Poverty: Roots/Causes

Karachi is a city of many people who have fallen through the cracks. In an industry closely tied in with human exploitation begging exists as a symptom and in many cases a cause itself of many other forms of abuse. I don't give that easily to the beggar on the street, but after being surrounded by so much poverty, I'm not sure. What is the correct response when abject desperation looks you right in the eye?

Somebody must do something. Are you listening, politicians of Pakistan?

The photo is actually of a beggar from Udaipur, but it serves the purpose of illustrating the kind of approach that is made daily on my regular commutes around Karachi.

Faith, Unity, Discipline

Teen Talwar = Three Swords symbolising Faith, Unity and Discipline.

Beloved, in your cheeks ...

Nazia Iqbal too has a popular version of this. Here Tahir Shubab sings يارە، ستا په اننګو کې Yara, Sta Pa Anango (Beloved, In Your Cheeks). Love this.

Yara sta pa anango ki
Chi de cha de wino rang dai
Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anango ki...

Ma wayel ma sara ashna sha,
Dey wayel zmong kalee ta rasha
Ma wayel meena ruswa kegi,
Dey wayel da de meeny khwand dai
Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anago ki...

Yara sta pa anango ki
Chi de cha de wino rang dai
Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anango ki...

Ma wayel khkuli di zwani da,
Dey wayel meena ruswahi da,
Ma wayel ze di lewanay krem,
Dey wayel yaar mi ghanam rang dai...
Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anago ki...

Yara sta pa anango ki
Chi de cha de wino rang dai
Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anango ki...

Ma wayel speena khule di raka,
Dey wayel meena kre bebaka
Ma wayel zrre ta mi nezdee ye,
Dey wayel ze shama,
Yar mi patang dai
Ma wayel rasha mazdigar ta,
Dey wayel dar ba shem gudar ta
Ma wayel lara ba di tsarem,
Wayel mangai mi sheen pa sar dai.

Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anago ki...

Yara sta pa anango ki
Chi de cha de wino rang dai
Zema de paki meeny
Haqiqat paki tsargang dai
Yara sta pa anango ki

Tor_Khan تور خان

Monsoon

I've never seen anything like the past 24 hours. The dying drainage system in Karachi is unable to cope with the monsoon rains that we're experiencing. Then of course, the power goes out, plunging the entire city into an existence that existed pre-electricity - the lights and the fans go out and you begin to feel the oppressive heat rise. Some cope with UPS temporary systems. Others run their own mini generators, but the majority of this city of 18 million live with darkness and wait it out hoping that their domestic water supply doesn't run out.

Last night we needed a taxi to get to the airport to pick up my brother. At 3am, the city was completely dark and knee high in water. There were people - mostly the homelesss who don't even qualify for a cramped room in the slums - sleeping out under makeshift canopies. I tried to navigate by virtue of a pen torch and kept close to the crumbling walls and steps of nearby buildings, but at one point I found myself having to wade through a flooded road when I lost footing after a wrong step. This water, which killed at least 30 people, is the mix of rain and sewerage that laps gently along what people in Karachi would probably called side-walks. Of course in the dark, you're completely unsure where the pot holes are and what other foul things are in the water. There's the stench, litter and rotting food, even before you get to the more grim things like vermin, snakes, effluence and disease. Should the electricity suddenly come on, then the fallen electric cables add to the death-traps. My skin was itching when I got home and I felt like I needed a full sterilisation. In the end there was no running transport and I barely slept because there was no way that I could get to the airport to pick up my brother. The contacts at the airport did not answer our calls and then the phone networks began to come down.

