‘Mohaladari’ or ‘neighbourhood system’, one of the salient features of this part of the world used not only to share sorrows and joys but also to bailout one in difficulty or distress, slowly dying in the suburban areas of Islamabad because of increased level of anxiety and stress caused by the poverty and inflation and invasion of indoor modern technologies like internet, TV and mobile.
The concept of mohaladari was considered a rich tradition in the suburban or rural areas where women were used to visit others home for sharing their distress and happiness but people now try tackling their problems within their homes. Zaitoon Bibi, a 45-year-old housewife from Bhara Kahu, believes that the circumstances have changed in her surroundings, as people have little time to visit each other. “It was not the case earlier,” she said.
“The other thing is that people don’t get time to go to others home as they keep themselves indulged inside their homes trying to meet their needs, a daunting task amidst a high level of inflation.”
Sharing her experiences, she said, “Yasmeen, my neighbour, used to come to our home almost on daily basis to seek my help for accompanying her to market or visiting doctor as her husband is working in Saudi Arabia and her kids were very little, but as her children have gotten elder, she visits our house after months.”
She opined that the change in Yasmeen’s attitude was because of the fact that she was busy in solving problems related to her kids’ school and related to social nature, while she spent the free time talking with her husband as the cell phones offered long talk time on cheap rates, a facility not available before.
After getting disappointed, Zaitoon Bibi has also stopped visiting the home of Yasmeen in protest and said, “I will not visit anyone’s home till that person does not reciprocate.”
Mohaladari helps people keeping a strong connection with their neighbours and live like a single family, but unfortunately, this tradition is among other old dying customs due to the fast moods we have adopted in our daily lives.
This system is still in place in the far-flung rural areas, but we can hardly find it in place in Islamabad, as people hardly know their next-door neighbours.
Kalsoom Akhtar, a housewife living in Sector G-8 sector, told Pakistan Today, “I hardly know the people living in our upper portion and I don’t know about the others in our street as there is no trend to visit neighbours.”
She said that there was a marriage ceremony in the upper portion, but they were not even invited to the ceremony and when she inquired them why they did not invite her, they replied, “We did not invite anyone from the locality as it was a family function,” which surprised Kalsoom and she too decided against contacting them again.
She said she did not get bore at home alone as she spent her time with her son, watching television and using Facebook to kill the spare time. However, these women and many others in different neighbourhoods of Islamabad and the rest of country have forgotten the advantages of helping out each other in distress. And in the normal times too, they want to be glued to their TV or computer screens instead of socialising for chat and gossip, taking them away from each other.
“Our whole neighbourhood was once a large house with people living like brothers and sisters but it is no more like that and we have stopped treating each other like kith and kin. Now we are happier watching Indian TV dramas, as we are being driven away from the human beings,” Zaitoon said.
