It's that time of year again. This year too, winter arrived a month earlier, and with it the gas shortage (which began after Imran Khan's government took over). It'll be one of the great unsolved mysteries of life, why we (the people of Karachi) are deprived of gas despite paying for it, while gas thieves in other places continue to get it without interruption.

I always fall sick in the dry Karachi winter, with the freezing wind from Quetta bringing all that shit from five hundred miles away. Most residents spend these three months sniffing and coughing, but I am affected more than the average man due to rhinitis. I can't take long walks, I'm depressed and unhappy even though I've spent a fortune over the past four years on medications.

As expected, the corona virus has returned with a vengeance, though I suspect that it's been there ever since it first appeared. This inept government claimed credit for the low number of deaths to get international recognition. Actually, I doubt that even today's figures are true. The daily death toll is said to be about 50, for all we know it may be ten times higher. I no longer believe anything that this government says.

So what else is new? It's a blessing that we can talk to relatives and friends practically free of cost on our cell phones, otherwise we'd go mad. I now realize why old people want to talk desperately with their children and grandchildren. I had an uncle who would call me and other relatives every other day. At that time I thought he was a bit crazy. I do wish I'd given him more time, but then he seemed so healthy for his age (77) that I almost died of shock when he died suddenly six years back.

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