KARACHI: The Native Jetty Bridge footpath has people, crows and kites, street dogs and feral cats. In the water below there must also be many fish, though not so easily visible to the eye in the murky Chinna Creek waters. It is lunchtime for all except the humans, of course, who are feeding the others.

There are five or six vendors on the footpath selling platefuls of bird feed, pieces of beef lungs and small balls of dough for the people to feed the birds, animals or fish. A plate costs Rs20 each.

When asked why the birds of prey don’t directly attack their plates with the lung pieces, Saleem selling the stuff only shrugs. “Well, they never do,” he says. “Maybe they are afraid of the people so they don’t fly low,” he adds looking upwards.

A kite dives in the air to catch a piece of meat. The crows pick up the pieces thrown to them from the ground. A little boy takes a piece from the plate and tosses it to a dog lazing in the sun at a distance. He gets up to sniff it but doesn’t seem too interested in it as a cat picks it up and holding it between its teeth runs off with it to disappear somewhere under the little table displaying the various eatables.

Other people turn their attention to the waters where they throw the round pieces of dough. “This is also a kind of charity. Instead of giving money to beggars, I feel better feeding the fish. I often come here whenever I feel depressed. Then after feeding the fish here, I feel better,” says Anisa Begum, who was there with her children, sisters and their children.

“The biggest problem here is that we are not allowed to park,” says a man with a plate of lung pieces. “Then this side of the bridge is also closed by the metal sheets at various points so there is just this little portion where we get access to the water,” he adds.

But driving a few feet ahead one reaches a little patch where one can also park cars. There is also Sher Zada Malang there with the same three kinds of feed in plastic plates. “It is Rs20 a plate and I am also offering a deal of Rs50 for three plates,” he says smiling.

But Malang has a complaint. He says he is sick and tired of being harassed by the police. “They don’t eat the lungs, dough or bird feed. They only demand money, Rs5,000 a week,” he says. “And if we are not able to make that sum, they pour all this feed into the water,” he says. “I buy the beef lungs for Rs100 a kilogram and the flour is for Rs2,200 a sack. Imagine how it feels when everything is flung over the bridge,” he adds.

“I have been here, doing this work for 30 years now. In 2004, when I refused to pay the police, they grabbed hold of my little boy and flung him over the rail. Thank God there was a passerby who dived in behind him to save his life. Otherwise, my son, who couldn’t even swim then, would have drowned surely,” he claims.

But Malang also says that the SHO of the nearby police station also comes here to feed the birds and fish. “He has become sort of a friend. But when his men come to harass me, he can’t even be reached on his mobile phone,” he says.

Malang says that the biggest crowd coming to feed the fish here is every year on Shab-i-Baraat. “Then people write their wishes with saffron water on small pieces of paper to put inside the balls of dough before throwing them into the water,” he says.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2017