KESC, burn it! Break it! Kill them! OH MY GOD! 86 Rs/lit Petrol! Bus Fares to 15 Rupees till 1 stop! How the hell did they snatch a person’s cell phone, burn him alive! Kill them, shoot them, throw stones at them, blow it all up. Government sucks! New Government sucks, Oh the past Govt messed this this and this up! He’s bad, he’s worse, he’s stupid, what’s that, why is that………….

YEA YEA YEA!!!! SHUT UP!

It is valid to say that people of Karachi have lost and are continuously loosing their sanity over the depressing problems in their home town - and for this, it is not them to blame.

Keeping all the problems in mind and giving each, another viewpoint, I would say that apart from the prices of food, fuel and utilities etc, we have yet another problem. The problem we are having are the PEOPLE themselves. Everyone and everything has problems, but finding a solution to a problem requires something of a mind, heart and wisdom. Let this post not be taken against the people of Karachi, but I’m just not satisfied by the way people (we) are handling their (our) problems!

What is a problem? A problem is an outcome of acts in the past creating an unfavorable vision of the future or partially blocking it.

So, the question is NOT “who did wrong in the past”, the question is… WHO sees the FUTURE! Its people who see the future, if the people are not in a normal state of mind, heart and wisdom, they are unable to identify the future. If you are unable to identify the future, how would you be able to walk on a path that actually leads to a better future.

I always give this example, lets say “Mr. X” had an accident and X is lying on the road. X is thinking damn! What just happened, Oh It hurts so bad, it wasn’t my fault… The next second X get squished by a truck that says “Baloach Taiyyara”, and tomorrow headlines reads “noa-jawan halak, truck driver farar”.

If you don’t get up, don’t drag yourself to the corner, or don’t get yourself to the hospital you are actually ignoring the worst that is yet to come. You will have a life time to think about what ‘just’ happened, so its better to stand up and get yourself fixed so that you can have a life to live and deal with the memories later.

This is a typical scenario of our situation, we have just been hit by a car and we are lying on the road, thinking about what “just” happened. We are just crying about and thinking over and over about the things that are going wrong. My friends worry about the drunk truck driver with his Baloch Taiyara coming right at you.

To maintain mental stability is of the utmost importance in the time of crisis!

I’m not sure how many of you would actually consider the people as a problem to the problems of people. Lets hear it from you in comments and based on our comments I will be proposing actual solution of each and every problem.

It has been some time that I posted here so as soon as I saw this, I decided to post ASAP, meaning this happened one and a half hours ago. Just a bit after PAF chapter at the Baloch Colony road opposite Defense View, a Honda Civic rolled up the slope and then over.

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The events of 1971 were a part of the history long before I was born but even years later in the mid 80s as a primary school child I could smell the stench of the vicious broth we had cooked to suppress, degrade, demoralize, dominate and disgrace our very own people, the people of Bangladesh.

I remember being a student of class 4, one day I heard a fellow student use the term “Bhookay Bengali” as a derogatory remark to another fellow student of a slightly dark complexion. That day when I got back home I asked my mother why Bengalis are called hungry? And why the term Bengali is considered a derogatory remark ? It is when she told me how we over powered them used them to our advantage, made them work hard for us and paid them less then half of what they deserved and in terms of respect we gave them none.

It was this day this I first realized how in human we had been to these people. But as time passed and as I grew older historic events, stories and accounts of the events of 1971 kept coming to my knowledge. The picture kept becoming more and more gruesome, the scale went up to a level where it literally became a haunting scene. It painted an undeniable picture narrating the shear brutality we showed towards our Bengali sisters and brothers.

yesterday an evening of literary reading was held at t2f, a local café and the book which was read from was “Fault Lines” an anthology of stories of 1971 by noted authors from both Bangladesh and Pakistan and a few others from this same region, compiled and edited by Niaz Zaman and Asif Farrukhi, both of them eminent writers and noted literary figures from Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively, who were present for the evening along sides with noted writers Intizar Hussain, Asad Mohammad Khan and the editor Books and Reviews (DAWN) Saima Hussain to read out their contributions and share their stories, views and thoughts with the audience.

The event started with the Urdu version of “Fork Lift No. 352″ a story by Asad Mohammad Khan. Which followed by a thoughtfully placed question by Asif Farrukhi: “Do we yet have any competent “driver” for the faulty “fork lifts”, to run them smoothly, and how would we know if the drivers are competent or not ?”. We may blame the faulty fork lift or the driver for his incompetence to trace the fault in time, but form the damage that has already been done have we yet learned something or not ? Was the question which instantly popped up in my mind.

The event continued, Intizar Hussain shared his views of the time and Asif Farrukhi  read an excerpt of his writing from the book while Niaz Zaman followed by sharing her story of those years in history, and her views and expressed her grieve for the unjust sad and later much regretted events which effected the common people of both the sides. 

