Bijli fails in the dead of night
Won’t help to call “I need a light”
You’re in Karachi now, Oh, oh you’re in Karachi now.
Night is falling and you just can’t see
Is this illusion or KESC
You’re in Karachi now — Kamila Shamsie, Kartography
Karachi is probably the worst place to live in. It’s impossible to condense 30 million stories backed by hundreds of years of significant history into a singularly defined view, but to me, a significant aspect of Karachi is viewing it as the city of the big black cars. I refer to the big cruisers, preceded by their respective pick-ups that you see everywhere in Karachi. Excessively armed men sit in the pick-ups, wave at me as they pass by, indicating that they want me to make way for the big black cars behind me. And as they do, I feel troubled, ultimately defiant. I decide not to make way. I am not aware of any legal obligation to do so, and why else would anyone do anything, let alone make way? So, I stay the course. That is, until the car in front of me grinds to a halt, quickly making way as required by the excessively armed guard. Then, having nowhere to go, I stop too. The big black car passes by. It leaves the cars around me and me in a traffic jam.
Next time this happens to you, and rest assured it will, observe while you’re stuck in the traffic jam the faces around you. Think about why they made way, why you made way, for somebody who requires you to make way not even because it’s part of his official security protocol, but because he can afford it, perhaps. He can afford the armed guards, the weapons, the unnecessary decorum. Ultimately, he can afford to create the perception of a threat. A threat that compels you to submit. Think about what the threat actually is. Think about why you made way.
You made way, like everybody else, because you’re complacent. You’re okay with it. You understand perhaps, the necessity of making way, of backing down, of compromising. By now, you have rationalised this whole process. To you it doesn’t matter anymore, its okay. It’s nothing more than defined collateral. As long you’re able to get done what you set out to do, as long as kaam ho jaye (what you need is done) such inconveniences are, in the greater scheme of things, irrelevant. Getting stuck in a traffic jam just because a man in a bigger car asked you to make way? Irrelevant, as long as I get my job done. Being harassed by the police? Irrelevant, just dispense a few notes with Mr Jinnah’s face in a light blue tint. Being eyeballed by a pubescent teenager evidently driving on the wrong side of the road? No big deal, in fact, it almost makes sense for him to do that. Got mugged on your way back home, for the fourth time? Great excuse to buy that new phone you wanted. Potholes on the road? Get your car raised. No road? Impromptu dirt track. Extortion? Sadqa. Friend got shot because he resisted a mugging? Buy a spare phone and be glad it wasn’t you. No security? Get a guard. No gas? Buy a gas cylinder. No water? Call a water tanker. No electricity? Generator.
Its okay! None of it matters.
Everything is fine because you survived all this to reach your sales target. Prime existence undoubtedly. It’s not Karachi that disappoints, its you, the complacent, compromising, feeble, Karachi-ite. Because of you, Karachi at once, to insiders and outsiders alike, while being a breezy metropolitan forging ahead on the back of a solid colonial legacy has become a Gotham-eseque, corrupt, decadent city. Karachi is broken. Every part of it, physical or meta, is corrupted, deformed and degenerating. Still, it’s virtually impossible for you to notice it. Preoccupied in chasing imaginary numbers you fail to recognise the outstandingly imperfect nature of Karachi. For a minute though, focus not on what is ahead of you but what is around you, and you will start to notice the depreciating nature of the city, and your contribution to it. You will realise how your concessionary nature, your complacency has contributed to the disintegration of a once fantastic cosmopolitan. Predictably so, you blame the people around you for this, just like I blame you now. Your singularly insignificant acts of complacency, you would argue, cannot be blamed for the damnation of a megacity. Your contribution may be small, but there is no reason to suggest it’s also insignificant. You along with 30 million Karachi-ites, just the same as me, are to blame for the state of this city. Karachi and its denizens now find themselves in what may be best described as ‘circular damnation’; as we contribute to the damnation of the city, it contributes similarly to ours. It is convenient blaming the city’s overlords, not government; alas, they do not govern for its troubles. Just as long as we are able to ignore how every second our complacency translates into legitimacy for the said overlords. Bastion of the corporate culture, breaking down the limits imposed by idealism, the realist Karachi-ite forges ahead, whatever the price. Progress at all costs, at the cost of the very rights paradoxically termed fundamental, is what has come to define the Karachi-ite.
Complacency then, may be a necessary sacrifice. But you owe it to the city, if not yourself, to not be complacent, to maybe for once, not give way. Because, being a Karachi-ite, it’s impossible to give up on the city, to not fall in love with it. I often wonder why people don’t leave Karachi, even when given the choice. And then I answer my own question. I’d never leave Karachi. The pink shaded coastal charm of the city admittedly has me undone, just like you. The evening breeze that shrouds Karachi, as the sun blends into the concrete-metallic background, undeniably, often overshadows its significant failures. Like most things in Pakistan, and like the city itself, your feelings towards Karachi are paradoxical. A city of promise and damnation, Karachi has confused you.
A shaky trust exists between the city and you, with either often turning its back on the other. But alas, now, forever you are a Karachi-ite, and for better or worse, you owe it to the city, to ensure its salvation just as you have contributed to its damnation. For the city has birthed you, nursed you, demented you and made you what you are. The pioneering, white-collar whiz-kid. It has made you corporately, and tastefully corrupt. It’s the city that shows you your tomorrow, while threatening to steal it away from you. Karachi’s a bad influence, but only as much as you.
The writer is an Islamabad-based lawyer, and can be reached on twitter @shahzaibkhan901 and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/shahzaibkhan901