December 14, 2006

Visit a driver’s, a clerical staff member’s or even a nurse’s home in Landhi or any other lower middle class neighbourhood and the first thing that strikes you is the number of people who live in that tiny two or three room household. Several generations, parents and their children, married sons and their children are the norm, but a widowed or divorced daughter and her offspring, plus grandparents, the odd aunt and cousin can also be part of the assemblage.

Over crowdedness and the absence of even basic comforts such as a reading lamp, books or a magazine in the house are glaring symptoms of the country’s poverty and over population. You will also notice that the housewife doesn’t work, spending her free hours watching Indian films or gossiping.

While the joint family provides enormous support and security, it is also a cause of friction and tension, particularly for the younger and weaker family members. The individual’s independence and self-expression get submerged under the wishes and needs of the group.

I was hence quite intrigued to read a study about the average American: he owns his house, which has three bedrooms, a lawn in front and a small backyard. He has a car or two and takes an annual holiday, mostly to a place he can drive to. The size of the average family that lives in this house is, can you believe, a mere 2.6. That means that many householders are either single or single parents.

While many in the Pakistani middle and upper classes have moved away from the joint family system, with sons, particularly at the behest of new daughters-in-law, opting to live independently, they constitute only a minute fraction of the population. Also, the moving away from the parental roof can often cause much pain and heartbreak, at least among the oldies who are left feeling helpless and lonely.

This has to be one of the reasons why a study on health levels has found that South Asians live under high pressure and lead stressful lives, with all its attendant problems. Our men especially, lead lives burdened with endless responsibilities. As an accountant, I know, put it: “I feel like a railway engine must feel, having to pull a large number of carriages.”

I recall when I was working for a large company; the management changed the five-day work week to a six-day one. With Saturday no longer a holiday, it was noted that absenteeism due to sickness soared among the male employees in the lower cadres. Then an increased incidence of heart attacks began to be recorded. Investigation revealed that the men who did all the running about for the household on Saturdays now did their grocery shopping, taking the wife to the doctor, carrying out home repairs and other errands in the evening after office. The strain and overwork took its toll on their health.

If the wife had shared some of the errands carried out by her husband, such as taking the bus or rickshaw to the doctor by herself, buying the groceries, or school supplies the children needed, or doing any other shopping by stepping out of the house on her own, the skies would not have fallen.

Her husband could have enjoyed some respite at home at the end of a hard day’s work. When I had suggested this to some of my harassed colleagues at the office, their indulgent smiles had said it all. “You working women can do all those things, but our wives are different. They cannot go out on the street alone.”

Recently I asked a lady from Malir, clad in expensive silk clothes, what her little son’s birth date was. She looked at me shyly and replied that she didn’t know; I’d have to ask her husband for the correct date. On being reminded that not only was she well-versed in Urdu, it was she who had borne the child, she simply laughed. Clearly, many of our educated ladies even, never learn to acquire the discipline needed to keep at least family data in their heads. Or to take care of any responsibility outside their households.

To add to the country’s difficulties, the self-righteous men and women of the extreme right have for decades now been attempting to push and shove the nation a dozen and more centuries back. They somehow fail to see that times have changed and a new global world is taking shape; that we have to compete in an educated and competent way if we are not to fall back even further, doesn’t seem to have occurred to our religious lobby.

Shouldn’t they along with the rest of us learn to think with logic and rationality?

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