IN the countryside, people start their day by getting up before sunrise, but in Karachi ‘early morning’ means something entirely different. Senior citizens and religious people start their day with the early-morning prayers, schoolchildren and office-going people leave their homes around 7am, while business community prefers to stay in bed till 10am.

Two hours each in the morning and evening are peak hours, meaning rush hours. During those hours, excavators, dumpers and loaders along with manual janitors or mechanical garbage-collectors are seen on the roads as if to prove their presence, telling us that development or sanitation work is being carried out with due zeal. This so-called ‘development’ and ‘sanitation’ projects only add to the frustration and misery of the commuters.

The commuters, the poor souls that they are, have to put up with all sorts of issues; lack of public transport system, damaged roads, uneven surfaces, ditches, dust, dirt, traffic logjams and inevitable delays.

Traffic rules and regulations are being violated and police personnel deputed for regulating traffic remain busy the entire day with everything except their duty.

One can only hope that someday somebody somewhere will come to the rescue of the city and its dwellers. The wait is long and uncertain, but that is the only realistic chance of things taking a turn for the better in Karachi.

Syed Masood Hasan
Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2023