By looking at the whole picture specially with the prospective I hold, it was not too difficult to see that we had pushed the people of Bangladesh to a point where they were actually cornered and were left with not many options at their hand.

 It was Only three days back when I came across this link, a link which narrated an incident of a horrifying war crime committed against some innocent women. the people we deliberately rendered poor and helpless we victimized, just because we could and yesterday’s event left me with a heavy heart, I had always been ashamed to meet the eyes with any Bengali, although I was not a part of the brutality which was unleashed upon the innocent people to favor just a handful few but still I feel the guilt. For these Crimes and incidents I do not blame the army, I do not blame the foreign elements, I don’t blame anyone else but my self. Me, and the people who took advantage of them, who never stood-up for them, who never raised their voice against the unjust, We never talked to our children about it, we never told the stories we should have been telling. Was this not our responsibility ?

But it is yet not too late to began correcting what we have done wrong in the past and to start with we should first realize and accept our own faults and not to repeat them, We should also bring the stories which were either censored at the time or remained unpublished and unknown and for that matter this book “Fault Line” published in Dhaka and being distributed here locally by the Oxford University Press is an excellent progressive step and hopefully more such books and anthologies will follow. Also as Bloggers, writers and journalists it is time to use the mediums we have in our reach to bring out the true stories images and events of the history with a neutral stance. Not to derogate one another but to make our people realize of their mistakes and the best way to do it is to find our own faults.

In relation to the topic (As someone mentioned yesterday) a group has been formed on facebook to submit our apologies to the people of Bangladesh, I have joined this group and I would suggest that all of us should do so as it will help us sort out our deference’s on a more public level.

1971, was bitter year for both Pakistan and specially for what now is Bangladesh, but now lets take lessons from our own mistakes and try not repeating our selves with the same mistakes again and again in history.

Spotted this car on Shahrah-e-Faisal just today, I initially whizzed past this car but then had to slow down, pause a moment to give a courtesy thumbs up to the driver while taking a bunch of pictures of this marvelous creation.

Hats off to the owner. By the way, what is it? LOL

The MetroBus was one of the earlier public transport revamps that the city witnessed. It came after the ‘coach’ services that were supposed to replace the aging and hopeless ‘mini buses’ but instead become a dreaded class of their own. When Metrobuses first appeared almost over a decade ago, they quickly become the first choice for office-goers in Karachi that must use the public transport.

In their initial days, the buses sported a uniformed pair of driver and the ticket collecting conductor. The catch phrase for the new service at that time was, as we all remember, ’seat-by-seat’. The vehicles used to be air-conditioned and the new, simple but attractive color scheme (in the back-drop of the multi-colored, ‘chamak patti’ ridden minibuses) was an immediate hit with the people who wanted to pay a few extra rupee for a sensible ride to their workplaces.

But things changed fast. The rising city population and the persistent absence of a much needed mass transit system of any kind, the business heads behind these buses, apparently, realized it early on that with the existing demand of a moving vehicle (let alone a ’service’), these ‘attraction overheads’ are actually not needed. First, the make-shift seats appeared in the middle passage. The air-conditioners went faulty and were never repaired. The color of the vehicle and the dents and damages attracted over time were conserved as a memorable collectible lot. The uniforms were gone and the air-gymnastic conductor of the minibus found their way into the supposed saner Metrobus.

Today, the sight of a Metrobus on the roads of Karachi remains a painful reminder of how subsequent transport revamping schemes for this mega-city has failed and how difficult it remains for the general public to reach their workplace for an affordable cost in a reasonable way.

While Commuting on the streets of Karachi I have noticed that the bike riders often don’t care much about their safety and that of those riding along with them in a quest to save a minute or two or to reach their destination in the blink of an eye. Here are the four dangerous situations bikers often put them selves into without even realizing the dangers they may be getting exposed to.
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Finally I manged to see my husband after two days being stuck at my mothers place. We were shopping @ Dolmen mall, Tariq road when my cousin came rushing and asked us to leave immediately.
Since we left early we managed to reach till Civic Centre’s flyover safely. But then, there’s where the chaos started.As I saw people panic, I noted these lines down on my PDA

“Fire and bullets (the sound) and smoke is what I see all around. We are stuck fires on our back and fire in our front. This is the view from gulshan iqbals flyover.”
“mobile phone networks are jammed and I’m in car with a two year old kid who’s allergic to smoke and my mother and bhabi. When firing started I could sense the panic in the ceased cars.one of the pessangers in the bus stopped adjacent to our car recited Quranic verses.
Petrol pumps, eatouts and medical stores(time medico and murad) are closed.”
My niece by then was coughing badly as the smoke cloud was engulfing the cars that were at cease. The driver had turned off the cars engine to save fuel. We thought of walking on foot to the Hassan Square Appartments, which were just across the road, but then sounds of bullets firing in the vicinity were clear and we ought not to take the risk.

