Its been raining heavily for two days now… and now, the city is almost drowning… the scary thing is… the rains gonna pour for two more days still!

Yesterday, i posted that the underpass was dry….. BOY was i mistaken! Even though it had survived the first day onslaught quite well.. the second day saw it filling up to the brim with water following a failure of the drainage system and was 14 feet underwater..

but it didnt stop there… there was almost a foot of water all the way from the underpass to the PSO building, which i tried traversing to get home… and did so with a lot of difficulty!

This picture shows the front of the Allied Bank Head Office… Looks like its located on the side of a CANAL instead of a road! It was so bad… i literally felt my car floating for a while.. before the wheels found ground again! Each time a car would cross me from the side… the generated wave would hit the bottom HARD!

Barely a day back Mansoor posted on the condition of the Clifton Underpass he reported a rosy picture with barely a lane under water on his post titled – Through the rain…… the underpass was practically dry but just a couple moments back Inspirex beat me to posting this picture with his post Underpass – Flooded Bummer

Since I can’t take credit for the picture post I would then like to share an SMS invitation for a swimming pool party which is open for everyone.

You are cordially invited on Tuesday the 1st of August to the inauguration of the biggest swimming pool in Karachi at the Clifton Underpass

RSVP
KPT

We got this through “Suggest a Story” recently, and just had to post it. The person chose to remain anonymous, but i thought i’d give it a try.

if someone receives a personal threat (in my case personal pictures) from someone through email. how should he get along with it? whom should he get in touch with? any idea? urgent please help me find it. i picks the ip address and figured it out its cybernet pakistan ..anyone who works in cyber net?

Dear Anonymous, contact the Citizen Police Liason Committee and tell them of the harrasment your receiving… they’ll look into it. In a lot of matters they’ll look into it and help out.

This leads me to ask another question… WHY!? What pleasure to people get in tormenting others? The whole deal makes me sick!

Picture credit: Maaz A. Shamsi and Ahsan Shamim

This pic shows the state the underpass was in this morning, after which it was drained, which allowed this post to be made.

Several cars were stalled at in the area between Clifton Bridge and Teen Talwar, and it was tough making the car wade through!

On Saturday, July 29 as I hit Shahrah e faisal from II Chundrigar road in the evening to get home, I could like any karachiite can what the extra ordinary presence of policemen and rangers on the sides of the streets means.

Though I was glad that since the guys can still be seen, means that the person is yet to pass the streets, which meant I could potentially still get home.

Little did I know that as I crossed FTC, I would be pushed inwards to Sindhi Muslim, since the VIP has not decided to block the road as he moves, he has decided to TAKE OVER it!

I had to move through Tariq Roada onwards from Dalmia, since traffic heading to Shahrah e faisal from Sharah e Qaideen was also blocked, and same from Shaheed e Millat.

What defeats logic, is that from blocking a part of the road, they moved to blocking the whole damn road!

I write this entry being proud of my city, which has (more or less) survived the first onslaught of rain since construction began all over the city. Im writing this only from the viewpoint of new construction. The fact that there was no power and all other problems are still very much there.

I had to go out last night, and even after 4 to 5 hours of rain, many of the roads (especially the newer ones) were still passable (as opposed to previous years, when even after 2 hours, you couldnt move your car along..). During my trip from Clifton to North Nazimabad, most of the main roads were cleared, although side roads and ‘gallis’ were very much underwater. My first thought when i saw the massive amount of rain the city had recieved was… how was the underpass? And to test it out, i actually went through it at night. Happy to report…. there was just ‘some’ water accumulated there (about half a lane was drowned) while the other lane was PRACTICALLY DRY! If people wonder why i am so pro FWO (and Army), let them know this is just ‘one’ of the reasons!

Now on to what published sources say…. My respect for the current city nazim (even with all his faults) just went up a notch after reading this news item. The nazim went on a “five-hour-long emergency visit to various localities of the city on Sunday to inspect uplift projects and arrangements for monsoon rains.” I dont remember any other ‘city official’ being this responsible. They would much rather had been ‘out of the city’ or enjoying it within their own homes.

I think the people just need an excuse to stay home. But this time it’s valid. We all celebrated the rain yesterday and today is the day to curse it. The city is in chaos. The traffic is total mess. Sharae Faisal is beyond terrible. I had to skip SF and take a longer route through MA Jinnah road to get to work. If the rain didn’t stop, the city will come to a halt (if it didn’t already) until the roads clear up. Till then, stay home and enjoy. Spend quality time with your family, that is, if you are not deprived of power.

Stopping at the pan wala outside Baloch ice cream at Boat Basin, I noticed the guy consulting a booklet while sms-ing. Curious, I asked him what he was doing, so he showed me a booklet, Fanaa SMS Kitaab, published by someone in Urdu Bazaar. Fanaa being some new Aaamir Khan movie, the booklet basically contained snippets of dialogues and songs transliterated from Urdu into Roman Urdu. I have no clue whether the guy was sms-ing his friend, girlfriend or lover or harassing some random person, but I loved the idea of it – democratizing technology for everyone’s use. For a few rupees the urdu-speaking population can also communicate via sms. I’m sure Urdu Bazaar has a thriving business in books of the sort.

And if anyone wants a copy of the booklet, the pan wala seemed willing to acquire extra copies if you asked politely.

Awesome Fantastic day today in Karachi. Rained heavily. Washed the entire city. I saw the entire city celebrating. I will be updating this post with tons of pictures from the rain so bookmark it. I loved every bit of it.
I experienced minor traffic problems in places where the water had stagnated. My telephone lines got crazy and the internet connection wasnt stable. All of the buildings, trees and plants were washed. Saw some car breakdowns, and some bike-walaas in trouble. But overall it was an experience I been craving for, for a long long time.

WOHOOOOOOOO. Alhumdulillah :)
(more…)

i know its not a clear pic, lousy camerapone – but hey, it’s raining!!! what’s the road situation, people?