Essay on Pakistan: Karachi the Gateway
NOTE: THIS ESSAY WAS WRITTEN IN 1986-87
Silent hot nights covered with sticky air and the musty smell of a dying day. It three in the morning as labourers saunter towards being awake. Dishevelled hair, dusty bearded face and the prospect of unloading fresh vegetables confronts their worried mind. A consolation creeps in; they don't have to work with their minds, it’s the monotony of heaving and testing the back muscles. Not many bend down to pick the enormous load; they have not read "Ten Ways not to Hurt Your Back" or its equivalents. Elsewhere, and nearby, some bundles of blankets stir, their bedroom stretching from one end of the footpath to the other. Occasionally disturbed by the shouting and hooting of the truck drivers. They cannot even ask for silence, they are the roving squatters.
This, in the midst of a turbulent July is Karachi. It is a city making and losing its identity in the strong emotions of street violence and the proud macho image of the Kalashnikov culture. The ultimate silhouette of a steely barrel of outrage, showing its indifference through the rear windows of Japanese made terrain vehicles. The concentric circles of hate find their political colours and fly them with the diffidence of a rebellion that lives and feeds upon itself, losing the core that found it.
Does it matter whether you are "For" or "Against"? Generally being indifferent is more rewarding, keeps the bargaining chips on the table and somehow the political statement will be stillborn, even if it is senseless, who cares? And yet some can turn away from the image, the deceit and the hurt of being somebody in a city that tears out the eyes of those that call it theirs. There in a small uneasy shuffle, dragging one foot behind a torso of neglect, it walks one of the many people who have abandoned their dreams to the very hot footpaths that will make their bed tonight.
Silence breeds in the noisy hospital corridors. Dettol soaked rags, pushed through cracking cement, leaving their pungency, while in the nearby beds patients stare at the cobwebs on high, old ceilings. These cobwebs live longer than the patients that spill their nasty lives on soiled and shredded bed sheets. This is the today of Karachi; the quiet and sedate look of a city that lays claim to being a modern city.
There is an ugly side too. The end of hospital corridor where the private rooms ends and the wards roll into one another. There the suddenness of change hits you hard in the face. There is even less of a chance to change the tinted sunglasses. Here in indifferent and melting sickness lie the privileged poor who have made it to the hospital. Borrowed money, a daughter promised in marriage for the money, or perhaps even stolen money supports some of the sick. For others their life savings gone by in the one X ray that the technician got wrong. They need to be told softly that they only pay for the ones the doctor can see right.
In stretches of the city, beggars hang out their twisted arms. A city lady winces; the car window had been cleaned just this morning. How was the beggar to know? The beggar's stare, loaded with pain and want, freezes with an impetuous shudder as it passes through the air-conditioned interior. If the beggar gets any further there is little to worry, the dark glasses will always shelter the lady from the aggravation of looking back.
In another part of the city some one will call them "Professional Beggars". Yes indeed! Unfortunately for the little children they never had the privilege of making that choice. Some pock marked, sunken-eyed man decided that a hammer well hit on a six year olds hand did enough to make him a "Professional Beggar". In that instant of piercing pain, the child lost all hope of knowing anything else than creeping up to parked cars, twisting his face in to contortions and pleading like there was no tomorrow.
They are organized through the length and breadth of the country. Karachi only attracts them with the same passion of honey exerting its inescapable seduction on bees. Here children learn to jump before cars, slowing down at traffic lights, mimicking the injury, the haggle follow, and finally the child walks away with a few rupees. A man lurks out of the shadowy bush, hands reaching for the most recent earnings.
I have heard people talk about per capita incomes. The essential truth is that poverty has no per capita income. Even where you may contrive it, or perhaps stumble upon it, it is a hard and cold statistic that suits some aid donor or lender well. The only per capita that matters is the "nourishment index". Poverty too grapples with its own unique nourishment index. Here a single half meal is all that counts to be considered a luxury. No steaks and definitely no liver pate'.
