ON Oct 13 I took along with myself a few friends of mine and a guest, who had come from England on a vacation, to visit and have a small dinner on the upper floor of well-known mall.

After dinner before we moved towards our car, one of my friends decided to buy sweet corn from a kiosk located on the ground floor.

This kiosk was located opposite to a shop selling watches. As we were told it would take 15 minutes for the corn to be ready, my group and I waited, standing in front of the shop. It was a luxury wrist watch shop, and we started talking about the watches from the outside. After a few minutes a shop manager came out and told us not to stand and look from outside.

On hearing this all of us had a blank expression on our faces, after which the manager went on to say that we were blocking and ruining their store’s view by standing in front of it.

In the meantime the mall’s staff started to appear and kept shouting in an indecent tone at us. Now this situation had many onlookers staring at us as if we had done something wrong or had been involved in hooliganism. My guest who was visiting from England felt really insulted and had to move away.

What were we guilty of? For being young adults and waiting to buy a cup of corn while standing in front of a store and for some reason were ruining its display? Everyone has his self-respect, so I would advice people to stay away from visiting such malls if you don’t want to be discriminated against.

Shah Rukh Khalid

Islamabad

Published in Dawn October 16th, 2016