Is this not disappointing that neither has there been any public announcement about loadshedding timetables for the city nor any sustained effort has been made to make consumers realise that they need to conserve electricity? Why has the KESC not been able to communicate to its consumers that they should use at least one bulb less or switch to energy savers where possible so that the cumulative impact would be positive on the KESC’s inability to meet the power needs of the city?

The KESC’s continued failure to provide electricity to Karachiites remains a sustained source of inconvenience, nuisance, disgust, anger, and destabilisation. Choose your own description of the effect that power failures and unscheduled unannounced loadshedding are having on the individual and collective psyche of the people of this urban city.

I conversed with the noted seasoned psychiatrist Dr Syed Haroon Ahmed on the point about the possible short-term and long-term psychological impact of power failures on society. He viewed the scenario in a wider, deeper perspective, and underlined the much needed predictability factor as being missing in Pakistani society. There’s no or low predictability in numerous areas like society on the aggregate, in particular in politics, no where, he underlined. With this there is also absent the continuity factor. There are no heroes. The heroes of today may become the villains of tomorrow, he explained. As a result of this, Pakistani citizen lived in a state of disbelief which was a window to the kind of mental health that he had, said Dr Haroon Ahmed.in a matter of fact manner.

Referring specifically to the electricity failures that have begun to stretch form early summer to almost the end of the year, he said that there was the unpredictability factor that was applicable to it as well as to the essentials like water and environmental health, decent education and health facilities, law and order and so on. We talked about rising prices and street crime which only serve to heighten the insecurity syndrome and lead to what the psychiatrist described as “sheer helplessness and hopelessness”. There is far too much of contradiction between what is professed, and what is practised. For example, if the KESC keeps on saying that there is no loadshedding, imagine the negative impact on the citizen. His disbelief about society grows.

The Karachiite, therefore, generally lives in this sorry state which certainly affects his behaviour and his personality. He may or may not become ill, but he will live in a state of perpetual tension, born of insecurity. He is likely to become impatient, irritable, and quarrelsome, all the time, at home, at work, and elsewhere. He could take to various healthy and unhealthy ways of escapism, as his levels of endurance get stretched to unrealistic levels.

One wonders whether it is pertinent to mention here that in a recent survey that Google did, it was indicated that Pakistan topped the list of 10 most sex starved countries in the world. This alone warrants a detailed column later. As one citizen remarked that for all the positive economic indicators that we get from Islamabad, we are counted amongst the corrupt states, the ‘failed’ states, the undemocratic societies, and so on. Now sex starved too!

I asked Dr Haroon Ahmed how the citizen should cope with these denials and deprivations, and whether there were any solutions he had to offer. He suggested that the citizen should try and connect himself or herself to a good cause, which was a sort of protective gear that he would wear. The second advice he gave was that the individual should take care of himself and increase one’s resistance. Get good and adequate sleep, eat healthy and have a healthy overall routine. “Try and go for a 30 minute non-stop walk and brisk if possible,” he further stressed. I asked, “Where are the places a Karachiite can go for this? Our streets are unsafe, and there aren’t enough parks left, thanks to the builders and land grabbers.” Dr Haroon was spontaneous and gentle as he said "Use the car less, walk. Don’t wait for the bus, walk for 30 minutes instead…” The message was that in these unduly high stress times, it is imperative that the Karachiite takes care of his health. It will pay him in the long run.

I asked Dr Haroon Ahmed on how he himself had held onto ‘sanity and balance’. He answered “by detachment and empathy, even though my own anxiety and tolerance levels are low in certain cases.” I could sense the smiles in his voice!

Then I spoke to a young psychologist Mahrukh Iftikhar on what these power failures, among other handicaps, were doing to the people, families and individuals. She said that there was the sheer and absolute physical aspect of the negative impact. …..sleeplessness, inconvenience, loss of work, delayed schedules, lowered qualities, increased cost, disinterest, short temper, irritability, lethargy, and in the case of students, a lack of concentration are some of examples of the fallout of the continuing power shortage.

Mahrukh Iftikhar spoke of the sufferings of women in particular, as they are the ones who stay at home. They have to try and maintain normalcy at home, as they battle the challenges that come from sudden power failures, and abrupt power fluctuations that damage or destroy expensive electrical appliances. She spoke of the elderly and the ill sections of society who suffer suffocating power failures more, and referred to the terrible experience of being in the dark when power fails.

The psychologist agreed that while creativity and quality take a back seat in offices with these power failures, there is every reason not to let this helpless and hopelessness take over. She advised that the individual should take this frustration as a sort of challenge, and concentrate on the future. In other words, cling to hope, she concluded.

Finally, in a brief conversation with Prof Haroon Rasheed (a senior educationist) one was able to get some concrete and authentic picture of how depressing and bad has been the examination experience for students at all levels in the city. He gave statistics to reflect the extent to which students had been frustrated and how their performance in the exams been adversely affected.

He drew a bleak picture of students sitting in classrooms for their exams --- sitting in heat and darkness caused by power failures and writing answers in congested rooms. “A three-hour exam with a two and half hours of no electricity,” he remarked.

In the professor's voice was a sadness coupled with a concern, as he spelt out details of how thousands and thousands of intermediate students in particular had taken on the unfair challenge of power failures, created by the inability of society to meet their legitimate needs. Privatisation, so far, has come as a disappointment in the case of the KESC. And its inability to create a sense of load sharing has aggravated the shortage, feel consumers.