KARACHI: What was wrong with living in our ancestral house that had no electricity, piped water, or natural gas? There were lanterns and lamps that lit the rooms, food was cooked on a fire made with wood or coal and water for cooking, washing and drinking came in buckets from the well in front of the house.

During summer, we slept on charpoys spread in the courtyard and in winter kept ourselves warm by burning coal in fancy angethis! To ward off the vexing mosquitoes, we slept inside mosquito netting.

There was no radio, television and computers; only people and books to give company. Life was without stress and we went to bed without taking sleeping pills.

It has been a long trek since. From Azimabad, Patna in India to Chittagong, to Karachi, and in Karachi from Jehangir Road to Nazimabad to Gulshan-i-Iqbal to Askari Apartments, finally reaching the zenith of comfortable living by being able to acquire a bungalow in that finest of fine localities: the Defence Housing Authority.

Here, at last, one would live an impressive social life, a civilised life. One would rub shoulders with the high and mighty; would invite people who mattered, who ran the show, the country.

Suddenly, one humid afternoon, Mother Nature decided to put us affluent inhabitants of DHA in our place. We were happy and secure in our imposing dwellings built on 1,000 and 500 square yard plots, the giant generators taking over whenever KESC decided to play hide and seek. We thought we were impregnable.

This impregnability was shattered by a few inches of rain. We woke up to find our streets turned into canals. Dirty storm-water mingled with clean water in the underground tanks. Countless expensive cars stood in the driveway unable to venture out. Those that did were stuck in the deluge and conked off. Our children could not go to schools and colleges. The telephone was dead, the cable snapped and the TV screen went blank.

The mali, the masi and the driver did not report for duty. Our designer furniture, expensive carpets and other possessions were ruined. We, the denizens of the DHA, were now at par with the impoverished fellow citizens of Orangi, Korangi, Malir and Landhi. For want of an appropriate verse, a cynic like yours truly could only bring to mind the famous saying: Marg-i-ambooh jashn daarad.

Postscript: At the moment we are witnessing strange scenes from our terrace: the DHA, CBC and city government authorities are digging canals to carry unwanted water to the Arabian Sea, accumulated water being pumped out from one plot of land to another, then to yet another, finally to the ‘canals,’ in addition to water being filled in tankers and taken to God-knows-where for disposal.

As a sideshow, there are abrupt closures of roads to test the patience of motorists. The place looks like a devastated area after some military action.