WEIRD things happened in 2012. For starters, the world did not come to an end on Dec 21 and all the doomsday prophesies met with a terrible fate themselves. Those who follow the Mayan calendar should now lend an attentive ear to ‘Aamil Baba’ who can be found, nay chanced upon, on every fourth street in Karachi. Standing in CNG queues, people had plenty of time to discuss it more than the Mayans would have probably ever done!

Long, unending queues at petrol pumps in the last quarter of 2012 outnumbered the lines outside cinema houses where cine-buffs tried to get the first-day first-show ticket for the latest James Bond offering. Even if Agent 007 had tried to have his car filled with CNG in Pakistan, he would have come a cropper, and M would have given him the deadliest of stares.

The energy crisis coupled with the gas price issue in the last quarter of 2012 made life miserable. From auto rickshaw wallahs to 1300cc car owners, the range of sufferers was quite comprehensive. It is quite baffling as to why the government and the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) hadn’t come to a solution of the issue. Every time the announcement for the weekly break in CNG supply was made, it sent a shiver down many a spine and people rushed to get the cylinders filled.

Parliament appeared to be least pushed about the issue. Come to think of it, it shouldn’t boggle anyone’s mind, for parliamentarians do not have to get in a queue; in fact the tanks in their fancy cars seldom reach the line when the red light of the gas meter blinks crazily.

A two-paragraph report notification from the Sui Southern Gas Company on the closure of CNG stations for a day also carried the warning that if any station was found ‘operative’ during the period it would have its gas supply disconnected for another 24 hours. It didn’t say what would happen to them if they operated in an ‘inoperative’ manner.