Drink me, bill me, forget me Islamabad’s contamination cascade, a memo from the Ministry of Potable Affairs |
In the Valley of Margallas, December 2025 poured itself quietly into a G-11 kitchen glass. Clear. Odorless. Municipally supplied. The woman paused, listening to the morning news. “Senator Sherry Rehman has declared a public health emergency. Rawal Dam described as ‘a cesspool of bacteria’. ‘Nine million gallons of sewage flowing daily.”
The woman looked at her glass. The water looked back, innocent as policy. “Should I boil it?” she asked her husband. “The bill arrives whether you drink it or not,” he replied. This was the third alarm in eleven months. Babloo the pigeon had been tracking. January: “alarming and unacceptable”, coordination committee formed. September: “100% unsafe”, Supreme Court order ignored. December: cesspool.
Sewage flow in January: 9 million gallons daily. December: 9 million gallons daily. Water bills: arriving on the tenth. Still.
“Consistency,” Babloo noted. “The system maintains standards.”
Naveed Iqbal drove CDA tanker number 19 through I-10. Seven years on the route. He knew which houses called daily, which never got through,........