I am a young man but I struggle to catch my breath as I turn to look at the bus on fire.

I am also a woman who is rushing to bring back my daughter from school. There are no rickshaws on the road so I start to walk.

I am a 55 years old laborer and couldn’t make my daily wage of Rs 400 because of the riots today.

I am a patient who needs weekly dialysis but I missed my session today because of the strike in the city.

I am shopkeeper who can’t open his shop

I am Sindhi, Balochi, Punjabi and Pakhtoon.

You’ll see me in Banaras and Burns road, Lyari and Liaquatabad.

I have an office that looks out to the sea and I wake up early to sweep the streets of the city.

I am follower, supporter and voter of MQM, PPP, ANP, Jamaat e Islami and all the various parties who are working in Karachi.

You can see me chanting slogans for PPP, voting for MQM, participating in ANP rallies.

These parties own me, talk about me and I am still on their agenda. But whenever their activists are killed, they hijack my home, closing all roads. They leave me stranded by seizing the petrol pumps, and shut down markets turning a deaf ear to my shouts of misery.

I am a citizen of Karachi.

The writer is a Multimedia Content Producer at Dawn.com