RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Dec. 8 (UPI)—The adjoining cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad are virtually cut off from the outside world, and inflation is complicating life here.

Air‐raid sirens are almost constant and under the prodding of an efficient civil defense organization, every home is blacked out at night.

From sundown till dawn, there is not a glimmer of light showing. At night the air‐raid warnings are almost continuous although there are only one or two raids a day by the Indian planes. The planes come in from the Punjabi border of West Pakistan, usually on strafing runs. Sometimes a few civilians or soldiers are killed.

The most obvious change in the daily life of Rawalpindi, the temporary capital, and Islamabad, the not‐yet‐complete capital, is inflation.

On Dec. 3 — the day the war expanded to West Pakistan's frontiers—a car could be rented for the 80‐mile trip to Lahore for 150 rupees, or $19. Today the price is 1,000 rupees.

The price of everything from gasoline to cigarettes has shot up because transportation normally used for consumer goods is being put to more crucial use.

There are no air services for civilians, and cablegrams and overseas telephone services are limited to Government personnel and the press.

The only way in or out is by car or train, and they are either intolerably crowded or prohibitive in cost. Most foreign dependents have long since been evacuated. What is left is an assortment of newsmen, diplomats and businessmen. One West German magazine journalist on his way to write about the hippies in Nepal has found himself covering the war.