Sunday, February 04, 2007

Brotherly Conversations

I hadn't heard from my brother in a couple of weeks so I sent him an email, and he replied. In order to give you some exclusive insight into the intricacies of our relationship, I am posting the entire text of both emails below:

Email from me to brother:
Things fine?

Email from brother to me, a few hours later:
Yes.

I'm not even kidding.

Inside Thoughts & The KESC

The blogword is INSIDE, and this week, instead of manipulating the word to relate to something I would have posted anyway, I’m actually going to work with it. For a while anyway…

I don’t like the rain… unless I’m inside. I remember when we’d get sudden rainshowers in Karachi (generally July or August), we’d first go outside and get soaked – even people who don’t like the rain go out and get soaked when it rains in Karachi… at least we used to. Now it seems we get heavy rainfall often enough that it’s not a big deal. But this is neither here nor there.

So after the soaking, voluntary or otherwise, I’d get back in the house/apartment and take a warm shower, usually with no electricity. The first casualty of rain in Karachi is the electricity supply… to be perfectly honest, the first casualty of anything in Karachi (heat, rain, construction, clouds, light breeze, lilting melody) is the electricity supply. This summer, I actually wrote a first person verse about the KESC – Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, which I presented during one of my stand up sets, to lukewarm acclaim (Hey, you can’t win ‘em all). For the benefit of my loyal readership, here is a part of said verse (FYI, **** means BAD word):

They call me KESC. The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation…

I honestly am not sure why…
Not much electric, not much supply.

My connectors can’t get a grip
6 drops of rain and my feeders trip
My cables are so bloody old
Oh my God, they’re growing mould
My transformers are all just rust
Touch them and they turn to dust
Repair crew? Don’t hold your breath
Just sit back and wait for death
I’ll blame the heat, the rain, the man
I’ll blame Australia if I can
But don’t ever lay the blame on me
I am the ****ing KESC


And it went on in this vein for a while…

Pitch darkness when you have to pee?
I am the ****ing KESC


And so on. I didn’t think it was all that bad quite honestly, but the public was not wooed.

So the POINT of this ramble is lost. The point was that I enjoy being INSIDE when it’s raining outside, especially after a hot shower. The shower being inside too… like in a bathroom. An indoor bathroom.