The Disorder Quotient

MARCH 2004 - Every evening we re-enact the same farce. At the corner where I have to turn off the side road and join the main stream of traffic, there are always two or three rickshaws parked on the corner at the very point where the side road joins the main road. No amount of horn bleating has any effect. A pair of very large and very bare feet stick out on the side of the rickshaw. Otherwise there is no sign of life in the ramshackle vehicle. I usually try and honk a few times but the futile exercise only turns my horn into a cracked and hoarse noisemaker. Invariably, we all therefore, follow the set routine. I try to inch past the parked rickshaws, which is difficult since there is oncoming traffic who are anxious to get off the main road and circumnavigating the rickshaws is next to impossible because the mainstream traffic has no time or inclination to give way. What follows next is a bit of muscle, a bit of bravado and a bit of chance as I squeeze the car into the flow. We have had three accidents so far, including the time when a screaming Suzuki came hurtling down, missed us by a few milimetres and precariously came to a stop – Suzukis at high speed are unable to stop and a huge man, barely able to refrain from pouring out of the back seat in an unstoppable wave of rippling flesh, leant out and slapped my driver. The fat man yelled he was an MPA and I had to hiss at my driver, a quiet and very strict looking Pathan from killing the supposed icon of my provincial assembly. Had the fat one known that the driver was from Wana, he might have kept his pudgy hand to himself. Cursing and swearing he screamed off.

Last night, a cyclist, thudded into the side of the car, ignorant of the left indicator that had been blinking for an eternity. As metal and various protruding fixtures from the two wheeler traveled the length of the car side, the cyclist gave me the poor-rich look and mouthed a silent curse, quite oblivious to the fact that since the car had indicated a left turn almost fifty feet before, he should not have been overtaking it from the left side, but these are matters of high philosophy and best left to the gods to understand. A similar drama to the evening show is played out every morning when various attempts are made to make a left turn from the side road to get on to the main Jail Road, where numerous wagons alight and depart at will in patterns that look always like abstract pieces of rectangles placed at impossible angles. There is a dedicated stop but it might as well be bulldozed because no one has so far stopped there and no one ever will. Since behaving in any manner remotely resembling order is against the very nature of men and women here, the daily chaos, the abuses, the fist fights, the accidents and the aggravation are played out in full. It is I agree one way to start your day. There are cops, but they are usually at a safe distance from where they might be required. As and when they ‘perform their duty’ as these things are usually referred to, it is often for altogether the wrong reasons. A cyclist will be admonished for not queuing up properly in the required lane while a wagon, scarred with many battles, loaded to the gills with distressed humanity, with no back lights, missing fenders and indicators that long ago chose to die, black smoke pouring from its entrails will not even be spotted, leave alone checked. As the popular theory goes – fact, most people insist, wagons are not checked because the cops own them. Were the wagons to park at their designated stop, the number of passengers they are hoping to collect would not be reduced – this is based on the assumption that they break the rules only for monetary gain. Neither will it endanger the lives of dozens of commuters who are stranded on a main road between swerving vehicles of all shapes and sizes and who have to execute the same fluidity that the dancers of the Bolshoi exhibited, should they wish to get on board. In all the mayhem that unfolds with clockwork precision everyday, accidents happen, fights break out, commuters fall down and frayed tempers cross limits. Agreed it is one way to start a day.

Last Sunday on a foolish impulse, a walk along the roads, which I usually escape from in the relative security of a vehicle, convinced me once again that the institution of the footpath is safely dead. Here and there, there are footpaths but more like archaeological digs, appearing suddenly and just as suddenly, disappearing. Elsewhere, city planners have realized that footpaths are not what the city needs. If and when these apparitions of another age are to be found, they are not visible to the naked eye because they are entirely taken over by various inmates. During the day, these can be small and medium enterprises as these are now fashionably addressed, who run brisk businesses selling people haircuts, fruits and palm readings. Elsewhere, they serve very useful purposes doubling up both as display centers and warehouses for any number of enterprising traders who have worked out intelligently that there is no point in investing sums of money on infrastructure. Footpaths are now the accepted places for getting all vehicular repairs carried out, be it a car or a motorcycle or indeed, a cycle. The workshops are in such large numbers that footpaths where once people might have actually walked are all but layered over with mobil oil spills and the dust of the ages. If and when there are footpaths that have by some divine intervention survived the onslaught, they are riddled with the kind of cavities into which Lara Croft habitually falls down and emerges deliciously complete and wholesome without a hair out of place. When commerce lays down its head to sleep and the shutters, so to speak, are pulled down, other inmates arrive and park themselves here to spend the night, cooking, eating and sleeping as best as they can. A growing community of our hope for the future can be found on the city’s few footpaths and it might make the city planners feel great that across the border, these squatters are in millions compared to our low numbers, but then city planners are another species from another galaxy and who are we to cast stones at them? The chaotic multiplication of ramshackle businesses, footpath squatters and disorder at every square inch is pretty much the stuff nightmares are made of. In Karachi we hear that footpaths, like the Indian model, are now hired by the hour. Who says Pakistanis don’t have the spirit of enterprise flowing in their bloodstream?

Therefore, viewing this inspiring landscape as the Indians arrive, I am fidgeting between buying a ticket to the One Day match at Lahore on 22nd March or remaining at home and taking my chances with television. Lahore-watchers say that should you be so unfortunate as to possess a valid ticket to watch a match at Gaddafi Stadium, your chances of being denied entry are very bright. They also add that since chaos is the middle name for Pakistan, you will surely be subjected to a lathi charge and even tear gassing should the lathi charge not perform to the exacting standards set down by the forces of law and order. They also maintain that even after paying Rs. 1500, you should expect to stand and watch the proceedings as best as you can, since the seats will be largely occupied by those who have no tickets to start with. Absence of any decent bathrooms or drinking water is guaranteed and in any case, those who flock o the matches hardly go there to see cricket. The cynics advise staying put at home and watching everything in slow motion six times each time the ball misses the off stump. Wise words I think.