there is an old adage to the effect that most sardars go mad at the instant the clock strikes twelve. having known only one sikh my whole life – a very sane one i might add – i cannot testify to the veracity of that statement. however, i do know several karachiites who go mad round about iftar time.

i’m sure you know some too. they drive cars.

one of the easiest ways to die in our lovely city is to venture out of your home on to major road a few minutes before the sirens start blaring to signal the iftar. the way the traffic moves at the time is similar to the scenes you see on cinema screens right after the crowds have seen godzilla emerging from round the corner. and everyone who so much as moves an inch during that time contributes to the mess. of the various types of peaceful muslim brothers and sisters, which of the following best fits your profile?

the madcap schumacher: this is the driver who floors his accelerator and doesn’t let off till (a) he reaches wherever he was trying to go, or (b) he hits a brick wall. these guys are responsible for the 94,761 side-view mirrors broken each day of ramadan in karachi. they normally stick to the right side of the road, press their horns as hard as they press their accelerators and you can be excused for thinking that they’re merely trying to break the sound barrier.

the random roadblocker: this is the guy who sincerely believes that he is the only one in the city who happens to be fasting and as such he has the right to stop his vehicle any damn place he feels like – even the centre track on university road – while he calmly sets about the process of doing his iftaree. this often involves stepping out of the car, buying dates and maybe a glass of juice and consuming them. this type of driver is liable to express extreme incredulity if you happen to toot your horn to try and get him out of your way and will probably start a discussion with the people around him about how the world is going to the dogs because people have stopped fasting and caring about people who fast.

the nervous navigator: this type is simultaneously the most sane and yet most irritating of the lot. usually middle aged women or old men, these drivers spend most of iftar time negotiating slowly around the random roadblockers while avoiding the madcap schumachers – thereby ensuring that the one safe lane on the road is also blocked. not only do they manage to miss their own iftaree, they try and ensure that you do too.

the enraged shouter: these types emerge after the asr prayers and stay on the road till iftar. they’re everywhere, ready to jump out of their cars and start shouting and screaming if you so much as overtake them when they’re not expecting it. the fact that we as karachiites normally deal with fires by charging in with cans of petrol does not help matters much and so these drivers normally manage to ensure a full fledged fight one of every three times they start shouting and cursing. much as i hate to admit it, this type of driver is predominantly male.

the jaywalking pedestrians: these humble servants of god truly believe that their only way to salvation – and yours to perdition – is to die beneath your car wheels as they dart across the roads without any indication whatsoever. the power of their faith ensures that they normally survive while it’s the drivers who slam their brakes and get into pileups. these kind souls normally have the gall to freely converse with others on how all drivers seem to go nuts when they’re fasting.

these are but five of the stereotype denizens of our concrete jungle. i would say a lot more about them but backbiting and cursing will disrupt my fast…

while the menu boasts of a variety of “exquisite” afghan, pakistani, chinese, continental and fast food ranges, most of the regular patrons order the handis. and the handis are truly exquiste. the chicken chinioti handi in particular is to die for and the chef’s “specialty”, thai pepper chicken, is also highly recommended. apart from that, most of the food is very good considering the fact that the price range (per head) is in the rs. 150 – 300 range. of course, you can’t compare it with places like lal qila, nawab and barbecue tonight, but when you’re stuck at lunchtime in shershah – there’s no better place to go.

rating: 6.5/10

i have long been a loud decrier of the unchecked development of the genre of urdu literature that we generally call “rickshaw poetry”. call me old-fashioned, but i always preferred the untainted, unadulterated literary experience that came when some old guy recited a few couplets of his latest ghazal to you with a paan in his mouth to the exceedingly crass poetry you come across on the buses and trucks and rickshaws of today’s karachi. at the same time, we have to live with the fact that this is probably the only medium left where the poor man can express his feelings and showcase his talents. yet you often feel you don’t want your children to read stuff like this:

chandni raat beetee ja rahi hai
ullu ki pathi tu ab arahi hai?

whatever. the day of ghalib ended with the advent of cable tv anyway. so we are reduced to scouring the back of the diesel smoke spewing monster in from of our car to satiate our thirst for poetry. i write this post merely to catalog the more ridiculous of the couplets we come across everyday. feel free to add your own contributions to the list.

qatal kiya ker nazron se, talwaron mein kya rakha hai
sair kar minibus mein, pijaro mein kya rakha hai

kabhi aagay jaata hai kabhi peechay aata hai
abay horn de ker kyun mujh ko tu satata hai

qismat aazma chuka hoon, naseeb aazma raha hoon
kisee bewafa ki khatir, ricksha chala raha hoon

but this one definitely takes the cake:

hum truck chalate hain, shayaron se nahin darte
bus shair kehte hain, shairee nahin karte

the graffiti in the city is getting ridiculous. one message runs into another which runs into another which runs into another ad nauseum. this is just a case in point.

it took me a while to figure out that this was not one, but two pieces of worthless information.

don’t get me wrong though. despite the rotten ambience, the nutcases who leave their cellphones on so that you can hear their ringtones during the movie, the bigger nutcases who actually answer and talk during the movie, the broken down projector which keeps you squinting to make out some traces of colour and the lack of a good sound system – watching the movie means watching what is probably the best movie to come out of lollywood in the past thirty odd years if not the best ever.

i don’t want to spoil the fun by writing about the plot but i will say this. this has all the “classic-ness” of any of shoaib mansoor’s work. and the acting is way above par for something gracing our pitifully unfortunate cinema screens. all in all, great movie. go book your ticket now.

just be sure to wear a raincoat. its raining paan ki peek in there…

this post will have to be interactive so if you know of a bonafide place with a wierd name, please do include it in the comments area. meanwhile we start our list with geedar chowrangi (hyena roundabout)…

1. geedar chowrangi: a place in landhi not far from bhains colony (buffalo colony) apparently so named for the hyenas or jackals or maybe just wild dogs that used to be seen around here when karachi had not sprawled as much as it had.

