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October 23, 2003
This is my city
Newsweek, in one of its recent cover stories on Asia’s boom towns, wrote, “it’s important that people feel ‘This is my city’... and to make a city work it takes more than two to tango.” One couldn’t agree more. However, that sense of belonging to Karachi is depleted when you wake up one morning to find that the sewerage water has mixed with clean water. Or when the refrigerator explodes because of power fluctuations; or worse, the area councilor whom you voted for turns out to be an imposter. The fact remains that Karachi did not get what it deserves.
Despite many good and bad experiences in this city, I never realized how attached I was to the city of Karachi until I flew to the US to live there for a year. I didn’t mind life being tough and rather lonely there — you had all the time to yourself and also the freedom to do what you wanted to — but somehow those things could never make me forget Karachi — my city.
Karachi is an industrial (and industrious) city, progressively vibrant yet lethargically fast. One needs to feel the undercurrent of this city, which many from agrarian cities cannot share cognizance with. This city has offered much to the newcomer, homes and jobs. But sadly, many people who came to live here only considered it to be a transit lounge until one day they either returned or found greener pastures. One such ‘foreign resident’ living in our area threw garbage right in the middle of the road without any remorse. I stopped to reprimand the resident but he turned around and said, “who are you to tell me what I should do? Surely this road is not your father’s.”
Where have we lost that sense of belonging and why have we become so numb to the city’s pain? In the US, I always felt I was at the receiving end, as little gestures like smiling at people in the street (even if you didn’t feel like doing so) were deliberately made so as to feel like we were all one people. But in your own country, your own city, you smile free of any such remorse, knowing that the person behind you stopping at a signal may be your best friend’s khala ka beta/beti, and revel around your own kind of people. Here, I can stand proud at being the one smiled at. The people, the policeman, the shopkeepers, the passerby on the street, or the passenger sitting next to you on a domestic flight are all like you. And you never realize how all these things tend to give you a certain high when you are living in your own city, until you find yourself on the other side of the fence. That feeling of belonging is the reality of one’s moorings that you can never forget or dump for keeps.
The city of Karachi is at my fingertips — I was born here, I grew up here, made and broke friendships, failed and succeeded here, feared the curfews and affrays, yet I drew hope from the darkest hour. I love this city not only because my parents lived here but also because I understand Karachi’s issues just like I understand myself. This city has seen the worst times and yet has a incredible self-healing mechanism, which lets it recuperate despite severe bloodletting.
At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, there is a mass appeal to this city that nobody who has lived in this city for a longer period of time can deny. You try relocating and you will see what I mean — the taste buds so habituated to the homely taste of Bundu Khan’s paratha kabab, Sabri’s nihari and Sindhi Muslim society’s chaat, despite their ‘unhealthy standards’ will not deter you from devouring them.
We as citizens of Karachi have failed to give back what this city deserves. Thousands have come and lived and made it big here but have nothing more to offer than expletives when the water supply runs short of repletion. The town planners have all made personal gains in order to survive in the long run by literally raping the city of its sustenance. As a result, the city’s civic administration collapsed and people, eventually, faced with severe civic issues, gave up all the love for this city — once the city of lights, where intellectual stalwarts were groomed in coffee houses and people painted the city red till the wee hours, never fearing safety hazards or insecurity. Little morsels of attainment on community level have only done patchwork to sustain the city’s infrastructure but Karachi deserves a lot more.
Those who now sit pretty, having filled pockets with glittering gold should deem in a moment of retribution and ask whether they have dutifully returned what they took from this city? Many languish today at the hands of those who selfishly snatched the most for themselves and left no space or room for others to survive here.
As I quote from that issue of Newsweek, I fully agree that “...if an Urban Asia is to be livable, citizens must be invited into decision-making processes — and must, in turn, grow to trust in institutions rather than the ties of blood or religion, in systems rather than patronage, in the viability of the city itself.” Community work should be shared and people must pulsate with the needs of the city and come forward and contribute like they do up their cozy homes. We need to fill the void so cruelly left by those who could have turned fate around.
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