VIEW: Karachi’s Bete-Noire
PUBLISHED in The POST / Aug 22, 2007 By : Afrah Jamal ‘Don’t go back yet! I saw water on the roads’ , cautioned a well meaning Arab friend as I prepared to return from Al AIN UAE. Admitting that the continuing presence of water on Karachi roads leftover from a 2 day old rain is as natural to us as its absence is to them would have bewildered him further. No matter how stifling the weather gets, when people gaze at rain clouds with dismay, you know that you have arrived in Karachi. Always a high risk area for cyclones and tsunamis, this City used to get a glimpse of the Monsoon now and then but the changing weather patterns account for the increasing frequency of rains. The danger of cyclones is age old and the fear of rain may be recent but it is not irrational as heavy rains were such a rarity that people could quote the year when it last occurred. The regular albeit unwelcome appearance of Venetian roads has of course changed their perception of ‘no rain’ in Karachi. If rai...