2. golimar: the unofficial name of gulbahar. golimar (which literally means “fire a bullet”) attained notoriety in the 90s as a hotbed of violence lending some reason to the name it is known by. it is much better known these days as home to one of the largest plumbing products market in the city.

3. nagan chowrangi: a major traffic junction in north karachi, this roundabout which would be called the female cobra roundabout in english, branches off in so many directions its impossible to count them from a moving vehicle. indeed, one story goes that it was actually named nau gun initially, meaning “nine ways”, which later got distorted into nagan. in karachi, everything’s possible.

4. do minute chowrangi: as wierd names go, the two minute roundabout probably has the wierdest of them all. and i haven’t even been able to find a single story for why its named what it is. to further compound the wierdness, to get here you have to cross unda mor (egg turn) and karaila mor (i’d translate that but i don’t know what a karaila is in english. it’s a porcupinish green vegtable).

5. perfume chowk: this is not such a wierd name as it is an interesting story. the perfume chowk person who basically owns or owned an eastern perfume pushcart which was permanently parked at a spot in gulistan-e-jauhar, marketed his business with a can of spray paint and the confidence that graffiti was his right as a citizen of karachi. you can find the words perfume chowk spray painted on walls and shop shutters from gulshan-e-hadeed to surjani town to clifton. the spot has become so famous that bus conductors call out “perfume chowk” to commuters to signal the arrival of the bus stop.

this list could go on for ages. but i’d like to hear your contributions. so give us a name and a story to go with it if possible.

(note: i may have gotten some of the geography and most of the history wrong here. being what it is, there is no way some of this can be verified. most of it comes from stories of people who live nearby. but sometimes that adds spice to the local flavour. so don’t kill me if you know something i don’t.)

we’ve heard practically everybody who ought to know something about the matter decry the sale of the beachfront and the islands andall the arguments for and against it. i think everyone concedes its not the best idea since the persians invented the faluda in 400 bc. so this time we will be writing not about whether or not it should have been done but why the powers that be sold our land – yes the land belongs to every citizen of karachi – in the first place. so without further ado, here’s my opinion.

he walks on the beach, wondering where he’s supposed to come up with the billions he’s been asked to. they made him a minister and now the party’s campaign must be funded. at any cost.

he smiles.

why do you think they sold it? write about it.

nobody noticed the blokes from the capital city police department doing their celebratory bhangra….

for all the fine work done by our lawmakers and policymakers and the fine enforcement done by our supremely efficient “law enforcing authorities” (i love that term. its like something an insane child would have conjured up for show-and-tell in the third grade), in the sixty years of pakistan’s existence, there has not been a single law that has not been publicly flouted. and there have been few of these public floutings that have not made our khaki and grey clad gentlemen’s pockets a little heavier, if you follow my gist. and mundane as it may seem to the average shopper, a crime with a penalty of upto rs. 50,000 and six months in the pen is a veritable gold mine for any self-respecting city cop.

and so this humble scribe witnessed today a series of raids carried out in the nazimabad region by a bunch of paunchy tullas accompanied by the token officer from the city district government. the interesting thing about the raids was not the guy in civvies who kept reminding the sales staff about the maximum penalty. nor was it the other bloke who was having a ball of a time checking practically half the bags in the airconditioned shop on his micronmeter while the mobile driver had his little siesta outside in the sweltering heat. and it wasn’t even the grinning cop who bought one gulabjamun for himself to celebrate the fact that “city government kaam kar rahi hai”. no. it was the selection of shops that had been made. the little guys were all ignored and while that may make sense to some, it doesn’t really make sense because they’re the ones most likely to be breaking the law. the inspectors chose only those shops which are hugely successful, like ahbab sweets and real bakery, owned by guys who whether or not they mey be so inclined (and i’m definitely not suggesting that they are) certainly have the deep pockets to make the cops leave with smiles on their faces.

and despite my badgering and trailing and irritating them for fifty minutes the only response i got to my query as to why they hadn’t invaded the legendary gole market, only a stone’s throw away and home to a whole bunch of plastic bag wholesalers, was “that’s next on our list”. i asked if i could see the so-called list but well, some things are classified in the interests of national security. we understand.

the guys at gole market had not been visited even five hours after i left the lovely raiding party. ho hum. i suppose they probably busted enough gangs of illicit plastic bag dealers to call it a day. but i shouldn’t complain. one man’s pain in the neck is another man’s discount-worthy customer. the amused guys at the bakery gave me a seven rupee discount on the sixty-seven rupee purchase. way cool.

she’s spent the whole day lovingly tidying up the flat, polishing the doorknobs, sweeping the floors. its tiring, but when all’s said and done, it is her home and she just has to keep it clean.

she casually lifts up the bag in which she’s collected the dirt and tosses it out of the window.

as always, we await your responses, preferably in the 55 fiction format – but you can write anyway you like. have a nice week!