Urban Bystander
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, which VIP addresses bumped requests down the queue.
“How many requests today?” Nosy Mynah asked.
“Around 500. We will meet five.”
“The rest?”
“Private operators. Five thousand rupees now. Seven hundred in 2018.” He had watched the parallel economy grow. Bottled water companies reported double digit annual growth. Islamabad led the nation, fastest-growing market for packaged drinking water. “Senator Rehman’s cesspool is the industry’s customer acquisition,” he observed.
At house 47, the resident didn’t ask about quality anymore. Only next week’s availability.
“Adaptation,” Naveed told Babloo later. “Islamabad’s most reliable public service.”
He paused, then added: “We supply the water. They supply the bill. Whether you drink it or not.” At the Ministry of Climate Change, where Senator Rehman had demanded the special meeting, officials from the newly formed National Potability Commission arrived with briefing notes. The CDA chairman. Planning Division. Climate Ministry: a coordination committee to coordinate the coordination.
Three monsoons had passed. The optimism, undampened. Of thirty-nine treatment plants around Rawal Dam, Nosy Mynah reported, two functioned.
“Has CDA requested funds from Planning Division?” Babloo asked.
“Not yet,” she replied.
“Interim arrangements to stop the sewage?” “None.”
At PIMS, the pediatric ward filled. Diarrhea from contaminated water, studies trace up to 93% of cases there. Four thousand hepatitis cases this year in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The billing cycle was complete: CDA for contaminated water, tankers for clean, hospitals for treatment, bottled water for drinking. Repeat monthly.
Even sardonic pigeons have limits. Babloo was quiet.
“What changed between January and December?” Nosy Mynah asked.
“Language,” Mirza chuckled. “They started with ‘alarming,’ softened it to ‘unsafe,’ and finally settled on ‘cesspool’, which, I believe, is progress.”
“And the sewage?”
“Nine million gallons daily.”
“Funding requests?”
“Zero.”
Mirza ruffled his feathers. “The system works perfectly if designed to hold meetings about sewage while billing people for drinking it.” Vision 2027 was announced that month. The arithmetic: six Senate warnings by then, three more committees, eighteen million gallons of daily sewage.
The woman in G-11 looked at her glass. The water looked fine. The bill would arrive on time. Between tap and ledger, the city lived where governance should have been.
“We adapt,” she told her husband, reaching for bottled water.
“We always do.”
Naveed Iqbal parked tanker 19. Tomorrow: more emergency calls, more VIP diversions. The National Potability Commission would meet. Senator Rehman would find new vocabulary. In parliamentary records, “interim” would continue meaning “never.”
The city slept. The sewage flowed. Rawal Dam accepted its daily offering with the patience of geology. Some systems, Babloo reflected, are more reliable than others.
(The writer can be reached at
