I HAD a harrowing experience when I went to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for my Covid vaccine shot. Scores of people with altered ability were waiting in the sun as the staff, without prior intimation, just shut the doors and announced lunch break. What a pathetic state of affairs. What was the urgency to close down for lunch?

Even the cafeteria shut down for an hour as only the staff members were allowed during that time. We just stood out stupefied and livid, staring helplessly as there was no one to hear our voice or look into that miserable state. We just hollered and bawled at each other in disbelief.

There was no care for the lesser mortals like us. There were diabetics and people with heart ailments with no social distancing, all waiting for the uncaring staff to finish their extended lunch. Indeed, lunch could have been taken in turns, but such niceties would have turned us into a civilised society which we are clearly not. For us, lunch at lunch-time – that, too, at the collective level – means everything.

But what is an injury without a matching insult. Lo and behold, some hospital staff brought vaccine container out for the occupants of a car right under our nose bearing a blue number plate with an ‘SP’ number. The persistently perverse VIP was administered a shot right there in the car.

Knowing fully well that this VIP system is never going to end in this part of the world, the senior citizens still tried to argue only to be abused and silenced by the security guards. Will anyone look into this? We all know the answer. My dear country’s destiny is overwhelmingly ill-fated.

The country needs another 100 years – at least – to obliterate the fraudulence and shadiness which is now a common racket deep-rooted in everyone’s blood. Our children will live and die in this quagmire of decaying integrity. We may continue to say ‘Wah Pakistan’, but it is actually ‘Aah Pakistan’.

Tasneem Allibhoy Tharia
Karachi

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2021