The Blackout

BohuT mazeyDaar article Tha BaTool sahiba. PaRdh kar bohuT luTf aaya.


Shiekh_Chilli
Veteran of Many `a Night Without Bijli in Karachi

Batool I had written a detailed response to your article, but the power went out before I had pressed the submit button ... gg. but it`s ok ... at-least in Pakistan. We don`t get all worked up over these things.

However, my family had to pay $ 250 to get across from George Washington Bridge in Manhattan to Fort Lee, NJ, after abandoning their car in the tunnel (still not recovered) because of the traffic jam. They had to walk through the tunnel to a side street on the other side and got home at 4.00 am. There was noone to help them other than the other motorists. There was no crisis management, and no city authority to be seen. No help from the city administration. The ferries weren`t running and neither were the buses. While the media portrayed people were fine and took the blackout in their stride and sat around having a picnic in Times Square. The US media is such a liar.

Its strange that a country which can decimate Afghanistan, occupy Iraq through techonoligical dominance, couldn`t restore electric power to their own people. It all boils down to the conclusion that US has been spending money on arms instead of upgrading the infrastructure.

Pakiwstan`s power grids may be ancient, but US`s power grids are archaic. And who knows whether it was a sabotage or not. US media lies all the time.

And the punch line is .... they blamed it on Canada.

Very good article!

Cheers

Zeemax

Oops! post#16 should have been on ``Black days in Karachi`` board.

Shandana: wow..you have no idea how much that means to me coming from you..

atifhassan: glad this influenced you in such a way...

Read this quote in the Toronto star yesterday by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard:

``The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels in the desert and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both demented and admirable about them. The mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his primitive night.``

MohsinA: Im not looking down on the west - i live here and like i said i like the country etc. By no means am i saying that the authorities are blameless for the countless blackouts in pakistan either. Im just saying that in a strange sort of way, we are lucky to not have so much technology in our developing countries because it makes us more human. I know it sounds romantic but hey its my take; we can agree to disagree no?
nonetheless youre right about the reason being that it has never happened to them before...i just find it scary that a blackout becomes a catastrophe..

doublec: sigh. I heard state inspectors were doing their rounds to check for price gouging and spoilt food etc.. but i guess some people still took advantage..like T said, they were few and far between thankfully.

apologise for this digression, bat. . .

Brat: yaar, emails keep bouncing back. Drop me a line?

I am not sure what rescue operations are going on. Let me try to think of ways of combating this problem anyways. I can think of one possible chemical way by which to contain the spreading of the oil slick followed by the use of mechanical methods such as use of skimmers. The key to preventing the spread of oil on water is to make the spreading coefficient negative. This could best be done by using biodegradable fluorinated surfactants that can reduce the surface tension of the water below that of oil by a comfortable margin. The surfactants/surfactant solution could be sprayed onto the water surface and the booms/skimmers could be used to remove the oil. If the size of the spill is not very large, an alternative could be the use of gellants to gel the floating oil slick which can then be removed rather easily. However the feasibility/efficiency of these method depends of the actual on-shore conditions, strength of the tidal waves, winds wtc.

MohsinA

A very valid point, and it`s true that considering it was their `first time` people did really well.
I guess everyone was just shocked, it was something we take for granted, and so the blackout made people step back and realise this in many different ways.

In a tongue in cheek kinda way (rather than the real facts as you outlined) we like to think that even though are countries are poor we have something that the `richer` countries don`t.

doublec:

...sad as your experiences were we also witnessed some price gouging at the pumps...BUT...these were few and far in between...on my drive i also saw a few desis including a grandmotherly woman directing traffic...and everybody obeyed her!

Hey bat. I do agree when you say that Canadians are really helpful. No doubt about that and this was evident on Thursday.
However a couple of desi`s really made me mad by trying to make the best of it.

I was with a group of people from work who were trying to get to the east end. (from downtown TO) Our office people were kind enough to hand us taxi chits but there were no signs of any taxis when we got down the building. (Had to walk 31 floors down. My calves still hurt). Anyway we tried hailing a cab but they were running low on gas so we had to wait for one that had a full tank. I finally found a cab driver that was willing to take us to Scarborough. When i asked him how much it would cost us he answered $50.00 a person. A normal ride that would have cost $20 - $35 was now costing us $200 as there were 4 of us. I told him that he could go jump in Lake Ontario.

The next day i stayed home as we did not have any power. At around 2:00 PM i decided to go to my favorite desi take out place and get myself a birany. Guess what..... they had jacked their prices by nearly 50%...... their excuse `` sahib murgee mahangee mili hai``. Who the hell cares, should they not absorb such expenses? I will definitely not being visiting that place again.

It is really sad to know that there are people that love to take advantage of someone`s helplessness.

Nicely written article, and not meaning to be unduly critical, but you write:

``At home, i.e. Karachi life goes on. Here, in Toronto life comes to an abrupt halt. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the modern West that depends so much on technology, it doesn’t know what to do without it.``

Rather than looking down our nose at the West, we should ask why they were so unprepared. Answer: for Toronto, it was the first real blackout in living memory. And why does life in Karachi continue almost as usual under similar circumstances? Answer: because blackouts are so common, people have learnt to adapt and live with it.

With due respect, I find it strange that something that would normally have been considered bad -- incompetence and corruption leading to inadequate power -- is now spoken of with pride, almost as if it were a badge of honour.

amazinggggggggggg............................i just got off the article n i normally read stuff here during the lunch hour at ma office (another one o those software houses)..n no exageration this piece actually made me look at the man sitting next to me as a human being and not like that technical man i normally ask to write database queries......keep fillin us with more black outs
cheers
:D

a fluid, pleasant read. do write more...

shandana

bat:
you may live wherever you desire but you would be a perfect `newfi` ;)

Hi, bat! Good article. Look forward to seeing you up on the front page more often.

thankyou syd, T again. But Syd, why should`nt people be calm ? i mean its just electricity... the world did exist pre-electricity and life does go on...kher i agree its a different world..and yes the people were extremely helpful and thats the one thing that i realize about canadians.. theyre very gallant

bmk; actually i did send them this piece, its not like they picked it up from my ilog ..but just didnt expect it to get here so also posted it there (ilog)
nonetheless bmk thankyou very much for the words of encouragement - they mean alot.

tahmed sahab, sigh...canada bohot khoobsurat hai maggar rozi jahan le jaati hai wahan chale atay hein..how i wish we lived somewhere in NovaScotia or even a greener part of toronto and especially not in a multi storey apt. building but kya karein...i by no means wish to defame Canada. It is a wonderful country with wonderful people and inshallah if i every get the chance i will explore it more.

Azure: merci. couldnt agree more.

oh........, plz forgive me for posting an iLOG entry here, on main. I am really sorry for that. :(
wish, chowk-staff could remove it from here.