STROLLING near the corner of an eating centre at Clifton in Karachi, I was pondering on how busy these eating places were and that how much money people spent when a sudden commotion in front of me attracted my attention. Out of three boisterous young boys, one had gone down the ground level. It was no transportation from here to eternity, but the fellow had fallen down in an open manhole.
“See,” said my friend who was walking with me. “One has to be very careful while on the streets. Anything can happen. You have to be ‘manhole conscious’ and keep away from them by keeping your eyes open, unless, of course, if the holes are very deceptive. Didn’t I tell you before that you would observe queer human behaviour on our streets?”
“I bet you are right,” I said.
Coming back to Karachi on a visit after some 14 years, I had forgotten most of the familiarities, and I was so glad that I had Altaf, my friend, as a guide. “Manhole without lids are associated with human behaviour, because it is man himself who pilfers the lids. Caring nothing about the safety of the pedestrians, he sells the lids to make a few bucks for himself. This is human behaviour at its coarsest; another example of it is the stolen bulbs from street lamps.”
We walked ahead, about to enter an eating-place, when a shabby smiling man crossed my path. He was definitely a lunatic, because he was shouting his head off and throwing stones freely in all directions before two hefty individuals checked him. My friend caught my arm and rushed into a restaurant. After having some delicious kebabs and parathas, we came out and immediately saw a policeman arresting a man for having teased a girl.
We walked ahead. More adventures were in store. A man walking just ahead of me suddenly stopped in his stride and began combing his hair. I almost collided with him. He didn’t say he was sorry, but looked at me with fire in his eyes as if I should have anticipated his act of combing in the middle of the street. “Such things do happen on the streets,” said my friend. “You have just seen an example of how some people behave out of sheer indifference and thoughtlessness. The man ahead of you may be full of surprises. Depending on his temperament, mood or breeding, he may, besides combing his hair, stop abruptly to stretch his arms and yawn contentedly, to shake hands with an acquaintance, to turn back without notice or to look at the headlines of a newspaper sprawled before a hawker.”
A few paces away, a man, obviously in haste, brushed my shoulders to get ahead. “Brushing of shoulders and a blow here and there are a common feature,” pointed out Altaf. “One doesn’t give such occurrences a second thought, unless one’s pocket has been picked.” I immediately looked to see whether my wallet was safe in my pocket. It was.
As we passed by a residential building, my friend cautioned: “Be very careful. All of a sudden some foul-smelling rubbish may descend on your head from above. It is no gift from the above, but only a housewife emptying her garbage can on the road.”
Just as he was delivering his caution warning, a heap of rubbish came down, but luckily a few inches away from us. Shuddering at this, we started to walk back towards my home, but not before a man very near to us sprayed paan-eaten saliva here and there on the street.
Back home, my wife immediately noticed some red marks on my white shirt collar. I am sure she must have thought that I had a good time with some girl. But considering my age, and also since she’s kind and softhearted, she got frightened. “You are bleeding,” she yelled looking at my neck. She was relieved when she found no scratch or cut. I was at my wits end, unable to fathom how these damned red marks appeared on my shirt. Altaf, who had accompanied me to my place, began laughing. “The mystery is easy to solve. You don’t need the services of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. A little taxing of your grey cells would reveal to you that those marks on your shirt are the result of that paan-eater who was near us and who was indiscriminately spitting out his paan.”