This is not the only image of Karachi. It has its little vestiges of wealth. In the old days the wealthy were neatly tucked away in areas like Defence Housing Society. What an apt name "Defence". It normally did mean defending the life style of the affluent, defending the right to be different. It did not matter what the difference meant but different it must be. Some houses had nice swimming pools, servants wearing a white uniform with bright brass buttons. He commonly carries a silver tray with cool drinks and assortments. As he would bend down to serve the fortunate guest his own embarrassment would ooze out. A little of it was always left in the room, especially as his master or mistress smiled awkwardly. The uneasiness was usually hidden behind words like; "He is a new chap, just learning the routine."
One always wondered who was the laughing stock. Was it the servant ill at ease in a straightjacket three size too short or large as the case may be? Was it the employer, fazed at his own game of mimicry? The passing opulence of money seeps through the corridors of these houses. In the quiet evening of their bedrooms their will read the book reviews from some specially ordered arty magazine and next day the pretence of having read the book shall be played to an adoring audience. The fact that the book was just published will cross many a mind, but games of the rich are never interrupted.
Times have changed; the comfort of a thick wall is wearing thin. The poor crouch nearer the high walls, some can even peer over, even if they do not work in the house. Never before has the ravine separating the affluent from the destitute seemed so narrow. Some little child actually believes he can reach out and touch the other side. His attempt at stealing the cycle, or whatever, is usually met with a harsh beating and hours later the burning walls of the police station can only be a cool respite from the sting of the rich man's whip.
At numerous lengths one is told that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto "spoilt" the poor. He, in is bid for political leadership, needed the poor. They and their poverty were exploited. It was just as blatant as what others had been doing. He only used better slogans. It is not strange then to see the poor exploit their own poverty. The ultimate excuse for stealing, robbing or whatever. It will stand up for a polite word from the local politician to the police officer, especially if it is close to an election, the few and far between they occur.
Karachi is a city that is built, like all cities, on need. It also sustains the city with the crude mentality that makes violence and ethnicity willing bedfellows. And little by little as the new city of tomorrow takes roots, some little part of the desperate Karachi also dies. The cry of anguish is a silent one; it needs shoddy streets with dim lights and hollow existence for the final rites of burial. The ultimate masquerade of finesse and wealth mixes in rude and brutal cocktails of social prejudice and the final insult of a tongue stuck out, or at times even the ethnic insults that turn this city violent will do.
Here, like over grown friendships, only a small excuse is enough to light the ethnic fires of hate. The Punjabi, the Sindhi, the Pathan and the Mohajir have all found their little taunts and the stone thrown in anger means a lot more than the language of the unheard. Here it is the only way to be heard. It is a different matter that those who hear the stone crash through the window care little because it is neither their window nor their stone.
In to the melting pot come the likes of religious fanatics, drug addicts, political opportunists and the wealthy that can never convincingly tell you where their wealth came from. Somewhere in their steely smiles their eyes will tell you that it was either a huge loan, long since buried in files and auditors, or perhaps a dubious business deal that is best described by "ImportExport". It seems more of export than import. The tell tales signs of the bribes taken, or the kickbacks received always subtly tucked behind closed doors; after all doors were made to hide things!
As time goes by the lies begin to multiply. Someone should have told these wealthy fibbers that lies multiply in exponential fashion, quite like heroin values jump from the small shop in the tribal belt to the final destination of New York. But then the ultimate shrug of shoulders and the "Who Cares!" has a poignant message that even logic fails to understand. In some gentle sitting room, a bearded Afghan, long since lost in being a Pathan, will tell you that selling Heroin to the infidels is alright, especially as he sends the money to fight the Russian Kafirs in Afghanistan. Logic breeds its own logic. Here in that sitting room the circle begins in the very instance that it ends.
