- A few days after Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Asif apologised to the nation for prolonged outages, asking them to pray for rain, heavens bestowed rain on the capital, reliving the heat stricken citizens of some misery
ISLAMABAD
AGENCIES
The much-awaited rain spell on Wednesday morning broke the intensity of the prevailing intense heat wave in the country’s different parts, giving relief to the fasting faithful, also motivating people to come out of their homes for Eid shopping.
The holy month of Ramazan has not earlier witnessed such a significant rain spell till now despite many rain forecasts by the weather experts and now the reduced temperatures would be a sigh of relief for the faithful.
The weather experts of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) have forecasted more rains during the current week which were eagerly awaited by the heat stricken people.
The pleasant weather enabled more people to visit mosques and offer prayers with religious zeal.
Khalid Awan, a government employee said, “We were anxiously waiting for rain from the last many days and now the rain during Ramazan days has proved as blessing for the faithful.”
“We have planned to go outside for Iftar with family as we were earlier bound to stay at home to avoid hot weather during fasting,” he said.
Samina, a house wife said making Iftar in kitchen during hot weather is nerve testing for most of the women but today we are planning to make good arrangements with more items for Iftar, taking advantage of pleasant weather.
“We would try to complete our Eid shopping for our children during the predicted rainy days,” she said.
According to the PMD, the monsoon currents would produce scattered rain-thundershowers in Islamabad, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Lower Sindh and Kashmir during the current week.
Heavy rain is also expected at a few places of Upper Punjab including Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Gujranwala and Lahore divisions, Hazara division and Kashmir on Thursday and Friday.
The day temperatures are expected to fall three to five degrees in the upper parts and two to four degrees in lower parts of the country providing relief from the prevailing hot and humid weather conditions.
PLEASANT WEATHER BRINGS CITIZENS TO MARKETS
In the meanwhile, women, especially children who were confined to their homes due to the hot and humid weather thronged markets to buy garments, shoes, jewelry and other accessaries for the forthcoming festival of Eid.
All the major markets including Aabpara, Jinnah Super, Super, G-9 were seemed crowded with people of all age groups who were searching stuff of their choice.
A large number of young boys were also wandering in the markets on foot and motorbikes creating problems for the shoppers who are trying to wind up their Eid shopping at the earliest.
Mrs Asma Shah who came with her three children for shopping said, it is quite hard to visit market with fasting in hot weather so she kept all her engagements aside today to spent most of the time in shopping and catch maximum stuff of her children choice for Eid.
She said in day time no one prefers to go out in such a hot weather and after Iftar they feel exhausted leaving no time for shopping but today’s rain gives a good opportunity for completing their Eid shopping.
Hania Jahan, a teenager who was looking for shoes in Jinnah Super Market said, “I had been delaying my shopping for the last whole week due to unbearable hot weather but today it’s a golden chance to spend maximum time here.”
Muhammad Shakoor, a shopkeeper at Karachi Company market said, “We wait the whole day for people but rush starts in afternoon”, however, yesterday his shop had been full since morning and all the salesman were busy. He said it was peak season for shopping but they did not have adequate business due to hot weather for the last two weeks.
Shakoor said rain was a blessing of Allah and yesterday’s rain had lowered mercury so a number of people came to visit market with their families keeping them busy and offering a good business to them.
