The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

Before you read further, it would be better to scroll down and read the previous post as this one is a direct sequel.

In my last post, I’d left the cake in the deep freezer. Well, I woke up the following morning at 8:30 to discover the sky was hidden in a thick blanket of rain clouds! Yes, the monsoon, late again, had finally hit Karachi! The forecast in the newspapers was for about a week of wet weather.So what does this have to do with the cake? Well, my mother and I stood at our balcony and admired the layered clouds, grey and blue and black all at once, but we had yet to find out what was to happen with the fall of the first raindrop.

The ecstatic atmosphere that had overwhelmed the rain-starved city soon died off when the power supply went off in most areas of Karachi! Let me remind you, it was 8:30 am. I had to make the icing and I needed modern electricity-run appliances for that! I could only hope the power supply would be restored soon. Soon. Soon.The rain did not abate that morning so my mother and I decided to brave the squelch outside and drive to the nearest store and get icing sugar and more butter. If only everyone had listened to me and bought the things the night before!

With an impending sense of doom, we made our trip and bought what we needed. The electricity showed no signs of coming back – but there was hope. It was now 11:00 am. We then wondered if the party would be postponed to some other day perhaps? Who knew when the electricity would be back?

But my aunty was determined to go ahead with the party, hoping, like us, that everything would be normal soon. The sky thundered ominously. We decided to go ahead with the cake icing manually! Without a working electric beater, it would take quite some time and energy to beat the butter-cream up into a fluffy icing. Anyway, my mother and I started our work in the gray afternoon. Alhamdolillah, the icing was fine and we made portions out of it – pink and green for the lacing and piping, while plain white for the base coat. Smarties would do the rest.

About two hours and with several sticky hands, dirty utensils and ruptured piping bags – the cake was finally ready and yes, it looked very, very cute with all the effort gone into it. After all our worries, it turned out fantastic, Alhamdolillah! We placed it in the deep freezer which was, thankfully, still cool within. It was 1:30 pm. No electricity yet.

The party was definitely on. Like it or not, crumpled clothes and costumes or not, we had to make it. We thus got about with our costumes. I had planned to go as Hermione Granger from ‘Harry Potter’ and I was very happy with the end result. The crooked black witches’ hat, black robes, white collared shirt with maroon and yellow Gryffindor tie, the Hogwarts school crest on the robes, the black wand and the over stuffed school bag created the perfect look!

Things had started to look up for this day finally! Both my sisters were also dressed – one as a “Jewellery Box” and the other as “Punk”. The punky make-up was fun to do – my poor make-up skills were adding life to my sister’s punk look! She had a scar running down over one eye, a skull-symbol on a cheek, a bandana around her head, cool knuckle gloves (gloves with half of each finger snipped of) and a dozen other accessories to complete the look.

We left for my Uncle’s home at 5:30 pm with the cake in Hermione’s lap. Nine hours – no light yet. The next hour and half was blast, as I’d put it. As cousins continued to arrive at my uncle’s house, there was a scuttle around the door to see how they’d dressed. It was fun… we had Batman, Spiderman, Shrek, Fiona, another Punk, a French model, a princess, a cowboy, a businessman, a clown, an Indian actress, Cinderella, a pathan (Afghan) girl and three ‘60s Indian Heroines’ – these three were my cousins Saima, Meha and Anum – around the same age as I.

It was a lot of fun, even though it was really hot and sticky inside the house. A solitary Emergency light lit the dining area. Despite the problems, everybody was good humored and enjoyed everything! My Punk-sister was awarded a small gift by my Aunt for ‘Best Costume’, mainly because, I think, she looked so out-of-character and bizarre! Everyone began to leave quickly then, for it was growing unbearably hot, dark and stuffy in the apartment. It was 7:30 pm. Eleven hours – no light in sight.

We got home to find that neighboring areas were lighting up again. Our building and several others still lay draped in darkness. Then on, a flurry of emotions overtook each one of us successively. My problem is that I can’t sleep without electricity powering the fans! It’s too hot, sticky and there’s nothing to blow of the mosquitoes. We fanned ourselves with traditional fans made of bamboo but how long could that work?

Word came in that no light was expected until morning. My mother and sisters tried to sleep but couldn’t do so for long. I patrolled the apartment like a mad ghost with a candle in my hand, then read a book I had vowed never to read as it was so boring. I was mad enough to expend precious light from the Emergency light and read it. When I finished, it was 2:00 am. People from various apartments were sitting outside in the common corridors, where the breeze from ducts and large windows were pleasant. Many later went inside.

In the gloomy darkness, I once again started ranting and abusing our pot-bellied politicians who were, no doubt, enjoying air-conditioned palaces in other parts of the city. Nothing could go wrong in their world. And in the rest of the city, a simple rainfall can cause transformers to malfunction and short-circuits to paralyze all activity.

The spirit of the Karachites amazed me – they’ve adjusted to the various problems that come part of a metropolitan situated in a developing country. They go about their work, they adjust, they complain but they don’t fall apart. They don’t become melodramatic. They remain hopeful.

When I finally decided to try and go to sleep, the electricity came back on! It was 4:30 am! Twenty hours without power and we’re back to our old selves as if nothing had happened. Everything’s fine, people go back to their beds with the fans or air-conditioning on – with the difference that they vow to wake up no earlier than noon!So, that is the story of an EVENTFUL day! It might have shocked you if you live in a well-developed country but for the majority of us, this is life and we’re going to take it as it comes, may Allah be with us. Don’t pity us, because we don’t wish to pity ourselves. These are all part of a colourful life and most wouldn’t trade nations for anything. We’d love to chuck out these bloodthirsty politicians but we can’t attribute the sour moments to the land Allah has blessed us with.

(I'll post pics as soon as I can get them from my cousins - my digicam had no capacity for more pics and without electricity, I couldn't download them to my computer! :P )