The difficulties of procuring water and power in Karachi, Pakistan, where surging temperatures have strained the city’s resources, and much more.
DISCUSSED:
Underground Water Tanks, Envy, Climate-Influenced Mood Disorders, A Widow’s Home, Dawn, Urban Heat Islands, Nagging Uncertainty, The Pump Games, Karachi’s Water Mafia, Candlelight Feasts, The Incredible Magic of Air-Conditioning, Load Shedding, A Family Showdown, Monsoon Season, Microwaves, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Bacteria That Thrive in High Temperatures, Overconsumption, A Bucket and a Cup.
In the middle of the summer of 2024, when the temperature in Karachi was skirting 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a man was walking past my paternal aunt’s house. The sun was high in the sky at midafternoon, and he had just returned from offering his afternoon prayers at the nearby mosque. He did this every Friday, the holiest day of the week for Muslims, and the day on which the week’s main sermon is held. When he passed by my aunt’s home, he saw that water was overflowing out of her underground tank and onto the street. This annoyed him a great deal. Water envy is common in Karachi, a city that doesn’t have enough water for its twenty million or more inhabitants. Water comes through the municipal pipes for only an hour or two each day and sometimes not at all. Many homes that are not apartments have underground tanks in which water from the pipes can be stored. In most single-family homes, including my aunt’s, water must then be pumped to an overhead tank on the roof so it can flow out of the faucets.
When the man saw water coming out of the underground tank and onto the street, he knew it meant that the underground tank must be full. Such water abundance in such heat was a bit too much for him to bear on his own, so he stood there calling out for someone to complain to about the terrible waste of water. No one emerged from the house. My paternal aunt is a widow, and even if she did hear him on that scorching afternoon, she chose not to come out and listen to what he had to say. In general, women in Pakistan do not answer the door for men they aren’t related to. However, in his frenzy, the man seemed to have forgotten this. Even though his home was just a few houses farther down the street, he had great trouble obtaining water. It irked him that this was, by chance, less of a problem for my aunt. There was nothing he could do about the water that was flowing out onto the street, but he complained about the situation to anyone who would listen, which meant mainly to his wife.
A few weeks went by and the temperature in the city would not relent. Pakistan, which contributes less than 1 percent to global carbon emissions, is now listed by the Climate Risk Index as the country most vulnerable to climate change. The average temperatures have risen by several degrees to create almost uninhabitable conditions—except that millions of people do inhabit Karachi. The dense population, the proliferation of concrete surfaces, and the fumes from millions of gas- and diesel-burning vehicles make the temperatures in some areas, including the one my aunt lives in, several degrees higher than those near the shore. There are few trees and almost no shade, and these facts—combined with the lack of water with which to cool oneself and the frequent power outages that have long plagued the city—mean that midafternoons in summer are hotter than hell itself.
One day not long after that sweltering Friday afternoon, so hot that even birds would not fly, this man—who is the sort of vigilante that retired men of a certain age can be—passed by my aunt’s house again. He was stunned to see that, yet again, water was flowing out of the underground tank and onto the street’s parched asphalt. If last time he had been annoyed at seeing this largesse of water, this time he was angered. In the past week, no water had flowed into his own tank at all. By Thursday, the lack of water in his home had become so acute that he had had to purchase a private water tanker in order to shower and do household tasks like laundry and dishwashing. The tanker had not arrived until 9 p.m. the previous evening, an hour by which he would have liked to have been settled in front of the television. As a result, he was cross not only about having to spend money—something he truly disliked—but also about having his routine thrown into disarray.
All this exacerbated his indignation, added to which was the fact that he felt he “deserved” the water more. Why, after all, should a reclusive widow’s home be blessed with such a bounty of water when he was being denied his fair share? This time he decided he would not leave until he could deliver his own sermon on waste to the homeowner, loud enough for all the other neighbors to hear. For this to be possible, he needed someone to answer the door. Standing on the street, as the rivulets eddied around his sandals, he began calling out and ringing the doorbell. He would not, he resolved, leave until and unless someone responded to him.
Ten and then twenty minutes passed as he pressed hard on the bell, hearing its muffled ring tearing through the inside of the house. No one responded and no one came to the door. He was not deterred, the wet waterway from house to street feeding his sense of noble perseverance. Still, there was silence. Other men from the neighborhood who were also returning from the mosque passed by and offered silent greetings. He tried to enlist at least one of them to stand with him in his valiant cause, pointing to the water, the waste, but the men just nodded and kept walking. This was a widow’s home, and if she was being blessed with an abundance of water, they likely concluded, then who were they to tell her what to do with it?
Over half an hour passed and no one responded. Then he heard footsteps and shuffling behind the front door of the house. Ha! He congratulated himself prematurely, preparing the first few sentences of his homily. The door opened, but prior to any words leaving his mouth, he felt a small rock graze his elbow. Before he was able to overcome his surprise, he felt another. He soon realized the rocks were coming from inside the house. He cowered, and then moved away. And without having said anything at all, he had to turn around and leave.