The idea of rain, pakoray and chai while enjoying the earthly smell of wet soil and every noise drowned by the silence of pouring rain. An imagination worth romanticizing, it is peaceful and the whole city is covered with a dark cloudy blanket, while the road glistens with water. If you are a Karachite, this description might seem alien to you because the moment we hear a thunder our first instinct isn’t joy, it is fear. Fear that immediately makes us charge our phones because rain in Karachi = no electricity. When fear subsides, worry takes over—specifically, the worry that traffic will trap people for several hours. Karachiites do not consider rain a blessing; they forbid the very word, fearing it will manifest a downpour. This is a surface level description of Karachi in rain.
The spirits of hospitable Karachiites are truly visible during a monsoon season. People offer their homes, restaurants and spaces to strangers for a shelter, in return of a Dua. Why would anyone choose to drive into knee-deep water and risk breaking down during a wide blackout? The only thing bearable about Karachi in rain is its people during it.
Karachi is owned by its people, the habitants of the city are the soul of Karachi, and the tiniest bit of light that is visible to you during the monsoon season, it is probably reflecting from their hearts.
After Events Of Karachi In Rain
The Monsoon days are a nightmare itself but the events that follow the next day is somehow worst than the rainy days. The headlines features words like “death”, ‘electrocution” and
“floods” and it makes you wonder and question the city you are living in. Why does no one claim responsibility? While the world enjoys, celebrates and romanticizes rain, create scenarios, we suffer? we work ourselves up on how to stay alive while all the operations in the city stop. Again, the habitants coming to save the city, while sacrificing with all they have.
The thunderstorm in Karachi is a warning sign to hide ourselves, close our windows and doors and stay quiet until the rain subsides. The broken roads, the traffic jam, the stranded water for days, electrocution, drowning and floods is the definition of rain in Karachi.
We, Karachiites, still hoping for a Monsoon season that only includes rain and rainbows.
