Jinnah Square Underpass didn’t survive first spell of pre-monsoon rain
Urban Bystander
In the City of Dignified Slopes and Undignified Silences, where trust often drowns the sound of collapsing promises, something gave way. Again.
The Jinnah Square Underpass, a Rs 4.2 billion marvel of haste and hierarchy, opened just months ago. Completed in “record time”, 84 days or 72 if you believe the Minister of Illusions, who is known to sneeze new bypasses into existence during lunch breaks, it barely survived its first monsoon. As the first pre-monsoon rain fell this past Wednesday, the underpass filled up faster than CDA’s excuse manual. Three feet of water, stalled cars, and traffic diversions followed. A loop connecting G-5 to Aabpara, adjacent to Serena Hotel, sank quietly into the wet earth, like an embarrassed afterthought.
“This is a cruel joke on taxpayers,” said a commuter. “It’s a cruel joke on physics,” muttered Mirza Chughal Khor, perched on Serena Hotel’s air vent, timing the disaster with a rusted stopwatch issued in the Ayub era. A legendary crow with a CSP’s ghost wedged between his wings, Mirza had come to inspect bread crumbs. “This defies not just physics,” he clucked, “but also Section 12(b) of the 1979 Drainage Expectations Regulation. I remember drafting that. In the rain. Under Zia.” The traffic police scrambled, diverting vehicles to Kashmir and Globe Chowks. The CDA’s Rapid Response Unit, armed with three mops, four cones, one defunct pump, and Boota (freshly confused), arrived to declare the drainage system “perfect.”
The official explanation came like clockwork. “Broken branches and garbage,” declared the CDA, placing the blame squarely on the flora. Not drainage. Not oversight. Just some rebellious twigs and a gang of litter that apparently overpowered their 54-inch drainage system. Somewhere in the underpass, a eucalyptus branch stood accused of sabotage.
The ICT Police’s Urban Crimes Unit sprung into action, sending two constables and a borrowed mop to interrogate a suspicious-looking manhole. The waterlogged culvert became a crime scene. A sub-inspector was seen wading knee-deep through the culvert to arrest a suspicious-looking eucalyptus branch. Officers were seen tiptoeing around puddles, handcuffs ready, muttering about arresting a sapling with a criminal record in Kohsar Market.
Meanwhile, Barkat Contractor, Islamabad’s patron saint of profit-per-pour, sipped rain-softened biscuits and smiled like a man about to receive another tender. “It’s not a failure,” he said. “It’s a phase. Every great underpass collapses once to reach structural nirvana.” He had already prepared plans for a micro-underpass inside the underpass. “To bypass the embarrassment,” he explained, sketching ‘Loop of Redemption’ on the back of a soggy press release.
The Minister of Illusions, with his signature swivel and powdered umbrella, announced: “Let us build an underpass within the underpass, and if that fails, we shall fly over the failure entirely.” CDA officials clapped politely. Barkat sharpened his ruler. His entourage applauded. Barkat sharpened his ruler.
Down below, the CDA’s elite Cleanliness Response Unit, consisting of three cones, one pump that hummed but didn’t work, and Boota (who used to catch stray dogs before his transfer), stood ready. When asked why Islamabad’s so-called “best drainage system” drowned on its first rain, a CDA official offered: “The system is excellent. It’s the rain that was excessive. Also, someone forgot to sweep.” This, apparently, required a “special team.” Not the hundreds on the sanitation rolls, nor the ghost workers that haunt municipal ledgers. No, this was a case for the emergency elite, trained in mop combat and twig identification.
As Islamabad battled its rebellious garbage, Rawalpindi danced with its own demons. The second spell of rain hit the city with the urgency of unpaid rent. Streets and markets sank under three feet of water. Drainage systems, lovingly ignored for decades, belched mud, hospital waste, and fruit peels into living rooms. Citizens drained their homes using buckets, prayer, and sheer disbelief.
Waist-high water flowed like municipal syrup, fermented in apathy, aged in open drains, and served generously to every doorstep. The Clean Punjab Project was last seen floating face-down in Arya Mohalla. In Mohanpura, a makeshift tyre shop floated gently into a beauty parlour. A stunned bride emerged with her hair set and two new puncture repairs. A waterlogged mannequin was seen drifting past Murree Road’s electronics cluster, wearing nothing but a rubber boot and a smile. And yet, from the agencies WASA, RWMC, and the “Clean Punjab Project”, not a soul was visible. Just buckets, curses, and the ghost of Nullah Leh, roaring with the laughter of dead drainage dreams.
Back in Islamabad, peripheries and large swathes of settlements slipped into darkness as electricity joined the water underground. The Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) Whole neighbourhoods, Dhok Kala Khan, G-10, and beyond, slipped into power outages as the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) spokesperson blamed “underground and overhead faults”, essentially everything except divine wrath. A noble explanation, both exhaustive and exhausting. IESCO made a valiant attempt to redefine customer care. “Avoid poles, transformers, and dreams of stable voltage,” read their advisory. One resident reported IESCO’s helpline recommended lighting a candle and reflecting on nature’s gifts. Another claimed the operator suggested moving closer to loved ones and farther from power lines.
Citizens were warned not to tie livestock to meters, not to build homes under electric wires, and to avoid contact with emotions like hope. A family in I-10 used their last battery to illuminate a bulb under which three generations argued over who forgot to buy candles. By Thursday, the puddles had receded. The underpass was patched, the cameras packed, and statements issued. “Everything is under control,” said the CDA, pointing at the still-wet walls. “We have initiated an internal review of the rain,” he said. “All necessary approvals will be sought. There will be a summary. And if required, an emergency PC-1 for umbrellas.”
The drains replied with gurgles. Loops were declared operational. Press notes were issued. “Underpass functioning fully,” CDA claimed. No mention of how it drowned to begin with. No word on whether any lesson was learned—apart from not placing trust in waterproof promises.
Mirza Chughal Khor, now perched on the edge of the Serena’s air vent, unfurled his wings and adjusted the bureaucrat’s ghost lodged in his spine. “This will need Cabinet concurrence,” he muttered, reviewing a soggy draft marked ‘Urgent/Most Immediate’, addressed to the Secretary Climate. It proposed the creation of a Drainage Liaison Officer, fully empowered to negotiate with clouds, drizzle lobbies, and rogue humidity fronts. “There’ll be a memo,” he cawed solemnly. “Then a committee. A press note. A revised PC-1. And, inevitably, another underpass. That’s the holy cycle, monsoon, malfunction, media, mop, all duly minuted.” In Islamabad, when it rains, concrete sinks, statements float, and eucalyptus branches are booked for treason. The drainage may be deep, but the denial is bottomless.
The writer can be reached at bystanderinthecity@gmail.com