I don't know how the people of Karachi continue to live with this. This is a country with a chronic illiteracy rate and a health system that is running on empty. The basics, such as clean piped water are missing and yet billions have been spent by unstable governments on a nuclear bomb. My family here question every aspect of this country's governance - from the war on terror, corruption and failure to meet basic needs. Add to that a complete sense of paranoia about the country's legitimacy and purpose and the continuing border issues with Afghanistan and India. The conflicts in the Pashtoon and Baloch heartlands are the symptoms that stem from a sense of neglect and exclusion. Pakistan's short history is one of a catalogue of wide-scale corruption, political disasters and bouts of military dictatorships, loot and further loot. It currently ranks as 138 on the world peace index and there's a common belief that Pakistan relies on disasters and conflicts surrounding it so that aid continues to pour in.

During the day, when your eyes begin to adjust, despite having accepted it earlier, the reality that Karachi is one of the world's most filthiest places, really begins to dawn on you.

At least I have the option to fly out.

Karachi Konnection - خوش آمدید

I am in Karachi.

My Grandfathers – both of them – left their villages to make new lives with their families in Karachi. It's a story as much tied in with the Partition of India as it is with a common migration destination for many Pashtoon menfolk seeking work in the then-capital of a newly formed country. My maternal Grandfather spent time in Bombay, eventually settling in Karachi where he was a career coolie, my paternal Grandfather spent his time in the commercial navy in Calcutta and later Karachi.

I generally look back a generation or two – my better times in Pakistan as a child arriving for the first time were in the rural (mostly mountainous north) - Hazara and Swat where my immediate ancestory lies. I would later return to Swat as an adult to the very house where my maternal Grandfather was born and raised - the beauty of the valley is entrenched in my mind forever. I don't know if we will get an opportunity to travel this summer, but without doubt, it is this stronger sense of Pashto language and Pashtoon identity that defines me, and not the human soup identity that is increasingly prevalent in Karachi.

My father has often romanticised about the village, Malla Kalyan in Attock where his forefathers had their holding, but in truth, over the years, he has tended to go back less and less. He has invested more time in Karachi and tends to introduce himself as a Karachiite, firming up what I call our Karachi Konnection.

Slumdog Hundredaire

Karachi is the Sindh equivalent of Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay of course and under the British was administered under an arrangement called the Bombay Presidency. Like Bombay/Mumbai, it is a city that has drawn in many layers of migrants – and is now a multiple layered society where communities jostle alongside one another, and occasionally break in rioting, turf wars and looting. Karachi is very complex – it remains a city that simmers with tension – on the ride home, I could almost sense it en route to my father's place in Shireen Jinnah Colony (named after the founder of Pakistan's sister). My wife pointed out the places in Clifton where she and our children were trapped during rioting that broke out a couple of years ago following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. There is something about the city that the residents here just accept as normal – from my eyes looking in from afar, there are obvious wrongs. The erratic electricity supply is one, but the thing that strikes is the slum-living conditions of many of the people here. Whilst very used to my middle-class trappings, it's humbling – I also have family in the more run down parts of town – and I have to be mindful. On the first night in town, I find myself sleeping on the floor in a corner of a room with no windows. This, dear readers, technically speaking, is home.

Khush Amdeed خوش آمدید

Grief: Balance of Equals

Every generation has its heroes, so I don't belittle the signifance of Michael Jackson's contribution to popular music and to his family, in particular this will be a difficult time.

I believe, without exception that on a world scale, we're all equal, it is just that some people accumulate more wealth and fame and so on but in the presence of our Creator, Allah, we're all the same. That means when people are maimed, injured and killed in the various conflicts around the globe, ever loss is as tragic as the loss of a superstar. Wasn't it MJ's sister, herself, Janet who once said that when the lights are out, "in complete darkness we are all the same".

Jebel Hafeet جبل حفيت‎

Jebel Hafeet (جبل حفيت‎) is the mountain that straddles Oman and the UAE on the outskirts of Al Ain. It rises to 1240 meters and offers an impressive view over the city. Jebel Hafeet has been a popular landmark throughout the area's history and is a contemporary tourist attraction, beautifully illuminated at night by the lighting that winds along the road that stretches from the base by the Green Mubazzarah hot springs to the car park near the summit.