IT was just two weeks ago that I was watching the remake of famous Hollywood flick One Million Years BC and, as the name suggests, the movie was set in an era when people used to live in caves, wore leaves and rags as clothes and confronted dinosaur attacks, natural hazards and tribal clashes on a regular basis.

Little did I know that barely a few days later, I will myself be compelled to play a real-life character in a situation not too dissimilar to One Million Years BC. The calamitous rainfall in Karachi this week literally turned my house — as indeed hundreds of other homes — into a pond with the rainwater causing severe damage to electrical appliances and furniture, inundating the cupboards to leave clothes and valuables soaking wet and muddy, destroying cars beyond recognition besides leaving a horrible stench all around the locality.

It is unfortunate, too, that the rains coincided with Eidul Azha since the gore and debris from the animal sacrifice only compounded the people’s misery. To top it all, the cruel, maddening ways of Karachi Electric caused irreparable loss and grief to citizens and their families. Out of the nearly 30 deaths reported during the week, most were caused by electrocution while millions remained without any power for over 48 hours.

In short, the two-day rainfall took the Karachiites into prehistoric days where their respective shelters were a total mess and turned into dark caves owing to KE’s inefficiency. They had nowhere to go since the roads had either disappeared or washed away, no transport to carry the stranded ones to their destinations, no clean drinking water as underground tanks were polluted, no telecom signals, scant food reserves amid fear of getting electrocuted.

The dinosaurs in this scenario were clearly the PPP, MQM and other forces who were ruthlessly engaged in a tug of war as the guardians of this sinking city and played politics at the expense of hapless citizens.

The monsoons that at one time were highly anticipated by the Karachiites are now dreaded by them and dubbed as ‘Sindhrella’ while there is no ray of hope in sight.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2019