I don’t know if I’m alone in this, but I have never before experienced a monsoon which broke at night. This year, I had quite given up on it when it began with a cloudburst. In that, it was following tradition, for monsoons mean pouring rain. Until quite an advanced age, I remember going out into that rain, getting instantly drenched, and just wandering around getting wet and dirty. (Not only did the rain itself contain a high concentration of dust, but Lahore’s street are still filthy, meaning that they soon became flooded with a peculiarly brown water. My mother always made me have a bath after this. No way she was having me slop filthy rain water over her nice clean floors.)
The cloudburst itself could happen in a moment of idleness, in which case you took to the street, or the good old backyard. However, of late we had become used to the monsoon breaking on Eid day, during the Eid prayer, or if you were lucky, just after, when you had put on your slippers. Running over a paved road barefoot is not only (quite literally) painful, but it is also dangerous. However, this Eid, we had moved behind the arrival it seemed.
But life goes on. We had a family dinner to attend, with what seemed a large number of children in attendance. Everyone got wet, to the point where the host freely offered his children’s clothes to anyone who got soaked, because of even a brief stint in the open. I made my excuses, it was bad enough getting wet just by getting into and out of the car, despite modelling my sprinting style on Fawad Chaudhry at the Islamabad High Court, to have to force myself into someone else’s clothes. My younger boy accepted, with the result that his cousin’s t-shirt, or tracksuit bottom (they look the same), or both, are still mixed in our laundry. (The etiquette seems to be that, even if a holey and grimy old t-shirt has been borrowed, it must be returned starched, ironed and washed whiter than white. One woman’s way of showing another what her standard of housekeeping is.
One of the things I noticed was how prompt LESCO was at turning off the power. Those places where it didn’t, were probably the ones where people venturing out in the floods were electrocuted. And by the way, these were serious people with things to do, not kids cavorting in the rain. At the dinner where I went, the kids weren’t allowed to cavort, despite loud cries from the younger set. The hostess was probably aghast at the idea of having to provide so many kids emergency clothes, and the mothers at the prospect of having to care for sick children.
Yes, it’s one of the accompaniments of the monsoon, bouts of the flu.
Another thing that seems to be happening is houses collapsing. I suppose that makes sense. All the corners cut by builders 50 or 60 years ago are leading to house collapses now. That means we should do two things. Get our present buildings checked for fitness, and make sure that the buildings we make can take the rain not just now, but in the future. People are living in buildings made centuries ago, and expect that they won’t come crashing down around their heads.
The real thing the government must look after is drainage. If there is no water standing, there will be no electrocution, no undermining of building foundations, and no inconvenience. Unfortunately, it seems the government leaves it to people to get rid of the water themselves.
Footnote to these notes: The thespian Shakeel, who had a special place in the development of TV in Pakistan, has passed away. A truly sad loss. He well deserved the monicker Ole Blue Eyes, which was accorded to the late great Frank Sinatra, even though the classic ‘Singin In the Rain’, was sung by Gene Kelly for the 1952 film of that name, and which could still be used now, seven decades later. And another seven decades later.
