KARACHI: Remember those small paper boats, gently pushed onto the puddles created in the streets by rainwater? Remember getting soaked to the bone in the rain, singing songs from Pakistani and Indian films enjoying monsoons to the hilt?

Believe it or not, there was a time when Karachiites didn’t fear or regret the rainy season. They were, using the past tense with sadness, a cheerful lot. There’s a reason Karachi was referred to or known as ‘the city that never sleeps’. Anyone who’s been living here, let’s say, for more than three decades, would endorse the claim that residents of this town were associated with their fun-loving character and for going to bed late in the night, joyfully called ratjagey in Urdu.

People in mohallas would shoot the breeze or indulge in serious discussions in groups. There were snooker and dabbu (a bigger version of carom board) bars, and restaurants would be open from dusk till dawn where you could have a bite or a cup of chai whenever you felt the urge for it. This was a routine thing up until the early 1990s. If you had a relative in some other part of the country, s/he’d often greet you by saying “you people sleep in the daytime and stay up late in the night”. It wasn’t a snide remark on Karachiites’ carefree attitude to everything; it was a compliment on their ability to enjoy life to their heart’s content.

Politics has robbed Karachiites of fun and frolic

But the gradual de-characterisation of Karachi, as it were, arguably, began to take place in the early ‘90s when citizens were made to live with unbridled violence. Unfortunately, successive governments did not try and rectify the situation. Instead, they worsened it for making Karachiites suffer by not turning it into a model metropolis and reclaiming its lost glory but by, in a perverse way, taking their hands off the city as if the entire Karachi was responsible for the bloodletting. The incessant influx of people, coming into the Sindh capital for various reasons, did not help either. Consequently, the impalpable cultural erosion met with economic imbalance, and now Karachi has gone pear-shaped.

Today, Karachiites shudder even to hear about a weather report that predicts rains. They’re not wrong, because while those who reside in relatively safe and well-constructed localities can withstand a storm, a large number of people live in makeshift and less-durable houses. So if you entertain the thought, even momentarily, of going gaga over the weather, the very next moment the thought of the destruction it can cause will make you abort the idea.

Unprecedented rains that lashed the city on Thursday were perhaps the final test for those who hold the reins of Karachi. Yes, no one expected a torrential downpour, but it had been raining for a few days and the authorities should’ve been alert to all sorts of situations. The situation on Thursday demanded steps taken on war footing. Did it happen? No.

Karachi’s alteration from a littoral town to a megapolis is often analysed by town planners and architects; who will examine its transformation from the ‘city that never sleeps’ to the ‘city that lives in fear’ remains to be seen.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2020