Nature versus nurture

One should thank Mother Nature for the weekend thunder showers in Karachi. Not because the city desperately needed rain (which it did), but because the storm at least pushed troublemakers indoors. Speaking of which, oh look, more people died in Karachi this week! In fact, ‘miscreants’ (or angry wives and girlfriends, if one is stupid enough to believe Interior Minister Senator Rehman Malik) have now come up with a new ploy: setting fire to buses — with passengers still in them.
Seven vehicles were torched in this manner in a single night — the one before the strike called by the ANP and various Sindhi nationalist parties to supposedly protest the local government system in the province. In one such incident, one person was burned alive, and 10 passengers, including two children, were injured. But why is all this happening? What’s with the violence? What is wrong with these people? As a Karachiite, I carry the unfortunate responsibility of trying to answer these questions; not because I want to, but because everywhere I go, this is the first question I’m asked. ‘What on earth is going on in Karachi’ is apparently the new ‘How are you doing, how’s the weather’, at least as far as Karachiites are concerned.
There are several ways to address these queries. One could try and joke about it; dark humour to the rescue and all that jazz. But even jokes hurt now; before long, images of people being shot in front of one’s eyes, burning buses, destroyed homes and terrified children drown out all mirth, until all that’s left is one long, painful scream that rents through one’s mind, pushing everything else out and destroying everything else that’s left. Another way of dealing with questions about Karachi would be to refuse to answer them; but with cyclical violence, the questions come back. Or, as a last resort, one could bare all, which is what I’m going to try and do.
Among the many cab drivers that I’ve made friends with in the city is a group that lives at Katti Pahari — the area in Orangi Town that is home to some of the worst episodes of violence in the city. One of them spoke about how his family had survived the madness in the first week of July. His cab was parked outside his house, and as gunshots rang outside on all sides, the family cowered in the innermost room of the house. Adults stared at the walls in silence, and the children were ordered to refrain from even sniffling, lest the sound attract focus from ‘the wrong people’. They were protected by a flimsy metal gate; and unlike most other houses in the city, their windows had no grills. The family couldn’t afford them. All the money they earn goes into putting food on the table and paying for the children’s schooling. The next morning, when the noise outside subsided, the men of the house silently walked around to assess the damage. The walls at the front of the house were riddled with bullets. The windows and the windshield of the cab parked outside were shattered. Five days after the incident, the driver was still looking for a cheap, second-hand windshield. Paying for it, however, meant less food for the family.
Another driver lives in the colonies surrounding the railways tracks behind Shahrah-e-Faisal. For the past two months, he has been telling me stories about how young Pakhtun boys in his area — all of whom grew up in poverty in the shanties that surround the tracks — have suddenly managed to acquire licensed weapons, unused bikes, and loads of cash. As such, a bunch of disenfranchised teenagers were suddenly given the means to bully people around them. The boys started collecting bhatta (extortion money) from shopkeepers in the area. They said that they were from the ANP. When the local police chief interfered, they shot at him too. Then they started telling family members stories about a ‘major sahib’ from whom they took orders. ‘Major sahib’, they said, had told them to prepare for massive unrest which would unfold soon. That was 10 days ago.
During then and now, ‘unrest’ has indeed unfolded — and how! One could blame all the political players and criminal gangs in the city. One could also blame ‘Major sahib’s’ paymasters, whoever they might be. But one can’t really ‘prove’ anything — the perpetrators are too smart. So, who’s responsible for the madness? As a Karachiite, I’m going to say that that I don’t know. What I do know is that it is a pathetic state of affairs when citizens are forced to offer thanks for nerve-wracking, tree-uprooting, electrical grids-destroying, road-flooding storms just because they cause relatively less havoc than sponsored murderous mobs.

The writer is a researcher and freelance journalist based in Karachi. She generally has nothing better to do than gossip on Twitter, where she goes by @UroojZia.