A few days back my good friend Hafsa Ahsan had asked me to provide her with some feedback on Karachi’s rains and their aftermath in connection with an assignment she had to compile for her university. I used that opportunity to tell her not only about the wretched state of roads in our neighborhood, but more specifically to narrate a sorry tale of our local government’s indifference towards our problems. Here’s an edited version of the email I wrote to her:
Once again, you’ve touched a sensitive subject, or rather opened up a hornet’s nest as it were. Yes, I know many people who got stuck on the road (I actually know fewer people who were saved some how from this headache), and yes, water did come into our house. And yes, our neighborhood was submerged, and yes, I have LOTS of angry comments about the ‘performance’ (or lack there off) of the concerned officials, whoever they are, usually, who ever you go to ask to, tends to pass the buck to some one else (‘oh no madam this is not CDGK’s jurisdiction’ ‘this is not the right union council you’re talking to’ ‘this is a DHA / Cantonment / Anyone Else But Our Matter’).
Usually, since our house is rather absurdly at slightly lower level then the road outside (or if you look at it the other way, since the road outside is in such a pathetic condition, with or without rain, it renders the whole geography of the region slightly absurd). Water, in the case of excessive rains, usually comes in from the front yard. After last year’s rains, and several of futile complains at the local Nazim’s office and at every possible door we could knock at to try and get the road repaired (including at letters to the editor at Dawn, umpteenth number of phone calls and application to various officials, including one as high up as the office of a provincial cabinet minister), we learned our lesson and got our front yard raised our self.
This was no inexpensive procedure as you may well imagine, and cost my parents not only money, but time and headache. Nevertheless, since we got so disheartened in the road ever being repaired, we eventually decided to hell with the civic agencies of this city whose job is to use the taxes we pay them to provide us with the basic amenities of life, we’ll just provide our self with those amenities, and spend more money on things which we had supposedly already paid for already!
After getting the fortnight long reconstruction, our runway was finally at a higher level then the main road and now safe from the danger of being flooded with dirty water (a combination of rain water and overflowing sewerage) in the aftermath of monsoons in future. And thankfully enough, thanks to nothing but only the mercy of Allah, we were saved from that this year. But since we were saved from the incoming floods from the front, on one particularly rainy day, water surged in from our terrace, down via our stairs and accumulated in our lobby. Thankfully again, this was only a temporary problem which had arisen because one of the pipes on the terrace had been blocked. When its functionality was restored, which it was quickly, the over flowing stopped. In the meanwhile we took care of any water that had already made its way to our lobby and calm was restored.
But of course, the fact that water hadn’t come in our house wasn’t the end of all our problems. The road outside, of course, remained flooded as usual. Getting in and out of the house each time as a result was an uphill struggle of sorts. And just for the sake of it, we called up the “relevant” officials again (just like we always do, and just like they always do too, they assured us that the problem will be taken care of “soon”). And just like it always happen, they failed to show up. After a few days of sunny intervals the accumulated water just evaporated by it self, re-exposing the road in its pathetic condition. And you can come and check by, it’s still in the same condition.
The funniest thing is after the latest rains this season, my mom and dad tried once again to employ another high level source. The contractor who did our runway reconstruction had a friend, whose neighbour happened to be the real maternal uncle of the city nazim Mustafa Kamal; we got the word around the City Nazim’s ear to some how get the road in our muhulla, and specifically the lane beside the mosque (our lane) re-laid.
Our request for the road, which after this latest rain spell had reduced to resemble a village path, to be reconstructed, was surprisingly heard this time. One sunny day, completely out of blue, we saw big rollers, and other road making equipment. We were overjoyed. Finally at least something worked. But our joy was not only short lived but also misplaced. My mom had told the source to get the road of the lane beside the mosque build. Well surely enough, that’s what the road builders did, at the speed of lights, in less then one complete day, with non stop work even at night, they build the main road leading to our lane, and when it came to also building the road beside the mosque, they erroneously build the lane on the left side of the mosque! Doh! And our lane was on the right!
Such great skills they showed at literal interpretation! This is not to the say the road on the left didn’t need an overhaul either but just goes to show how the system works here. Road officials came to a place, fix part of it, see and clearly see another part of it also in desperate need of repairs, but since the orders from higher up only asked to repair a certain part of the road, they completely ignore what they see and make their jolly way back.
So not only do you need sifarish to get something done in this country, you also need personalized sifarish and very specific sifarish at that, nothing less apparently works. And you know what the worst part of this is, that there is really so little you can do to change this system. It’s depressing frankly.
The gutters and road in question in this email are the same ones my dad complained about in a letter to the editor of Dawn last year. At its zenith, when the gutter overflowed unstoppably and the road was completely submerged, this is what the space in front of my gate looked like (more snaps here, here and here). And I assure this is Clifton, supposedly one of the posh areas of the city. I assure you also that we survived through this not for one or two days, but for weeks on end, and yet nothing was done by anyone, until we took matters in our own hand. With this sort of an experience with dealing with the City Government officials I’m not even sure why I entertained the idea of filing a new complain, this time using the brand new ‘online complain portal’ the government had step up.
I can’t deny it was in part influenced by a good review this service had received by a user over at the Karachi Metroblog. I didn’t, still, expect the callous officials of my council to suddenly wake up at the disgruntled plea of a law abiding, regular tax paying citizen; when they hadn’t bothered to do so in the past despite numerous real life calls, and trips to their offices, it would be akin to expect elephants to fly if I held any hopes from this “online” complain system.
But I just thought that if nothing else I should try out my luck. Perhaps, just as an outside chance, since this is an election year, they’ll consider having mercy on us and construct the road outside our house. How foolish of me though. I’ve just spent a complete hour trying (in vain of course) to register my complaint outline, but all I’ve got in return is repeated “your complaint could not be posted now, please try again later” error messages. Elephants, I should have known, never do fly.
A slightly more formal version of this article was published at Desicritics.
Kaleidoscope 