I have resisted writing about the weather so far, mainly because I know that it is a much mocked and dull 'English' pastime.
However, after three months, I can no longer avoid it. For a few weeks now, the rising heat has been the most central aspect to my life. Well the heat and its trusted companion: load shedding, ie the many hours of the day when there is no electricity.
Lahoris with the means are experts at dealing with load shedding. In our office we have a complex web of battery powered UPSs which are connected to the most essential apparatus, such as fans and computers. We even have a tiny generator for emergencies. As Lahore gets hotter and hotter, electricity fails for more hours each day. The cruel load shedding joke: the more desperate for air conditioning and fans your become, the less they work. Our UPSs make these ominous boooooooop booooooop booooooop sounds when they are just about to die, usually after about 30 minutes. Always accompanied by shouts in the office of, "save your work, save your work, save your work - the UPS is about to die."
My working day is planned around the electricity dying. When I first got here, I swore and kicked my computer when it died five times a day. Now, I'm like a savvy Lahori. I know when it's coming. I know at precisely 10.28am and I have almost 4 minutes to frantically finish my email and press 'send' before my screen goes black and I relax for 25 minutes until we get electricity back. Even unexpected power failures do not reduce me to tears any more. Every two words I press save.
At night, I know I will not have air conditioning in my room between 10pm and midnight. So if I'm really tired, I must sleep before 10pm or I won't sleep before midnight. Huh, bloody load shedding, you are not going to catch me out. A good deal of my life is spent planning around the electricity going, exactly so that a good deal of my time is not spent crying over the electricity going.
But still, inconveniences and annoyances aside, it wasn't until three weeks ago that I experienced heat that could truly be termed unbearable. Up until then, it had hovered around 42 to 43 degrees celcius and I quite smugly noted that, apart from at night, I didn't need air con. And then it happened. The temperature soared a mighty 6-7 degrees to 47-48. Now, when I sit at my desk, I feel sweat drip-dropping down my skin. I grow accustomed to my permanently sweaty forehead. I do everything slowly. I do not even dare to type fast, as I just can't afford to use the extra energy. Eating is only done as an absolute necessity. And no matter how much water I drink, it's never enough to keep hydrated. I complained to a colleague about feeling permanently weak and she responded "of course you're weak - its's 50 degrees right now. We're all weak and we're used to it!"
And then about a week ago, the air con in my room completely stopped working. As I heard the nice comforting whirring sound it makes grind to a halt and not recommence after an hour or two, I knew I was in for a long night. I tried to find a comfortable way to lie but it wasn't possible. The fan swirled the hot air around me, pushing it against me but not cooling me in any way. As the night went on, and insanity crept in, I had shower after shower, the cool water providing temporary relief. I thought I would grow used to it in time, and be able to sleep. But I don't think you can ever really adapt to this heat properly. Even the most accustomed Lahoris suffer if they can't afford air conditioning.
There have been lots of times recently when I have been sure I would get ill, but my body has surprised me with its stalwart steadfastnedness. Despite low level stomach upsets and insomnia, I manage on. The colleague who has been living with me at the office has not been so lucky. After a nasty bout of gastroentitis, she has been unable to get well since. Each time she thought she was maybe improving and ventured back to the office for an hour or two (she moved out, sensibly, to a house with air conditioning that worked) she would leave again. Faint and sick. Finally after a month of this, she has had enough and is returning to the UK next week.
Last week, I went to visit a client in Karachi central jail. We were led to a private visiting room that was even hotter than the usual: so hot that I thought I might suffocate. Instead of focusing on what my client was saying, I just concentrated on breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. I didn't care about my client, in that moment, i just wanted to be free. When we left, my colleague bundled me, embarrassed and laughing, into our car. My white shalwar kameez was completely see through and, as she put it, "you're giving the whole prison a great show of your pink gori flesh".
As with almost everything in Lahore, I have noticed that rather than uniting people, the overwhelming, all-consuming heat divides. Those who have air conditioning and generators and those who do not. (Even load shedding is worse in poor areas.) Those who escape Lahore in May/June to the fresh Pakistani mountain air and those who have no means of escape. Those who are able to remove themselves from the heat, and those for whom it becomes a norm, a way of life and existence. I, in part, have joined the latter group, although I recognise the very considerable limits to this: choice, short duration, escapes to air conditioned restaurants, cafes etc. But watching how others, and even myself, cope, I have seen how much discomfort, and even suffering, people can endure, and even laugh about. I wondered how the man I visited in prison did not die from the heat. But people do not die from these these things it seems; they may not ever adapt, but they manage on.
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