August 10, 2006	Thursday	Rajab 14, 1427

As the sky rains heavenly water on Pakistan the infrastructure collapses, whereas the water and the weather gave rural Sindh the coolness and beauty of a hill-station. In a remarkable reversal, the rapidly expanding infrastructure of metalled roads in Tharparkar coped far better with the deluge than the clogged drains, swamped and pot-holed streets of Karachi.

Two journeys by road to rural Sindh in less than a week illustrate the irony that it is easier, smoother and faster to reach villages than it was to navigate between Clifton and Saddar in Karachi. In the past five years, even as the political infrastructure of Sindh has bumped, rattled and sometimes stalled, the physical infrastructure in parts of rural Sindh has rocketed ahead. Whereas before 2000 it used to take about a year to build 2 km of metalled road in Tharparkar, the speed has ratcheted up to over 2 km a month.

For the first time in this writer’s 21 years of voluntary work in the region, on Aug 4, 2006 I was able to drive virtually all of the 550 km distance between Karachi and Nagarparkar on metalled roads all the way in less than 10 hours — with unhurried breaks for lunch and tea. While some small sections still slow one down, not once during this stretch did accumulated rain water cause detours and delays as in Karachi for the past two weeks.

Metalled roads bring speed and convenience in place of about 250 plus kilometres of sand tracks that used to shake the body’s bones and the vehicle’s bolts. But the new roads also discourage frequent short halts at villages on the way, places which sand tracks dutifully reach, but which carpeted roads disdainfully sweep past.

In a perversely fortunate way, however quick the speed of road construction is now, the expansion can only connect large towns and settlements. It cannot, in the foreseeable future, connect all the villages because of their sheer number, their distances and the cost. And so, the paradoxical pleasure of driving on sand tracks remains: to take one back to Tarais (water reservoirs) ponds and wells built or restored in recent years.

With predictable yet always heart-warming generosity, the rains enhance the verdancy of Sindh’s landscape. In Tando Qaiser, a reportedly 200-year old neem tree known as ‘Dumbaneem’ paternally welcomes travellers. On the road between Tando Jam and Tando Allah Yar, leaf-heavy trees bend to create a tunnel of green marvel. Be it the barrage-irrigated, canal-fed parts such as between Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas in which abundantly productive mango orchards are juxtaposed with ripening sugar cane and cotton crops. Or be it the arid regions of Dadu and Tharparkar districts, the rains give a deeper hue to the green where it is already present and transforms brown, barren stretches into undulating ranges of lush fertility. So instant is the soil’s sensitivity to moisture that a breakfast in Mithi which should be brief and brisk became a small feast with the inclusion of delicious, freshly cooked ‘maria’, a spinach-like plant that springs up from the sand soon after the rains arrive.

Birds celebrate with their inimitable music as they glide over crowds of human and non-human tourists. Thousands of cattle, sheep and goats trudge into (or come back to) Tharparkar to graze on fodder offered gratis by the land. The spectacle of small and large herds of animals walking the rain route brings to mind the need for poverty indicators to accurately reflect livestock assets owned by many who are otherwise poor, and look the part as well.

Some herds represent the pooled numbers of more than one family’s stock. Some others comprise a large land-owner’s stock being taken for free loading on nature’s bounty. Whatever the type of herd, the profusion of calves that cling close to their mothers assures Pakistan of a healthy growth rate in livestock that should not be subject to family planning targets for humans.

Soaked school buildings wait for holidays to end. Thousands of primary school teachers prepare to resume part-time or full-time moonlighting at other jobs to reflect the curious contradictions that mark an education system which is fully staffed and yet under-skilled.

Taluka hospitals such as at Nagarparkar prepare to deal with post-rain infections even as they wait — as they have for the past two decades — for vacancies for female doctors to be filled.

Meanwhile, the medical colleges of Sindh, particularly Nawabshah Women’s Medical College, continue to produce dozens of women doctors each year at substantial cost to the public exchequer, doctors who never manage to find their way to the areas where they are most needed.

Heading back on the Super Highway, at about 106 km from Karachi, a 360 degree survey displays a beautiful panorama of blue sky patches, white and grey clouds preparing more showers, faint mist in the distant hills, spreads of green grass — and streams of vehicles striving to avoid the vigilance of the motorway police.

Monsoon Sindh vividly contrasts our capacity to promote development, in some vital respects getting things right, in some others horribly wrong. As the province builds and re-builds physical infrastructure, the people stoically gaze at heaven for giant leaps forward in strengthening human infrastructure.