A sari-draped woman will put on her Cambridge accent, mellowed with too much of BBC, and tell you that the real Pakistan is not Karachi.
‘Karachi is too cosmopolitan’
That clearly establishes Miss England Return as one of the `haves'. The boundary has been demarcated and here there will be no disputes, no political tribunals and no wars of attrition. The verdict is out, if you must see Pakistan then by-pass Karachi. Does it matter that the person who delivers that imposing prescription has perhaps never ventured beyond Karachi, or at best been to the capital Islamabad?
In any transcendent form Karachi has its measure of deceit. The society lady, who will not waste her time with the young artist till he is well bought, is only doing what rightfully is her little bit towards making this a snobbish town. She has not been taught to ask why? The husband can at best ignore her passing reference to the “Import and Export” trade. He pays for her weekly, if not daily, visit to beautician. Perhaps he has been told that she is running out of faces to lift, or her double chins can now only set a ripple in motion. Somehow it does not matter.
At times comparing is perhaps a consolation for the misery that one can turn away from one's own doorstep. Like an accusing finger pointed eastwards some voice will say, "But Bombay is so filthy and dirty. The poverty is unbearable."
My dear it is all a question of degrees. Another city's suffering can never deaden the pain of the poor under your feet. Karachi is in that, and only in that, sense an urban garbage dump of ethnic machismo and nihilist hate. Emotions matter only to the extent that they can destroy and injure, a cold blade of the knife piercing soft bellies may help in driving the point home. In any case the press photographers love that part of the ethnic hate cycle. Like expectant children standing beside a Ferris wheel, half waiting their turn yet trying not to show it, they click with the fancy cameras. The bloodier the picture the better; perhaps Time magazine will buy that one of the 13 year old with his guts spilled out.
The poor carry this saga of hate upon their hardened shoulders. It happens day after day. Now the look in the newspaper of riots and violence do not matter, especially as long as you are tucked away in a five star hotel or the emerging concrete facade of Defence Housing Society. Someone, probably a ten-year-old child, is doing your part of hating, killing and maiming, so long as you can eat biscuits and sip tea or whatever.
This broiling pot of cultural mix strives in earnest to find a new identity and at the same time try and kill the one it uncomfortably coexists with. The inevitable tussle will always leave scars of misfits. It is up to you which kaleidoscopic suits your palette; the economic scale of society, the ethnic jungle order, the political merry go round, or perhaps the haves and the have-nots. In any debate, seminar or political bickering ample evidence will emerge along any of these dimensions. More fundamentally, these troubled social jigsaw puzzles pose questions that bring the core debate of "Why a Pakistan" in to the forefront.
The issue is not where or why; somehow in 43 odd years those questions and their loaded answers have all flowed down the Indus. Now there is a more basic debate, at times violent, the continuation of 43 years of existence, the corpus that must sustain itself if it needs to survive. Towards that essential task, Karachi provides a culminating point for a vast intellectual and nonintellectual dialectic. It is frivolous and serious, disjointed and well argued, ethnically dangerous and yet uniting, and above it is what may turn out to be the very excuse for doubt. Doubts in any political and social sense need not rest upon anything more or less than a rumour or conjecture. In a fast paced and emotional society people will forget the real reasons anyway, more so when the colossal force of history and the lack of sense of the future merge in a frightful combination.
Karachi makes all that happen, and at many times all for the wrong reasons. A child is run over by an overloaded bus, and the driver is meted out the justice of the mob. Drivers have ethnic backgrounds and worse, friends too. The cycle begins with the ending of two lives, and ironically the bus was overloaded by the ethnic cake mix that now turns guns and stones at each other. It is not long before the political rage that urges a hunger for cheap popularity joins into the burning mess of tires, stones, knife wounds and the sound of automatic fire.
