems.
Well, at least the rain seems to have stopped. Anyone know where I can get a canoe?
sin on December 5, 2006 08:40 AM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Wow! Looks just like Bombay, isn't it.
Seriously sin, does EVERYTHING you write have to be about homosexuality?
Joking, of course. I hope you and all of your loved ones stay safe and dry.
L.L. Bean at Tyson's? Hope the seedlings (and all of you) are okay; your dedication to the mutiny (I wouldn't be allowed to blog if my Mother was shrieking at me to do this/that/and the other because we were in the middle of some awful storm) has been duly noted. :)
Good to see the rain did not wash away this Sin! :-)
Well, there is an obvious connection.
Wow, didn't know that could rain so much at this time of the year.
Stay safe and dry.
Oops, here's the original. Fabulous!
Links like those "Raining Men" videos are why I read Sepia Mutiny!
Hallelujah, it's raining men!
blame it on the rain ...
And here's the song Sin's title referenced, by Eurythmics. This was a great song and I'm happy to be reminded of it.
When we were little, the servants used to carry us to school on their shoulders during the floods. We'd be chillin' up there while they struggled neck-deep in dirty, rapid water, back and forth, four times a day. One time, I dropped my tiffin and made the guy go fish for it...
Don't judge me! I was 5, ok?!
:(
Awwww, Shruti. :)
Gawd, what an 80s kid... you know, I wasn't even born when that song came out :-P
Ennis is staring holes into his computer screen right about now...
Awww Shruti you brought back memories of my grandfather. My brother and I used to take the school bus and my grandfather would carry my brother on his shoulders to the bus because he was too little to stay dry in the rain and the rainboots didn't always help with the knee deep water. When I was a kid my grandfather did the same thing with me.
Gawd what a 90s kid...you know, they never pass up an opportunity to remind everyone when they were born **grrr**
heh :) JOAT, that was me "digging up" after my way too serious, borderline creepy comment about age here.
Wait a second, the OLDEST a "90s" kid could be would be 16, and I got the impression Shruti was older than that. Confused!
Showing my own age.....
Oran "Juice" Jones: "The Rain".
Back in the days when RnB was still called "Soul".
Jai Singh bhai,
We have had our differences but I must BOW DOWN TO YOU for the Oran "Juice" Jones blast from the past. That shit was transcendent!
OK, I'm totally threadjacking here but I can't resist. The pseudo-Egypto-Asian costumes and iconography will have to serve as the desi angle.
Siddartha bondhu,
Re: "Juice"
I can do even better than that.....
I give you Mr Alexander O'Neal.
Yeah I let that one go last time considering you are 21 and all :-)
Siddhartha step away from the computer and get some air or you are going to start looking like this pretty soon.
I'm a 90s kid, 80s baby. But neither fact is as cool as having been born in the Summer of Love... hey Siddhartha, were your parents hippies? :-P
Ok, ok, I'll find someone else to pick on.
Jai Singh,
Oh yeah?
Doh of course, how else do you think they could have produced such a prodigy?
I think we should have a big Mutiny party where everyone who wants to gets to spin a one-hour set. Perhaps we can hold it on the moon once Abhi gets done setting up the infrastructure.
You have a deal. I will be channeling my inner homosexual man. I hope Sin won't be offended!
Siddhartha,
I accept your bid re: Lisa Lisa, and raise it even further with this classic track.
Damn Jai, solid stuff. I'm actually trying to write an article right now through all this, so I leave you for a little while, with this absolute classic from the same era.
Siddhartha and Jai Singh,
Do the two of you care at all about the fact that some of your fellow mutineers are trying to get some work done?
god's mad at the gays....
rain always brings the memory of childhood. why? whether its the smell of wet dirt or playing football or just eating pakoras and drinking some chai. funtimes
work? what? who? I am on SM right now for a reason...and work is not one of them
Great video, Siddhartha. I tended to like the smoother stuff in that era but since you seem to prefer things a little funkier, I'm going to sign off this thread too (before we hijack it any further !) with this and this.
Maybe SM should have a Soul & Rap nostalgia thread too, to supplement the rock/heavy metal discussion which is going on in the other thread.....
Yes, but this is an unwanted flood situation that has caused quite a bit of damage. Are a lot of people hurt?
Widespread rain claims 17 lives
Wasn't that the summer of 69? Or are you referring to the Cruel Summer of '83?
Hmm... I personally thought this anthem defined the mid-80s in so many ways...
If you don't have anything even remotely interesting to say, please refrain. The site is becoming a waste of time.
ash sood
You could have wasted less time on this "waste of time" site by not bothering to respond.
ash sood: I'm sorry you don't find this interesting. Perhaps you could have passed on clicking this particular link and picked a different story to read, one that you might find more to your liking? Just a thought.
