(Published 21.7.2009)

http://www.dailynationalcourier.com/national_courier/jul2009_daily/21-07-09/artical/artical1.htm

Around this time of the year, every year, Karachiites seem to become extremely impatient for rains. It is easy to understand their impatience in a land geographically defined by merciless scorching sun most part of the year, particularly sweltering months that start as early as April stretches some time as long as December. Who would not long for merciful monsoon rains that provide natural relief to cool down.
However, welcomed as they are monsoon rains have make a habit of leaving behind them a trail of death and destruction.
This time around the downpour has taken around four dozen precious human lives from electrocution, drowning, house collapses and other rain-related accidents.
Just how devastating the downpour has been this time around is obvious from the fact that two days after the start of the rains on Saturday July 18 the city, Karachi wore a calamity-hit look on Monday July 20.
Public and private transporters as well as attendance at government and private institutions and offices remained extremely thin compared to routine as people preferred to stay in the houses for a number of reasons.
The Number one reason has been the power failures that lasted as long as over 40 hours in many parts of the city when the system of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) totally collapsed Saturday night.
So the sleep-deprived people forced o make do with power since Saturday night stayed home as they were too sleepy to join duty Monday. What else could you expect from sleep-deprived people with shot nerves?
On th way to work Monday I witnessed around a dozen self-volunteers, few of whom carried long bamboo sticks, probing the waters under the lasbella bridge over Lyari River. I soon realized they were trying to retrieve the bodies of people drowned elsewhere when I saw a body they had pulled out. I wondered whose son/husband/father/brother would he had been? Whether his family knew that he was no more? I snapped photos from the Bridge and headed towards work with heavy heart.
That was the second time in two days I understood the ground realities of rain in my part of the world: On Saturday I saw a horse electrocuted in the Garden area.
he residents of the nearby apartment complex informed me that seven passengers; including a woman, three children and three males, as well as the tonga driver were fortunate enough to excape any harm when live electric wire fell and killed the poor horse. I took photographs of the dead horse (see the photograph on the Front Page), talked to the eye-witnesses and left thinking about financial hardship of the poor tonga driver. We have no custom of paying compensation to families of electrocution victims, be they humans or animals, no matter how poor they are.
Meanwhile the song from Hollywood blockbuster “Butch Cassisdy and the Sundance Kid”, played by greatest actors of all times Paul Newman and Robert Redford respectively, kept ringing in my years:
Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin’ seems to fit
Those raindrops are fallin’ on my head, they keep fallin’
…
Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red
Cryin’s not for me
‘Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
Because I’m free
Nothin’s worryin’ me