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Facing the central question
By: M A Niazi
The central question that Lahorites faced, and still face, is one that comes every year, and inevitably passes away, and has to do with the arrival of the hot weather, which is the true summer. Not just the ordinary hot weather, but the broiling hot weather, which is so hot that it knocks the breath out of anyone who passes through it. That finally arrived in Lahore, towards the end of June, and made life interesting at last. But this heat is supposed to be a precursor of the monsoons, because while it bakes the plains that make up most of Pakistan, it also melts the glaciers at the beginning of the Indus, and thus send water into our rivers. This year, that was delayed, because of global warming, this will result in the loss of a large number of island nations, which will just disappear beneath the waves, as well as some of our coasts, along with the port cities that adorn them. Like Karachi. And possibly Gwadar, being built at such expense, not just monetary, but also to the fabric of the federation.
But the drowning of cities is in the future, and nowadays we face the summer, or rather the hot weather. This is the season of forgetting all national problems, like the War on Terror, except for loadshedding, which keeps on reminding us that we belong to the Third World. In the opinion of all of the protesters last week in Lahore, these reminders are not needed. If you keep shop in a congested market in Lahore already, you are uncomfortable enough at the height of summer even with the fan on, to remind you that you live in the Third World, and you don’t need any of the Warriors on Terror who were in Islamabad last week to tell you that, like the Homeland Security Secretary and the CENTCOM chief, you don’t need the power to go off.
The Nation:July 6, 2009
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