Another interesting post Sin. Funny how the comments kind of got away from it :p. Let's see if I can help bring it back. Of course I've dealt with this in Karachi before and had to help push half submerged cars in Lahore a few times...but it's interesting that even in the US there are serious drainage problems. I lived in Savannah, Georgia for a bit, and every year it would rain and downtown would get seriously flooded. I suspect the drainage system downtown was very old and clogged up pretty fast with all the debris from trees and people. It's still nowhere near as bad as it gets in Pakistan though. As for construction issues in Karachi, Cowasjee (as I am sure you are aware) has written quite a bit about some of these issues in his columns for Dawn.
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/cowas.htm
I'd dig through the archives and find some specific links on the topic..but I've got to get back to work :p. His column is quite amazing, and I highly recommend it to anyone, much like a blog for readers here.
And I am all for introducing a hip hop/soul discussion, bring it!
Back on topic...
Sin, global warming, do you think? But also, how are things holding up given the infrastructural damage from the earthquake, also? Do you think some of the damage is being compounded in a much worse way?
Sin,
Old Parsis in my neighborhood used to refer to Karachi as Bombays cousin.
Your posts on fashion biz and rain make the connection clear. And we are not even discussing cricket yet.
Global warming is the new el nino.
People are going to hate me for this, and I'm bracing myself for the backlash, but...whenever I think of Karachi, I think of all my Sindhi (Hindu) friends who parents/grandparents had to flee that city, only to have it taken over by Urdu-speaking foreigners. When I was in training, I was at a meeting once, presided over by an elderly white gentleman. There were several of us there, about 20 people, including one of my best friends, an ABD Sindhi whose parents left Karachi as babies in 1947. There was also an Urdu-speaking Pakistani whose parents were originally from Bihar pre-1947. The elderly white man for whatever reason brought up the topic of Pakistan...this Pakistani guy started talking proudly about Karachi, how nice it is, how much fun he had growing up there, how cultured the people are, etc. My Sindhi friend didn't say anything (I doubt he even cared or was thinking along the same lines as me) but I found it sad that my friend, who had roots in that city and province going back centuries if not millenia, and whose family had been cast out completely, and wouldn't even be welcome to go back, had to sit there and listen while someone representing a foreign culture to that city and province (but what is by far the dominant culture now), and whose roots there only extended one generation, waxed so eloquently about it. I felt in that one moment I was seeing the utter irony of Partition. And this has nothing to do with BJP or Hindutva or anything (I hate all of that stuff intensely)...it was just a human reaction to the scene that I witnessed.
Well, in India you can safely expect the real number to be about double that, so I'm guessing it's like that in Pakistan too.
Neither. I'm talking about THE Summer of Love. People born at that time always get asked if their parents were a bunch of acid tripping, interpretive dancing, free loving, VW riding, granola eating flower children :)
None of the above was intended to make light of the suffering caused by the rains in Karachi right now, or minimize what the people there are going through.
Amitabh roots aren't just defined by where someone's lineage is from. Roots are where we find our own grounding. Your friend's silence doesn't really take away from the fact that the other guy feels like that is where his roots are. It would be like someone who was born/raised in NYC tell me my experience or roots in NYC are insignificant because I've only lived here 20 years.
Identity is such a complicated issue.
Amitabh - From what I have been personally told and also read, etc., about Partition and that time, I think there was uprooting of many families from "all" sides of the aisle. We don't even have to look halfway across the world to see the effects of displacement and replacement on societies - it even happened right here (not sure where you are) in North America.
JOAT, I'm not denying that the Pakistani dude has legitimate roots in Karachi; by growing up there and having his family there, it's his city; and in one sense, my Sindhi friend is not rooted there at all since he didn't grow up there and has never been there. I still found that scene I witnessed to be ironic and kind of sad though. Maybe I'm not expressing myself well. No offense meant to anyone.
Sin, sorry I didn't mean to imply that your story was uninteresting. It's just that there are so many pointless posts here that are completely unnecessary. It never ceases to amaze me how people feel compelled to say every thought on their mind without regard to the fact that they are unnecessarily cluttering this space and causing others to wade through tons of garbage to find few bits of remotely interesting ideas.
ash sood,
please leave your email so i can send my comment for your approval before posting..
oops i did it again - just unnecessary
You must be at the wrong place. The Museum of Modern Art is here. This here is a group blog with open comments. Perhaps you don't like blogs, or you don't exactly understand what they are?
You people apparently have no idea who I am.
None whatsoever. Should we care?
Amitabh,
I get your point but there were two sides that equally got screwed in the partition so the sentiment/story is shared by both sides. Resettlement has proven to be tough for any race all thru history. I'm currently reading about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclaimation and the resettling that the slaves went thru especially in Sierra Leone & Liberia and how many of them died as a result of it.
