KARACHI: The police personnel who remained on duty throughout the Eid holidays to spread awareness and make people understand how important it is to stay home during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic have earned everyone’s respect. But there are so many others here as well who remained on duty to guard mall entrances, office blocks, educational institutions, etc.

I am talking about the private guards in their dark-blue uniforms, many of whom serve in the metropolitan city leaving their family behind in their home towns or villages. “I couldn’t go home this Eid. I have a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sonia, back home, whom I was dying to see but I couldn’t go,” Asif Ali, who hails from Sukkur and works here for a private company that has set up its office in a house in Clifton, told Dawn.

“I’m the only son. I have three younger sisters back home as well but you tell me how was I to travel with all the intercity bus service closed? But then when I think about it, I say it is okay. My travel fare would have taken out more money from whatever little I can save,” he said, adding that he was paid a salary of Rs17,500 a month.

“Karachi is a big and expensive city. I [use] up Rs7,500 from what I make and I am only able to send home Rs10,000 every month. My family is happy with what I can manage to send them. My being there with them shouldn’t be as important as the money to pay for their basic needs is,” he consoled himself.

‘My son and daughter kept calling me, asking me to come home’

Mir Hasan, another private guard on duty outside a private bank, hails from Nawabshah. “I’ve been stuck in Karachi for six months now. I wish I could bring my family here with me but the cost of living is just too high here,” he said.

Hasan was determined to head home for the Eid holidays even two days before Eid. “I know the bus service is closed and trains are too expensive. Maybe I will try to hitch a ride with someone. I don’t know what I am going to do but I want to see my children. I want to say Eid prayers with my son in our local mosque back home. I want to come home to my little daughter’s smiling face. I want to see her jiggle her bangles, show me the henna designs my wife has made on her little hands,” he said with a sudden glint in his eyes.

But on Eid day, and after, one still saw the loving father, longing to be with his little family still on guard duty outside the bank.

Ghulamuddin, who is from Dadu, said that this is a time to be realistic. “Of course, prompted by my wife, my son and daughter kept calling me, asking me to come home. But I know how to handle them, and get around all the emotional blackmail. I sent them money early this time, and then they stopped bothering me,” he smiled.

Syed Hakim, from Darra Adamkhel, was tougher than the others with his family. “My family, my mother and my wife keep calling, asking me to visit them on Eid at least but I can’t go,” he said.

“They don’t see the situation this country and the world are faced with due to the pandemic. But I have put some sense into their heads. I can still call them even if I can’t be with them in person. I have a good mobile phone package,” he announced while flashing his little old candy-bar mobile phone.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2021