When the Sky Turns Against Us: Pakistan’s Pain and Resilience

Syeda Fatima Raza

Rawalpindi: Sometimes I think in Pakistan, the weather writes our stories more than we do. Each season leaves behind not just numbers in news reports, but faces, voices, and memories that stay with you. These are some of those moments when the sky felt less like a shelter above us, and more like an enemy watching from above.

Flooded Streets of KarachiI still remember seeing a news where a woman was wading through water up to her waist, holding her dupatta tight so it wouldn’t drag in the filth. Cars floated like paper boats. Somewhere nearby, an old woman kept crying for help because her son’s wheelchair had gotten stuck. A daughter pushing her father’s wheelchair through the water despite the flood and roads blocked. For us, rain isn’t romance, it’s survival.

Hailstorm in Punjab’s FieldsA guy stood in the middle of his wheat fields, staring at the ground covered in ice. He didn’t speak, didn’t move. Just watched as his year’s labor turned into mush. That night, he broke down while eating dinner. Not because of hunger, but because of helplessness.

The Red Sky Before the StormIn Sindh’s villages, children once ran outside when the sky turned deep orange. They thought it was magic. The elders pulled them in quickly “Andhi aa rahi hai.” Within minutes, winds ripped through roofs of mud houses, leaving behind silence and broken branches.

Mountains Buried in SnowA family member from Gilgit told me how winter there isn’t poetry. It’s mothers rationing flour, children walking miles for firewood, and families cut off when the snow closes the roads. For tourists it’s beauty and a tourism spot, but for them, it’s being trapped and helplessness.

Heatwave on the Streets of KarachiIn June 2023, I watched people faint on the sidewalks. Ambulances with blazing sirens, people poured water on strangers just to keep them alive. The morgues filled faster than hospitals. The sun felt less like light, more like punishment.

A Tornado in SialkotThe tornado of 2001. “It sounded like a train in my courtyard,” a guy said. When it passed, half the village was gone. But the scariest thing, he said, wasn’t the destruction. It was how quickly it came, and how quickly it left, leaving them standing in silence.

Villages UnderwaterFamilies huddled on rooftops in Sindh during the 2022 floods. Their entire village had disappeared beneath muddy water. A little girl clutched her schoolbag to her chest, even though there was no school left to return to. Nowadays in 2024, people are helpless in Sindh because of floods yet there is no action being taken, the elite are enjoying the rain in their lavish homes in great societies, but the poor are left to suffer seeing their loved ones die.

Dust Wall Over MultanOnce in Multan, a brown wall swallowed the horizon. Within minutes, day turned into night. Breathing felt like choking, cars crawled with headlights on, and people wrapped dupattas around their faces. For hours, the city was buried alive in dust.

Lightning  in Thar

A family in Thar who had lost all three of their goats in one lightning strike. For us it sounds small, but for them it was food, milk, and income gone. The father said, “It felt like the sky chose us that night.”

The Rainbow After the FloodAfter the 2022 floods in Dera Ghazi Khan, children ran barefoot into the fields when a rainbow stretched across the sky. Their homes were still broken, the mud still wet, but they laughed anyway, because sometimes hope is all that survives the storm.

Murree’s Silent CarsJanuary 2022. Murree was blanketed in snow, and tourists had come in thousands to see its beauty. But the snowfall turned deadly overnight. Roads were blocked, cars buried, and dozens of people froze to death in their own vehicles. Families huddled together, heaters running out, windows fogged. The next morning, a line of silent cars stood like coffins on the road.