With the lights out, its less dangerous

It’s our fault really. I mean having to make a couple of updates on our national identity card has caused everyone so much trouble. And just when we’ve decided that things are going smoothly today, the lights go out. As we retire back to the waiting bench and the NADRA center staff gets out the snacks and assumes their daily lights-gone party huddle, no body’s complaining. Nobody’s complaining that the center should get a power generator. Nobody’s complaining that there a million things that they’d rather be doing than sitting in the dark fanning themselves till the lights come back on two hours later. Everybody’s sitting patiently, waiting, even appreciatively, including my wife and I. That’s because the not-so-distant-past had dark stinking dilapidated buildings with red-stains in every corner from tobacco spit, and crabby officials who’d like to make it as hard for you as possible so they could earn a bribe. Now at least the surroundings were clean and computers did most of the administrative work instead of runners fetching and filing dusty papers. We even spent some quality time having a conversation till the lights came back on.