The reception clerk at the five star hotel will not bother you with the mundane killings in the slums of Kharadar and New Karachi. If you could have survived the unimaginable newspaper he will assume that it does not interest you. Perhaps a little inconvenience if you intended to go visiting out of Karachi. Should you mention the sad aspect of the child's death, the reception desk will merely mutter something about God's ways of population control. You walk away leaving the mumbling idiot at the reception smiling nervously, perhaps you were one of the million who was sensitive. "What a shame!" he will announce to his colleagues or to the peroxide brunette with the American accent that trails into lost syllables and nasal tenors.
In the lowest end of the of the economic pecking order come the people of Kharadar and Lyari. The final epitome of the word poverty and yet blend with a sense of pride that makes them compellingly attractive. Their impoverishment is their greatest strength; the water bills never arrive, the man who reads the electricity meter ventures past chatting his way. He would not even know where the meters were installed, if at all. Theirs is the power of the riot, Martin Luther King’s distant children whose only language in desperation is the riot. The essential question is whether somebody listens.
Here within the foetal embrace of Kharadar and Lyari lie the very poor that socialists and capitalists exploit, all for the same necessity of political and economic power. Neither is ashamed about it. Benazir Bhutto celebrates her marriage amongst these people and that in the final count makes them her strongest allies. They have shed the garb of religious pretensions and embodied their belief into the sublimity of political promise. They acknowledge Benazir Bhutto because in her moment of happiness she thought of them. Whether there are any deliveries or whether there were any promises in the first place does not matter. Two decades ago the promises made to them by her father were more blatant. But then the man who made the promises long ago succumbed to the gallows or a military boot, and in Pakistan for those who die all the failed promises are suddenly forgiven.
While history is rewritten in paler colours at the commencement of each decade, the poor people have their own history. It is littered with the endless search for a stable job. The little tuck shop that Sultan opened just last month will, by some miracle pay the debt and transform into a massive department store that is the ultimate daydream that Sultan lives on. Indeed these run down slums of Pakistan house a million to one-day dreams. With the passing of each new car down the Highway nearby, another daydream takes roots in the hazy look that little boys throw towards the road. They are learning the ultimate message of want, "you cannot have everything you may want or deserve." That is nevertheless a message that affluent mothers throw at their children over dining tables; like a little anchor to the murky ethical and moral codes they read in out of date English novels. To these children of Kharadar and Lyari the message of want will always carry a ring of Providence.
In years to come whether their lives will better or not is hard to project. Given their high birth rate and low prospects for a better opportunity the chances are that they will learn to carry on dreaming like their forefathers have. However, with each generation the fire will die out a little more, and as the eyes become cloudy with the urgency of poverty creeping up, they will resign themselves to dirty, dusty clothes and the endless search for scraps in the garbage cans. And when a neo Marxist looking reporter will survey them their answer to "Whom do you blame for you condition most?" will be clear and crisp, "FATE".
It takes twenty score generations to be taught that there is no social or economic reason for the way the poor continue progressing further into poverty. This is a progressive conditioning that makes the poor oblivious towards inflation rates, earning power and basic social and health needs. In the many years of political confusion they have even forgotten that they have a political power too. It is not strange. Their political and economic consciousness has been repeatedly gang raped, now all the gangs look the same, it does not matter which colour clothes they wear this time. Perhaps the desperation for change will come when the dreams stop coming to the little children, when selling the body and soul in a final consummating act of human slavery will bring a consciousness that may make a difference. Perhaps then as a new spring of jasmine water gushing out of the weakened corpus will compel the demand for a better way of life in the future.
Yet in an ironical way these down trodden in Pakistan's elitist city serve a purpose. Like a constant need to touch an aching tooth, just to make sure it is still there, the rich need to know that their richness is the very contrast of the aching poor. The social toothache that refuses to go because the host body needs the cavity within its moral structure. How else will the bad breath of affluence fall upon the social web of status and fanfare?
