Daily Times

Pir Bux Maitlo is a highly populated village in the Khairpur Mirs district and is located between Babarloi and Thehri bypass. The village consists of two thousand houses and incidentally, most of the dwellers belong to the “Maitlo” caste only while only some of them belong to others including Sayed and Shaikh.

There are a number of date trees planted around the village and this is what makes it so fascinating to see. The villagers are truly hardworking, intellectual and pleasant to talk to and they look energetic and handsome because of the highly nutritious diet that they consume. Thet depend on different crops to run their households such as the annual date crops, mangos, rice, sugarcane and other types of fodder. Moreover, they also sold butter milk and milk. Due to its largely population, the village also holds great political value and is thus the focus of numerous politicians. The villagers are given several facilities such as gas, roads, drainage system, electricity, both private and public schools as well as good health units.

Due to its large size, it is further divided into three mohallas; Haji Mohalla, Gindari and wadera. This separation helps to identify the exact location of people. There are two tombs of saints as well, namely Sayed Hussain Ali Shah and Sayed Aqub Ali Shah and people often come to their shrines to pay respects. It is a general belief that these visits bring inner peace as well as prosperity and every year, they celebrate “urs” of the saints with great enthusiasm and anyone can join in the celebrations. In fact they welcome everyone with food and drinks. The celebration runs for three days and is concluded with a Sufi night.

However, the conditions of the schools are dismal. The teachers are not well-trained and so the students are not competitive either. This leads to a lot of problems in particular regard to their overall marks. They also cannot pass the entry test of any university and it is because there is a large gap in the education system. A check and balance is needed to improve the quality of education because without it, a nation cannot hope to achieve anything.

However, the efforts of the locals in this regard are commendable. They have organised a welfare organisation named All Shahladhani Welfare Association (ASWA).

The vision of this organisation is “to provide guidance to the guideless”. The team of ASWA works to promote the mental growth of students who are afraid and confused about the future. Career counselling also plays very active role because in its absence the students would spend most of their time sitting idle. So it is a very good platform arranged by the locals of the village themselves and it is hoped to motivate the students further. However, more effort by the government is needed to improve the quality of education provided as a life without education is no life at all.

The writer is a student at International Islamic University, Islamabad. He can be reached at abbas.naveed2017@gmail.com