Leaving the car was also not a good idea as we could witness what was going on with the left ones.
There’s no u-turn on that road. The bike riders picked up the bikes and crossed the island whereas the Bus drivers asked the passangers to walk on foot.

Our car was in the right most lane and the first car that I saw being ignited was infront of Civic Centre, the road that goes towards Askari Park, the old Sabzi mandi. It was a group of four to five young men. After liting the car one of the guys picked up the klashenkov. (Some of the guys witnessing the scene with me exclaimed klashenkov, and hence I came to know the gun’s name) It was a small car Mehran or Charade or maybe Khyber that had immunition. I don’t remember the colour.

I managed to take some pictures from my PDA which are not very clear.

Finally necessity is the mother if invention the men tried to break the island and when in vain, bricks (envicrete) were kept on both ends and cars were pushed over it by people’s help.
I met this guy helping the stuck cars, who used to be at my university and was an active APMSO worker.Who told me that the ”fellow members” were there to help people!
I felt good for them (not to Mention, this is the first time I’m heard of praising them but good deed is good done by whoever).

We made it to my my mom’s house safely in 15 minutes from there. However my brother got stuck in DHA and reached home @ 2:30 in the protocol of police mobile!
One of ex-servants walked from Gulstane-jauhar and reached our place late.
That was the worst I have seen in last 12 years in Karachi. 12th may was there and 18th October, but Karachi never seemed so haunted.

May the country and country men learn to control grief and anger and may we all be safe. Amen.

While Imtiaz very well described what he went through yesterday, many other KMB authors like Khurram, Farukh, Unaiza, and myself were stuck at various places due to riots and mobs and all that chaos.

I was in office when I heard the news. It was close to 630. That’s when everyone in the office decided to leave anticipating the violence that always erupts in Karachi under such circumstances. I live near Baloch Colony Bridge and work in Nursery area. it takes 10 minutes to get home normally. But yesterday I was still at the ramp of Baloch Colony bridge at 730. When I reached on top of the bridge wanting to make a right turn towards City School PAF Chapter, I found the road blocked and all the cars were making a U-turn back to Sharae Faisal. At the same time I saw people running from that side. I was barely one minute from home but it didn’t seem possible to get there. Next thing I saw was something black thrown on the road. I don’t know if it was a piece of tire or what but it landed pretty close to my car. That’s when I hit the gas and returned on Sharae Faisal. I decided to go back to my office and park my car in the basement of my office building. When I got there I found the service lane blocked. The driver of the car ahead of me got out and removed the obstacles to enter the service lane. So I entered the lane in which my office building is located but found the entrance to its parking closed. I turned my car towards the parking of the building next to my office building and after some honking they opened the gates and I was able to park my car in the basement. Later I found out that mobs were throwing stones at cars and shops that’s why they had closed all the gates and entrances to the building. In all the mean time, I found it next to impossible to contact my family members and inform them about my status. But nevertheless after several attempts I was able to contact them. That was around 8 PM. From then till 1130 I was in that building along with several other office workers and security guards. One man left on his bike but returned after a while on foot, because his bike was snatched from him and torched.

At 1130 I decided to head home on foot, as it was still too risky to drive. I safely made it to the bridge but when I reached the road that goes from under the bridge, I spotted few boys standing there. They were laughing and talking with each other as if they don’t have a care in the world. The bikers and motorists coming from that direction all turned around as soon they saw those boys. The boys burst into laughter looking at that reaction. I don’t know if they were real gangsters or neighborhood boys having fun, but it was certainly not funny.

Anyway, I was observing them from a distance as I myself was not sure about passing them by. That’s when a security guard from KESC office saw me and offered me to come inside the gate. I took refuge in the KESC office for few minutes until the boys were gone after which I resumed my walk towards home. On my way I saw several vehicles burnt and broken.

I was home at midnight.

One thing that the drivers need to learn more than anything in Karachi is courtesy. If not because its ethical and civilized and all that, then to help themselves.

Here’s why:

The traffic at a round about or a non functioning signal is blocked and there isn’t a traffic policeman in sight. The four way bottleneck has resulted in chaos and every car is just trying to push through to make its own way out. While a few lucky vehicles are successful in zigzagging their way out of the mess, the traffic keeps building at the rear so that what probably started as one man’s impatience has snowballed into a major problem for a few hundred (and that is not an exaggeration).

That’s one way of going about of it but lots of Karachi drivers consider it the only way.
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First off, the funny part: All the journalists arrested (and later released) in Karachi yesterday have been charged with “rioting, creating [a] law and order situation, encounter, kidnapping and attempt to murder.” ATTEMPT TO MURDER!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Attempt to murder what? Musharraf’s hegemony? HELL yeah, baby! :-P

Okay, here’s what happened yesterday:
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