So much is left to Fate that almost any cruelty that human ingenious may commit is cynically forgiven in the very instant that it occurs. While invisible lines have been drawn from one end of the city to the other, these echelons of power dress themselves in colours of tolerance that are paper-thin. They serve only to deaden the conscious long enough to be able to talk about what the sectors of neglect hold across the lines. The ginger smiles, the affected sleight of the hand and the make believe grimace of pain, betray the excruciating torment that each day is inflicted by these very people on the "have-nots".
In between these islands of arrogance and the vast sea of teeming poverty lie little coral reefs of the middle class. The people who carry the pretensions of both the classes those surround them. The pretence is aptly worn depending upon the circumstance. And mitigating circumstances will always be there to be grasped. Talking to the have nots the middle class will speak of the million hardships, the lack of money and what not. To the rich the social guerrilla warfare of possessions starts; the snide reference to the holiday flat in Spain will never call it a one bedroom flat, the word "place" will be more apt, disguising the nature of the possession well. As the running battle heats up, the middle class woman with the rolling tyres of fat will emerge to tell the equally obese rich woman, of the new clothes, the make up and the special perfumes. Deep down there is little competition, but the joy of being a middle class social militant is in these very escapades of comparison.
The laws of progression do, naturally, suggest that the middle class will always strive to be upwardly mobile. They send their children to the best private schools; especially the few that have survived the 1970's educational mess up. They send them abroad to universities in Britain and the United States. The American political priorities are criticised in the same breath with which the USIS education officer is asked of the best ways to get a scholarship to a US university. The contradiction does not matter, it is generally accepted, even encouraged. A good Western education even if capitalist in dogma does not have to interfere with the political colours of drawing room socialists.
Karachi, in that sense, is the epitome of duality and false standards. Social values contrast within families in the fiery pith of the generation gap, the economic gap and the opportunity gap. Yet deep within its heart this contrasting sad city buries its ambitions. The 12-year-old boy, swinging from the rooftop of a colourful but over laden bus, is a conductor rather than a student. His ambition is somehow to graduate to being a driver, to called an "Ustad" (Master) by a cheerful little boy like himself. His ambition has no timetable; poverty and neglect do not have timetables to run by. They are dictated by pure naked want.
Dream as much as he may like, this little conductor pays no octroi for the wandering of his imagination, perched precariously on the lower step of the rear door. The scenery passes him with the speed of his thought; nothing can be as fast as his daydreams. One minute a conductor and the next a driver, perhaps soon an owner. These fantasies of childhood lie within his breast, rarely stepping an inch closer to reality, especially when he is cleaning the Ustad's driving seat. It would be better he did not linger too long near there lest the Ustad feel threatened.
But then this is child labour, the blue sari clad woman from Clifton may exclaim to her equally ignorant visitor from OXFAM or wherever. Yes indeed, in plain simple English this is child labour. Unfortunately, poverty around here does not speak or understand English. The only language it understands and comes to terms with it its own hungry syllable of penury. The child that toils to the bark of an obese mechanic, or a drug-loaded driver does not bear with the burden of his povertybecause he loves it. He simply does not have a choice and speaking to him about the law about child labour and the United Nations declarations on the subject does not matter. The United Nations and the lawmakers do not provide bread for the table, or the money for the dowry for his sister. Yet on National Day parades you want this over worked, hungry child to look up into the skies and admire that black sleek looking jet that you call an F16. He only knows the name because every day he washes the bus, and there it is painted on the back of the bus. "PAF" its tail announces proudly; does the child know that it cost $20 million. Does he know what that means, the number of meals on the tables, the dowry, the education for him, his better life.
But then Fate has taught him not to worry about sleek black fighter planes, they can never figure in to his logic. His job is the struggle for tomorrow, the bread for tonight and somehow to get the local shopkeeper from asking for the money that has been owed him since last month. At this scale of poverty there is no debt rescheduling, no fancy IMF meeting and austerity plans; this is the lowest ladder for the word austerity, anything lower would mean an addition of a new word to language. Is there really a word to describe all this?
