“Hello, is this 4617884?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been trying to get through, but nobody was picking the phone.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s no electricity for the last four hours, we can’t even breathe properly. The heat is getting to us.”

“We can’t do anything. They’ve shut it down from the grid station.”

“Who has shut it down?”

“Those who control the grid station”

“Who controls the grid station?”

“Are you some kind of a quizmaster? I’ve told you we can’t do anything.”

“But listen give me the contact number to the grid station. Can we talk to someone else who will at least let us know when they will turn the light on?”

“Sorry, we can’t do that.”

“Then who should we talk to? Aren’t you the KESC’s complaint centre?”

“We are, but we can’t give you any numbers.”

“Listen, my kids are crying. It’s sweltering in here. All the things in the fridge have turned sour. Besides, the electricity was off from 9am to 11am. You told us it was routine load-shedding. Then it went off at 2pm. It’s been four hours since.”

“We can’t do anything.”

And then the official hangs up the phone on the consumer.

It’s not just the ordeal that you have to go through because of excessive load-shedding on a daily basis in Karachi that makes you churlish and irritable. What rubs it in is the indifference (that borders on rudeness) the officials sitting in complaint centres treat the consumers with. Aren’t they supposed to be there to inform the consumers when the electricity will be restored and what has caused the inordinate load-shedding? Aren’t they supposed to be polite?

Like many other localities in Karachi, Gulistan-i-Jauhar’s KESC complaint centre works in strange ways. When there is no electricity, the officials concerned make sure nobody’s phone call is taken. If by chance they do pick up the phone, the way they respond to the consumer’s questions is quite insulting, to say the least.