At 5am on a Sunday, Islam wakes up for fajr prayers. Instead of going back to sleep afterwards, he hurries outside, where a friend is just about to arrive to pick him up on his motorbike. The duo will first go for some chai and parathay, and then to an empty plot of land where scores of people are playing cricket. It’s nearly 6:30am now, and prime real estate — perennially up for grabs in Karachi — to set up a makeshift cricket pitch is fast running out.

Islam works as a house-help in Karachi’s elite DHA neighbourhood, where — while most of its residents are fast asleep — Islam and thousands of young men who have migrated to the city in search of work, are playing tape-ball cricket.

This form of cricket is the game of choice not only in sprawling urban centres of Pakistan where space is limited, but also in rural areas, where resources to play cricket with its “proper” kit, including the traditional cork ball, are difficult to afford.

There are two reasons why Islam and thousands of youngsters across the city are up at this hour on a Sunday to play cricket. The first is Pakistan’s odious class divide, where several elite households employ help 24/7, often only giving their employees less than a day off in the week.

The onset of summers in Karachi contracts the window for recreational activities, with Karachi residents often indulging in their favourite pastime amidst heatwaves. But it comes at a cost…

The second is the heat. In the long stretch of hot weather from late April to October, Karachi will regularly get temperatures of above 40 degrees Celsius which, coupled with the city’s high humidity, is a prohibitive environment for any outdoor activity. Sunday mornings from 6am to 10am are realistically the only hours where Islam and his friends can engage in any sporting activity before they will be forced to go back inside.

THE OTHER END OF THE SPECTRUM

Climate-wise, it’s not all that different a situation for Karachi’s elite, whose sport of choice today is padel. With its low barriers to entry in terms of skill and being a highly Instagram-able affair, padel has taken over the city’s upscale neighbourhoods that are now teeming with fiberglass racquets and tennis balls. Over 100 padel courts have been set up in the metropolis, with some also in private residences.

Yet, with the exception of one swanky set-up in Korangi that has air conditioning, and few that have built high roofs for shade, most padel players are also forced to play at times when the sun is not scorching. Karachi delivers however, and bookings for padel courts are available till 4am.

An hour’s booking for a padel court at coveted peak hours in the evenings, when people have just left their offices, can cost upwards of Rs8000. The temperature might be slightly more tolerable once the sun has set, but the humidity still remains oppressive.

ALARMING NUMBERS

With Karachi’s humidity often well over 50 percent in the summer months, the heat index can regularly cross 45-50 degrees Celsius. Pushing the body in such high temperatures raises the core body temperature, leading to a higher heart rate and a drop in blood pressure, which puts immense stress on the cardiovascular system. It can also cause altered mental states, such as changes in memory, thought patterns and behaviours. Muscles becoming rigid, and nausea and vomiting emerge as symptoms. In more severe cases, heat exhaustion can lead to a heat stroke, which can cause kidney failure.

Data from Sindh’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) states that, from April 14, 2025 to May 18, 2025, 393 cases of heatstroke were reported in the province from the recent heat waves, with zero casualties. In June 2024, when heat waves swept across Sindh, there were 66 deaths in the province, out of a total 15,000 hospitalisations for heat stroke.

A recent report by Amnesty International, Uncounted: The Invisible Deaths of Older People and Children in Pakistan, questions the PDMA data, pointing out that, unless the hospital specifically writes “heat stroke” as the reason for death in the death certificate, it is not counted. This means that heat as a major contributing factor in extreme cases such as death remains severely under-reported in bureaucratic records. This makes independent studies such as the one by Amnesty all the more important.

At the same time, people in Pakistan need to move, and cannot afford to sit inside all day. Having an active lifestyle is also necessitated by another issue that Pakistan grapples with. A 2022 paper by Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta in The Lancet presents alarming statistics — over 44 million people in the country are battling against type-2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance, while nearly nine million people with diabetes remain undiagnosed.

Then comes the monetary cost. According to the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) Diabetes Atlas 2025, Pakistan is spending upwards of $1 billion in diabetes-related health expenditure. However, given the high incidence of diabetes in the country, the report cites only $79 being spent on every person with diabetes.

THE NEED TO COOL OFF

Creating spaces where people can feel inspired towards a more active lifestyle is a global concern, but especially so in parts of the developing world such as ours, where high temperatures have wreaked havoc with how we live our lives.

For example, if we shift our lives to playing sports in the late evenings, schoolgoing children and office workers with strict working hours will have late bedtimes, leading to poor sleep, another contributor to diabetes and obesity.

What can our local government do? The first is to create public-private partnerships, which can set up hydration stations at parks and gyms, and install shades with large fans, where people can take a break during outdoor exercise.

In the 2014 football world cup in Brazil, FIFA allowed cooling breaks at the referee’s discretion, when temperatures got too hot. But a labour court in Brazil’s capital Brasilia mandated FIFA to have cooling breaks after every 30 minutes if the temperature were above 32 degrees.

If the world’s most elite athletes deserve time to cool off, so should we.

The writer is Managing Editor,
Folio Books. He can be contacted at
saeedhusain72@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 6th, 2025