A mild rain shower and the roads of Karachi are flooded for days. Sometimes the stagnant rainwater is puddled up for weeks breeding mosquitoes. Half the city has been dug up for reasons unknown. Newly constructed bridges fall but no one is arrested, let alone prosecuted. High-rise buildings, usually with offices of government corporations, catch mysterious fires, which are not put out before they are gutted. Kidnapping for ransom is on the increase. Car and motorcycle lifting, or mobile-snatchings are the minor offence being done in the dozens daily. There are traffic jams everywhere. No one is safe. Only recently, an international agency declared Karachi 'the second dirtiest city in the world' after Calcutta. Depressed? Read that alongside the news that Mustafa Kamal, the mayor of the Karachi, has also been adjudged 'the second best mayor of the world'. Which world is this; third world? Fourth world or the filth world? -FARIDUN HARMUZJI, Karachi, via e-mail, November 24.