PTI in Balochistan: Quetta loves Kaptaan
In this video, I explored the true sense of excitement that surrounded Imran Khan’s rally in Quetta. As one of the locals who attended the jalsa (rally) in person, I recorded scenes that show what this gathering means to the people of Balochistan. I interviewed men who travelled long distances to see their beloved leader, Imran Khan. The general sentiment around the rally reflected adoration, positivity and patriotism. One can gauge the amount of respect people in Balochistan have for Imran Khan by the fact that many people showed up to support him despite the flooded streets and traffic jams. “Rastay ...
Read Full Post
My school in Badin
Four months after torrential rains hit rural Sindh, the people of Badin are still trying to rebuild their lives. Shaukat is a fourth grader at Kehar Khan Lund primary school in Badin. This video shows his journey to school every morning – a school surrounded by stagnant rain water. Every day, Shaukat and his seventy-two classmates wade through filthy stagnant rainwater, smiling, even laughing at their struggle. However, their teacher says with no help, little can be done to keep the school functional. Even though Shaukat is fond of learning and says that his favourite subject is poetry, he will ...
Read Full Post
Suo motu this, your Lordship
In a recent news piece on television, told in a voice-over that makes me wonder if the narrator was secretly snickering at the story, it was reported that the Chief Justice of Pakistan couldn’t make it to the Supreme Court on time because his car was stuck in the flooded streets of Karachi. As I go through The Express Tribune’s slideshow of ordinary citizens wafting, wading, waddling through the waist-deep waters, the news piece on CJP getting late disturbs me. I wish one of these pictures could speak to His Lordship if this is what it takes for the DCO ...
Read Full Post
Drowning and helpless
There are many ways in which you can feel helpless. You feel helpless when you think about college, you feel helpless when you realise that very few people around you actually remembered that Thursday was International Literacy Day. And it doesn’t help when someone tells you that 35,000 Pakistanis have been killed since 9/11. One of those times, and the most recent, involved a car, submerged in waist deep water, stuck while reversing over a ditch, with the water level inside the locked car rising exponentially, the rain thundering outside and leaking through the crack in the window, and with ...
Read Full Post
13 tips to avoid being robbed in traffic jams
The crime rate in our cities has steadily increased and after the rains, criminals have found yet another way to rob people. Thanks to the ineptitude of the police, thieves have found easy targets in motorists caught in traffic jams while they are stuck on the road due to knee deep water. On September 6 it rained heavily in Karachi and numerous people were robbed while they were stuck in traffic jams, trying to return home from work. The situation swiftly got more dangerous when the street lights went off. Criminals have an in-depth understanding of the locations in cities where motorists will be at ...
Read Full Post
Rain, rain, go away
For nine out of the 12 months that Karachiites experience sweltering heat, accompanied by irregular power outages and frequent loadshedding, we bicker and moan for the skies to ‘shower’ their blessings. In the midst of the gloom resulting from the recent target killings and kidnappings, the pre-rain and short-term post-rain weather were meant to provide some uplift to the city’s beleaguered denizens. However, no sooner did the blessings commence that we wished them gone. Are we the most confused people, or what? On the face of it, the rain is a welcome change; the weather becomes pleasant, people’s moods lighten ...
Read Full Post
On the bright side of a downpour
“It shouldn’t rain in Karachi,” says my driver defeatedly, after four hours of standing on the Baloch Bridge. We are riddled with doubts: should we have taken the Gora Qabristan route? Should we turn onto Shahra-e-Faisal instead of going straight onto Shaheed-e-Millat? The fact is, whichever way we turn, we were stuck. I roll down the window of my steaming Mehran – thankfully, I have a book – and read, first in the fading light of dusk and then in the beam of headlights from stationary cars, while the drizzle lightly soaks me. By the time I’m halfway through – my book, ...
Read Full Post
Harvesting rainwater to solve water problems
What better news to share in the season of spring than about the human effort to preserve the divine gift of water. Rainwater is the cleanest form of water, it has no biological contamination. It is fit for human consumption and, of course, irrigation. Happy serendipity In the 1980s, the locals in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) thought of putting rainwater to use by collecting it in whatever containers they had available. Unaware of a world where rain water harvesting was being done on a large scale through various organisations, these simple folk stumbled upon a simple solution to the complex ...
Read Full Post
Australia’s top-order rattled again on rain-shortened day
Opinions and reports that the Ashes series of 2010/11 is an encounter that is heavily lopsided in favor of the visiting English team are certainly justified. But, be that as it may, the series has at least retained one of its key traits in its latest edition. From the first draw, to England’s mauling of hosts in the second test, to Australia returning the favor in the third and then to England’s crushing/ashes-retaining victory in the last test at Melbourne, the series has had more than its fair share of twists and turns. For England, the final test at the ...
Read Full Post
Counting raindrops in Thar
When I was penning my thoughts to share with you all, water was pouring down from the clouds in Karachi. Rain drops were splashing on my window and with each drop that dripped I pictured water traveling down the Himalayas, through the streams and rivers, making its way to the ocean, changing into vapours, reaching the skies and then pouring outside my window. The beauty of the water cycle system is bewildering! When this precious water floods our streets and finds its way to the drains, I feel we could do so much with this it only if we knew ...
Read Full Post