Ha the Jew/Bong humor!
Oh wait, is this the drummer Ash Sood, married to Sarah McLachlan?
LOL are you really serious with this comment? I hope for your sake you are attemping humor.
Are you this Ash Sood, this seems like what you want us to know but are too proud to point out yourself;)
Amitabh,
I don't think you're offending anyone. My grandfather's family is from Lahore, and his college class was the last to graduate pre-Partition (1946). He went back for a class reunion a few years ago and broke down and cried. It was his first time back since his family fled in 1947. I know that a lot of my ABD Pakistani friends feel similarly about their family histories in Indian Punjab. It is complicated and painful and difficult.
Well you've successfully turned the thread into a discussion about you, which is clearly more relevant than the previous "off-topic" discussion about the title of the post...
There is no way the real Ash Sood would waste his time posting useless comments like the above. He has a good-looking, talented wife and a little daughter to focus his attention on (not to mention a career).
Amitabh, so what you're saying is that everyone on this site has an ugly, untalented spouse, and no real career?
Guys,
Let's please stop with the nonsensical comments. "Ash Sood" and "pratik patil" are the same person and both are wasting my time by taking this post off topic. Please stop responding to him as well. Thanks.
Pratik, so what you're saying is ugly, untalented spouses don't deserve attention? ;p
We would rather be flayed by fire ants (cf GGM) than ever shop at LL Bean. We buy our canoes at REI or at MEC.ca
Amitabh,
I for one am going to commend you (for comment #47) because Hindu Sindhis are people without a true homeland. They had to struggle in India to achieve what they have. My relatives in Madhya Pradesh tell me that shopkeepers sometimes tell you that .. "I am not Sindhi .. I am Jain" in order to win your business. It shows the result of the cut-throat world of business where the uprooted Sindhis had to resort to survival tactics, creating a negative image for them in the business community.
Sindhis have had opportunities to get to the highest political levels to highest levels in business and education, which is commendable and the applogists for Kashmiri terrorists must see that here is a community that was uprooted from their homeland but has decided to be part of their new home without resorting to violence and secessionist demands.
Its a shame that you have to qualify your legitimate concern with the "I am against hindutva" caveat.
Ah, monsoons. All I can remember besides the amazing smell of the rain mixing with the earth was the absolutely horrid humidity which killed any hairstyle I semi-attempted for the day. This looks to be a more wretched experience - keep yourself dry, Sin.
Another great post, Sin. I'm loving hearing about Pakistan in this whole other way. Actually New York has had a hard time handling 2 inches of rain at times. A few summers ago it didn't rain for 2 whole months and then we finally had a couple of inches and the entire subway system came to a screeching halt. What a mess.
I had no idea Karachi was a desert. Perhaps the dry earth has something to do with this extra flooding (apart from the infrastructre money not actually going to develop infrasture).
I understand Amitabh's sentiment. I don't think it's offensive. I've been back to India and seen the places my grandparents fled. But unlike the story above, they never wept about their decision, or felt they made the wrong choice. In fact, it was the Muslim relatives left behind in India who had the regrets. A few years ago, I sat in a hovel in Allahabad listening to a ancient lady moan and cry about how she was left behind in 47, and how awful life was now. In contrast, even in the worst circumstances in Karachi (poverty, filth, pollution, heat, drought, bombs, crime, -- Karachi can really suck) I never heard anyone say they wished they had stayed in India.
We really are a bunch of tedious uncles. Every conversation always comes back to partition.
Siddhartha and Jai Singh -- your YouTube link-off was great stuff. I'd never seen the Oran "Juice" Jones video, and had forgotten about the extended monologue at the end of the song. I also didn't realize there was a classic version of "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life" -- I only knew of a more recent King Britt/Sylk 130(?) version (which I love). If there are ever competing meet-ups between you guys and the rock people on the other thread, I know which one will be more fun.
I think that as a complement to the 55 Fridays, we should do YouTube link-offs with songs related to the topic at hand.
My other idea -- SM YouTube antakshari -- girls vs. guys.
His macho outburst "It's MY world. You're just a squirrel without a nut!" must be an all-time classic line :)
I suppose it would be a painful experience overall because it would entail having been cheated on, but breaking up with someone using that monologue (verbatim of course) would be classic.
Ikram,
Would you e-mail me, please, at the address linked above?
"In contrast, even in the worst circumstances in Karachi (poverty, filth, pollution, heat, drought, bombs, crime, -- Karachi can really suck) I never heard anyone say they wished they had stayed in India."
I wish this India vs. Pakistan rivalry would be confined to cricket.