The city of Karachi was, once upon a time, known as the city
of lights. At present, it is the city of no-lights, and almost no-delights.
As the sun rises and its rays penetrate through the grey
smoke which permanently hangs over the city, all Karachi’s faults are exposed.
Ours is a plain city; blemished and tarnished by years of abuse and neglect.
And at no time is this more prominent than in the mornings when the entire city,
with its sins, is bathed in golden rays of sunshine.
The look of the streets in the morning varies according to
your location in the city. In some residential areas the streets bear the same
look every day. Sweepers, their dark complexions in complete contrast with
their bright orange jackets, sweep (or pretend to) the dust from one corner of
the street to another. The milkman (an almost extinct species in the more
affluent parts of the city) and the newspaper boy make their daily rounds. Birds chirp merrily in the trees, crows circle
around some burnt garbage and there is the occasional barking of a stray dog. Nothing
seems out of the ordinary on this rather typical bourgeois street.
Change your location to the opposite end of the city and the
morning scene is a complete antithesis of the above. Sunlight might reveal a
few bullet marks in your courtyard wall and maybe some bullets, too, thanks to
the wedding in your neighbourhood the night before. There is no electricity because
the transformer caught fire during the celebratory firing in the wee hours of the
morning. The street outside your door is filled with remnants of the wedding;
chicken bones, paper plates, tissue papers, golden tinsel and condoms. Stray
dogs and cats are all over the place, gnawing at the bones and fighting with
each other. Nothing seems out of the ordinary as long as you and your family
are alive.
In case your house is located on the same street as a school,
regardless of your geographical location, you will be under house arrest till
the school starts. Every nook of the road is covered with school vans playing
loud Indian music, honking at pedestrians and other drivers to find a spot
right in front of the gate. Unless the school is slightly upscale, you might
find the road blocked a little longer as the van drivers take their breakfast
in the nearby local tea- shop and compare notes about fares.
There are some streets in this city which are blocked to
public thanks to embassies and politicians. There are other streets where the
rich drive by homeless people; the former in their shiny cars while the latter
are curled up in tattered blankets. Here, also, you will, occasionally, find body bags behind garbage dumps in the
corner of the street.
Most streets in the city are broken or encroached. The latter
are occupied by all sorts of people; vegetable vendors, card readers, quacks
offering a cure for all diseases known to man, book sellers, stalls of social
workers, masons, carpenters, beggars and even lawyers. The street is their
office, their source of livelihood and in some cases, their entire world.
There are blood stained streets during Eid-ul-Adha, and betel
stained streets throughout the year. Some streets have pavements while others
are barely paved. Some house the rich and famous while others wound through
shanty towns. Each street is different but the sun rises for all and its rays
illuminate the world for all living creatures in the city, regardless of which side
of the bridge their street is.
I wrote this piece for a competition by
British Council to celebrate the birth centennial of Charles Dickens. Inspired
from his work, Sketches by Boz, the piece was titled Streets by Morning. I am,
and this is pretty ambitious thinking on my part considering my recent period of
inactivity, planning to do some sketches of Karachi - of the people, the places & generally, mundane events.
