Holding back the Lai by hand

In the eyes of Rawalpindi, every single tear has become the Nullah Lai

In the eyes of Rawalpindi, every single tear has become the Nullah Lai

اکھ دی راولپنڈی دے وِچ اکّ اکّ اتھرو نالہ لئی اے

اکھ دی راولپنڈی دے وِچ اکّ اکّ اتھرو نالہ لئی اے

—Master Altaf Bahrawana, Punjabi poet

It was 6:30am on the first of September in Gawalmandi and Shazia’s mother was making breakfast in the courtyard. Her feet were immersed, her clothes were soaked but she persisted with the fire even though the wood was so damp it barely responded. Shazia, 40, was sitting at the doorway, keeping one eye on the drainage pipe that opened into Nullah Lai. Their house sat on the banks of this tributary of the Soan River that functions more like a stormwater drain for Rawalpindi. Shazia kept her other eye on the tree, which served as a marker for rising water levels as it rained.

They and the other families by the banks had been hoping it would not get bad. But sure enough, the water inched up past the mark (nishani) to rise over 20 feet, and the nullah started to top its banks and begin pooling into the houses.

“Shazia, bachyan nu utte chuk ke lai ja,” her mother hollered. Take the children upstairs now.

They moved the children to the roof first, then the parents, and then the precious mattresses, charpai and, most importantly, the fridge.

Shazia and her family have lived here for six decades, so they know the nullah’s moods, its sounds, and the signs by which it warns them. They are also familiar with the accompanying drumbeat in their veins as adrenaline and anxiety flood their bodies in response to the monsoon.

Nullah Lai drains a catchment of about 235 square kilometres, roughly three-fifths of it in Islamabad, before cutting through Rawalpindi’s most crowded neighbourhoods on its way to the Soan River. A funding proposal to the UN’s Adaptation Fund counted 19 floods in the nullah over 59 years and estimated that some 400,000 people in the city suffer every year.

The worst came on July 23, 2001, when 620mm fell on the twin cities in roughly half a day. A study of that disaster put the death toll at 74 (64 of them in Rawalpindi), and found that nine in ten surveyed households had lost property, often down to their pots and pans.

But the record cannot show what decades of living beside Nullah Lai have taught these women: not simply how to survive a flood, but how to make a life around its return.

Master Altaf’s verse, ‘In the eyes of Rawalpindi, every single tear has become the Nullah Lai’ reads like reportage. It is the story of the lives of the women of Gawalmandi and Arya Mohallah, repeated year after year and resurrecting their coping mechanisms each late summer.

From the roof, Shazia’s mind turned to a neighbour who was pregnant and alone. She called out but got no answer. So she went down, reached the woman, helped her to........

© Dawn Prism