Whatever will be, will be
If a site plan exists for connections from the main gas pipe to houses, the men from Sui Northern didn’t have it. Seeing them searching for this connection, Lala, the chawkidar next door, suggested they dug at a certain spot. By the end of the day and after trying everywhere else, it was as if an amnesic dog had been looking for a misplaced bone: enormous mounds of dirt and large open pits dotted the verge, punctuated by dusty men. When they finally took their spades to the chawkidar’s spot, they found what they were looking for.
It’s where gas connections usually are, shrugged Lala next door.
Perhaps Sui Northern should consider employing Lala in a bid to improve efficiency.
The six men demolished the green strip and part of the road outside our house, and here’s how the two who actually worked eventually fixed the pipe to the mains: they positioned the new pipe, then welded the pipe to the mains, with a blowtorch. When asked why the blowtorch had been used without switching off the gas at the mains first, the leader of the team said “Hum to aisay hi kartay hain, ji”, followed by the ubiquitous, “Allah malik hai”.
Just to make sure you get the full import of what was done: they did not turn off the gas before exposing it to the flame. So a human stood at this end of a potential inferno and wasn’t blown up, because… well, if God gave people what they deserved every time, there would be few persons left alive in this country.
In the Punjab, where this incident took place, safety measures are conspicuous by their absence, and it is macho to be indifferent to security. Punjab is not alone. There is a callous indifference to loss of life and the security of the living throughout the country.
Language has a considerable impact on actions. The cliché ridden language the Pakistani public is fed and has become used to, has taught them to accept lies, shoddy work, laziness, and actions that are at variance with the spoken word, all under a pious umbrella.
Such a conclusion from an inefficient team of workmen may seem extreme, but it is not. The Sui Northern case is just one small example that reflects the whole.
At the garment factory in Baldia Town in Karachi, the scene of Pakistan’s biggest and most tragic industrial disasters, almost 300 people died. There were no safety procedures, nor any emergency exits in the factory. This January, reporters visited the factory again. No lessons had been learnt from the event. Other factories in the vicinity still had grills on the windows, because of which workers were earlier unable to leave the premises. According to workers in these other factories, no safety measures had been taken, still. Only one man said the factory he worked in had fire escapes and workers had been trained in evacuation procedures. Possibly the owner of this factory had a dim inkling of the extent to which God is willing to be pushed.
After the fire, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf announced a financial compensation for the victims’ families. His rhetoric on the occasion is easy to imagine. And then just a few months later on the PM’s own orders, murder charges against the owners of the factory were dropped with no explanation. There were objections, and Dr Ishratul Ebad asked President Zardari to reconsider the decision. He was assured by the president in the usual grandiloquent manner that the families would not be dealt with unjustly. And the case is set to join others in that well populated place in Pakistan called Oblivion.
Several other fires have taken place since, and many took place earlier. Many people died, and many were injured. Short circuits and other factors have been cited as the cause but it brought memories of the one occasion when a man, entrusted with some wiring twisted the blue wires to the red ones despite explicit directions on keeping the same colours together. His response when questioned was “ji sona lagda ay” (they look pretty this way), and of course the earnest reassurance that “Allah malik hai”.
Who knows when the next factory will go up in flames, but inshallah it will never happen again, and security measures will never be put into place, and if they are, will never be followed. Because whatever will be, will be – que sera sera. Allah malik hai ji. Ameen.
The writer is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabia-ahmed.blogspot.com/
In countries like Pakistan The concept of responsibility and accountability does not exist in work environment. It is most probably due to poor education and non existing concept of discipline, pride
and quality of work. Every one is in a hurry to finish the job without any planning and due consideration of the consequences. If you dare to point out the lack of work ethics they look at you as if you are coming from Mars. Bas ji Allah Malik hay.
It's always Allah Malik or Saanu kee.
Comments are closed.