The return of biting cold for Karachiites at the end of January is a little bit surprising as this is the time for winter to begin its homeward journey and let spring set in. But before this could happen, there came the forecast that winter would stay a little longer this year than it had during the past ten years. Those who still want to carry on with their warm clothes have received the forecast with cheer.
Pakistani weather pundits are usually found in a hurry and make announcements without much waste of time, which is why people ignore their predictions with care though based upon scientific findings.
They use latest gadgets to measure change in weather conditions. It is altogether a different situation when they forecast a rainy and cloudy day; it shines with all the warmth the sun can bestow upon people.
However, before that situation emerges people have decided to defer laying away their warm clothes for some more days. They will put them on and enjoy colours of wintry evenings with family, peanuts and coffee.
Many youngsters prefer ice cream and chilled drinks when the icy wind blows and rustles with full musical notes and outlines. These young men and women attired in imported outfits available on local markets enjoy winter more than the old people.
Posh shopping areas are filled with warm imported and locally manufactured warm clothes. The tags attached to these clothes of foreign origin show that most of the stuff is imported from the European countries that do not provide reciprocal market to Pakistani products. However, it is a different matter. The imported clothes are mainly woolen and of more than two to three years old. Probably these products, after running out of fashion, were discarded and sold to importers in the poor or Third World countries. This may be the origin of these clothes.
In all circumstances these are cheep clothes and, therefore, affordable even by the middle-income families. Those who cannot afford these new clothes can have access to second-hand clothes markets overflowing with good stuff. Prices are affordable and clothes comparable with new ones. The difference between the quality of the two products is usually difficult to make.
The same is true for shoes that are available on the second-hand shoe market. These shoes are not new and at the same time do not belong to the category of discarded shoes. The local cobblers have reconditioned these shoes and made them useable. As far as the life of these clothes and shoes is concerned, it is long enough - clothes survive longer than shoes. However, it was for the firs time that shoes for fashionable women could be seen on display and sale on these markets.
The prolongation of winter has instilled a new life into the second-hand products' markets and once again these have begun to hum with life. Though no new consignment has arrived from abroad but the buyers who had deferred shopping to this year's October, have begun to visit these markets again in droves in the hope of a better bargain. To a great extent this assessment of the buyers seems correct as many shops have hung fresh lists of reduced prices. There are sellers and there are buyers who have come back to the market to do business. It appears as if winter to them has come to stay.
This phenomenon of shopping has another side as well. The poverty at the grass roots level is at display at these markets. People in Karachi usually take winter as a short-lived occurrence and do not think of warm clothes as a necessity.
It is a luxury for them to spend money on short-term needs. The rent of the house, the school fees, the transportation fees, medical bills of the ageing parents, electricity and gas bills, meeting rising cost of petrol and diesel are some of the pressing needs that cannot be ignored.
In addition to these necessities of life there is the rising cost of daily use articles such as vegetables, cereals, wheat flour and meet. The monthly bill of tea, edible oil, sugar, soap and toothpaste is another necessary expenditure to bear up.
The poverty irrespective of its level in Pakistan has more poor people in Karachi, as the number of katchi abidis and slums in Karachi is more than in other parts of the country. These human settlements of sub-human condition are increasing despite governmental efforts to stop it.
It is estimated that half of the city's population lives in inadequate shelters. These are slums, shanty towns, katchi abadis, hovels and even open places alongside main roads and outside eateries where alms distribution arrangements exist and homeless people live.
These poor in search of employment and many hard pressed self employed and low paid employees in the private and public sectors have no liking for winter and rains as the two seasons come with plenty of demand on financial resources of a family. During rains one has to mend his her shelter and during winter one has to procure warm clothes.
At an average, NGOs' estimates, a low-income family spends between Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 in preparing for rains or carrying out repairs in his her dwellings after rains have stopped. Similarly, to prepare for winter a poor family spends about Rs 500 to Rs 750 per head on warm clothes. These are yearly expenditures and constant burden on the income of a low-income family.
The NGOs working in katchi abadis with the poor say that women and the children are the worst sufferers of rains and cold weather. The reason being low preference to the protection of women against the vagaries of the nature and their role as a subordinate to her male partner. In the low-income population a woman is supposed to subsist on leftover.
Her children even precede her. Her illnesses are chronic and her weaknesses are always attributed to her weak body structure. In most of the cases they are not given medical assistance to cure their illnesses. The childbirth is customarily at home and by a traditional birth attendant. The measurement of her loyalty to her man is usually the amount of pain and sufferings she undergoes and provides him comfort.
The test of her devotion to her husband and family doesn't stop at this stage. She has to bear discomfort for her children and even for her in-laws. In the process she prefers warm clothes for her husband and children, nutritious food for her husband and children and takes care of her in-laws including aged mother-in-law and father-in-law.
In typically poor farming families old customs and traditions still work. Women are assigned jobs that men do not like to perform. For example, in cotton fields men do not pick cotton and it is the women folk that is supposed to do this health hazardous job. Similarly fetching water in rural areas is typically women's duty. The household chores are in addition. At times they are supposed to carry out wall plastering by cow dung, cut fodder and do a little bit of animal husbandry.
Out of the rural setting the same women in the urban areas has to work to supplement income of her family. She works as housemaid, ayah, and health attendant in majority of cases. These are all torturous jobs and at times humiliating. To assist in these works these women retain their female children as their help and expose them to the dangers of different kinds of abuses. The most significant of all the abuses is sexual assault that traumatises the child for all-time to come. A soul is thus tormented forever. If this soul breads, it will bread frightened souls.
These mishaps have nothing to do with rains and winter. These may be of any duration and of any severity. These accidents with the poor as well as with the rich can take place any time and in any season but one group of the people can sustain it, whereas, the other endures it for life.
The veering wintry-thoughts - from the luxuries that warmth of clothes and companionship of a family brings at the one end, and on the other, the helplessness of a man cowering with the fear of approaching winter - brings the truth of two groups closer. One gets the pleasure and happiness of a season and the other, only fear of it.
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