Of traffic jams, gandee garmi and buray haal: Common Person’s Voice – Part One
by, Adan Abid
‘Main Boulevard pe route laga hua hai yaar, thura late ho jaoon ga, aap log khana kha lain.’
– Aam Shehri
If you’ve lived in Pakistan, you would know this. that, right there, is one moment that can push any Pakistani over the edge – resilience level jo bhi ho. Stuck for hours in traffic jam, gandee garmi and buray haal, to think how often we find ourselves dis-honorably dishing out at the VVIPs of our own making – our Sir jees and Chaudrhry sahbs – our Rana jees and Malik sahbs – our Janaabs and the respectables.
Here, when the sound of sirens from lush-push Rovers collides head on with the angry honks of a poor plebian lies the awkward meeting point of two classes of Pakistani citizens. Aam Shehri was one of the latter – your average Pakistani – the unmistakable prototype that rushes to mind when someone says ‘Oh! You are from Pakistan?!’ with an almost pitiful grimace splashed across their faces. 35 years old, married to his Mamoo’s youngest daughter. A Friday-only but kuttar Sunni Muslim. A walking-talking specimen of the healthy Pakistani male – though, according to latest on NAT-GEO, many are reported to suffer from Lahori accents and some from a particularly localized version of the Mamas-boy-turns-into-Mamas-man syndrome. But oh well…
On that day, AS just happened to in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or in Karachi’s case, any place at any time. If you are lucky, this beautiful-port-turned-least-liveable city in the world, will only deprive you of your smartphone, your wallet and pretty much anything of value on your person – on pistol-point.
All day, Aam Shehri had craved for the good ol Gol Roti (yes, the same one that had practically solemnized his marriage proposal last year). After a day of meetings, curt hello-his and random surfing on the internet, he yearned for the feel of home. And as if the regular dose of Big Brother from his drama-loving, overly inquisitive colleagues wasn’t enough, he knew his night was bound to be spent oscillating like a pendulum between a loving mother, and his beloved wife, Susheel.
At 8 p.m, his car had been still for three hours straight. His re-re-conditioned A.C had given up and a stampede of loud vehicles and even louder humans was the last thing his sofa-hungry self needed. Naturally, as is custom in South Asia, there was the usual eager volunteer managing car-flow (who, for some odd reason, seemed immune to the effects of both rain and sandstorm), even he had failed to amuse him, and in fact only made him marvel at how ordinary citizens had to fill in the gaps left by the state machinery.
In his brightest moment, he wondered if this ego-serving protocol was the ultimate fate of the taxpayer money he always paid and filed in time? He tried to remember, if at some unguarded moment in recent past when his eyes weren’t riveted to ARY News, the roles of government and people had swapped so that looters now shamelessly masqueraded as guardians. Fidgeting in his dad’s old Margalla, his B.P dropped to 60, but his words – like a thorn bird wailing for the last time, burst out to match, and in the interest of propriety, let’s just say it was a mouthful in Punjabi.
For those quick to judge, think again. You must forgive the boy his crude manners and coarse words; for my sake, if not his. Aam Shehri has made a point that many of us don’t (at least, not vociferously enough anyway): Who asked for this? How do they get to be where they are? And most importantly, why are we, the tax-paying, vote-casting people of Pakistan so okay with it?
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Adan Abid is writer, researcher and activist based in Lahore.