KARACHI: During the early 1980s while watching an Indian movie on the VCR, a Pakistani child in Karachi pointed to the television screen and asked how come all those people in the movie slept on footpaths? She had not seen anything like that where she lived. It was then explained to her that poverty was rampant in India. Glad that she wasn’t an Indian, she kept living in her bubble of ignorant bliss thinking that she would never have to see anything of the sort in her own country.

But today, we see similar scenes of destituteness around where we live. There are families living under bridges and flyovers, there are men, women and even children asleep on footpaths and under trees. They have nowhere to go. They have no home.

Either from exhaustion or maybe too weak from hunger, a man sleeps on a footpath under a big old shady tree in Old Clifton. For bedding he uses gunny bags and an old pillow he most probably fished out from a garbage heap nearby, which he had wrapped up in a plastic bag which he kept under his head.

Driving further up the road and turning left is the shrine of Hazrat Abdullah Shah Ghazi, where you see countless people on footpaths.

Many among them are devotees visiting from some other cities and towns. They would be leaving soon as fresh groups arrive to take their place. Not being very well off, they can’t stay in the city’s many hotels. Had they known someone here, they could have stayed with them but that is also not the case obviously, so they rest on the footpaths, too, while buying eatables from roadside vendors and answering nature’s call in some obscure corner which they can find nearby. The rest are homeless folk with a big number of drug addicts among them.

Those who cannot afford to buy food can always queue up for free food being offered as niaz at a lungar at the shrine itself. Otherwise, they can always go for meals at any of the centres of non-governmental organisations looking after this necessary need that lies nearest to them such as Saylani, Edhi, Chhipa, Alamgir Welfare Trust, etc.

An old woman sits on the footpath with three plastic bags full of her belongings. Someone who is just passing by may take her for someone waiting for the bus but a regular in the area would soon realise that she sits there in the very same spot every day. Several yards away, a man with a cigarette in hand, and avoiding eye contact, crouches at the edge of the road. In between the branches of a low tree rests someone wrapped up sheets.

Homelessness is more prominent after sunset when these people come back to their footpaths or roadsides. At Aram Bagh, there are dozens of people coming to sleep on the grounds at night to pack up and be gone before sunrise.

You may have missed it had it not been for the light from the television on one side under a bridge near Clifton. There is furniture including tables, chairs, sofa (though without cushions), cupboards and beds in use of a few people here.

One among them in a white T-shirt and shalwar comes over to inquire what is so interesting. On being asked who he is and what he’s doing with all this furniture, he says that he is not a homeless person finding refuge under the bridge but in fact a government officer in his office. “Our office is still under construction and until it is completed, we are working from here,” he lies in fear of gaining unnecessary attention that may result in his being picked up by the authorities or some NGO.

Though many here have lost their homes due to natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes, poverty remains the main reason behind homelessness. Many on the streets may also be running away from something or are criminals and living with them, the others aren’t safe. Once you lose the roof over your head, things steadily grow from bad to worse. Not receiving proper nutrition and lack of hygiene also leads to health problems. Many NGOs have tried to address the issue of homelessness here by coming up with cheap housing or creating shelters, but the problem persists.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2016