I can’t feel the winter this year. Is it the dust?
Whatever happened to those Karachi winters, when for a few short but amazing weeks of the year you actually walked outside (maybe on that short strip infront of your house) and took a deep breath and tasted winter? When did the winter air become so laden with dust that I choke even when trying not to inhale?

Karachi is beginning to feel alien again. Like someone I dont know. Or used to know a long time ago. It happens to me a couple of times in the year when I need a vacation and I start looking around without my usual rose tinted glasses. I see only construction and the permanent haze that has taken over the Mideast area. Or the ex-Mideast area. In my mind Mideast is still there, of course. At night, it is so depressing. Even the warm yellow lights of the underpass don’t dispel the grey brown smog that hangs over like a shroud. I sound so pessimistic. I want these people to return my city to me. What nonsense. Bahut ho gaya with this building and that road. Can we please have our happy yellow lights and the tiny supply of fresh air we had back?