OVER the last couple of weeks, the US dollar has been moving upwards at the cost of the rupee despite every effort that all concerned are said to have made. The fuel prices have gone up considerably as well. I am not an economist and that makes it pointless for me to say anything on the matter except for the fact that life is getting tougher by the day.

The steady and steep rise of the dollar and a proportionately steady and steep fall of the rupee have together sent the prices of domestic goods, including those of the essential items, skyrocketing. The same is true of the services sector. This much I can say without any fear of contradiction, for I am an authority on life lived at the receiving end!

The elite have their ways of passing through such a phase, including the capacity to pass on the negative impact to the masses. The poor have their state-run subsistence programmes and the social trait of charity to keep the wheels of life moving. What about the hapless middle class?

Mostly comprising salaried individuals, the middle class has nothing going right for it. The price hike is unprecedented and the salaries remain stuck. Indeed, lucky are the ones who have a salary; howsoever meagre it may well be. There is no dearth of those who have been sent packing amid rising unemployment for this reason or that.

Life is a massive grind day after day. For the middle class in Pakistan, life is becoming chokingly unbearable. Unliveable. Truth be told, the present is just the continuation of what it has been for the better part of our lives. It is for the Pakistani middle class and its struggles, perhaps, that Jaun Elia had said:

Dr Syed Shah Talha Iqbal
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2021