Blighted landscape, mounds and castles of sand, stones, gravel, cement, strange twisted contraptions, huge gaping craters where the earth has been scooped away, narrow twisted roads, filled with potholes, awash with sewage water belying deeper craters under its grimy depths.
Cars meander slowly, tentatively making their way into the sooty darkness to come up against another wall of sand, another relic of a tractor. Buses jangle past, a mess, turn around, come back, try again.
If you ever wondered what Karachi would be like if hit by mortar fire, missiles, scuds or the rest of the bombing armaments your imagination has not far to soar. The roads (or what was left of them) of Karachi are right there as glaring testament of the might of destruction.
"I can go anywhere, anywhere I choose, I can walk anyhow." all things of the past, go anywhere and you'll face the inevitable roadblock. Be it the underpass in Clifton, the Korangi road which has strange new twists and turns everyday like a river where it takes awhile to gauge where exactly to swim through the current of oncoming cars, or which route to take.
Or the Mai Kolachi road ... cruising along at break neck speed and suddenly you come up against a scramble of cars from both directions trying to make their way through an orifice of a road. And try to get away from it all: the maddening rush of cars, the grit grime and arbitrary lawlessness, to escape to the tranquil sandy of stretch of Clifton beach and there too the road is peeled away. Is it a Zionist conspiracy to bring Karachi to a standstill? Or at least drive them round the bend (no pun intended). Well its working well.
Every day a new road joins the under construction lot, as if to tease commuter's ingenuity in how to reach their destination with the least amount of loss of time or in the easiest shortest possible manner. (latest addition : even the Boat Basin road near the Underpass has been cut through for commuters to gleefully pull their hair out on how to avoid the underpass and get to their destination past Clifton.)
A new game maybe of trying to find your way through the shifting maze. Or are we being prepared for military drills, acclimatized to the life of trenches underground passages tunnels, bomb shelters? Or maybe the government is kindly providing its citizens with excitement.
Change breaks the monotony and lets admit it the city has acquired a completely alien look. In 10 pm, the Korangi intersection and the landscape suddenly morphs into a moonscape or outer space station complete with pulleys with huge blocks ramming the earth at night, whizzing spaceships (cars with frenzied drivers) scattered tents amidst mounds of earth. Back in Roman times the rulers provided their restive citizens with arenas and games to distract them from the misery and inequality of their existence.
Maybe our rulers have discovered a new game. Or maybe oil or gold has been discovered under the sands of Karachi and the government surreptitiously intends to get its hands on it.
Yes, its fine to improve the roads of Karachi etc etc, for peace and progress but all at once? And shouldn't the citizen's convenience be considered. No warnings, signs etc.
Why couldn't the roads be tackled one at a time instead of throwing open the earth at every corner. The road has been in the process of construction near the Shireen Jinnah Colony for almost a year. Beyond the Barbeque Tonight roundabout the whole road is dug up and the traffic forced to make its way through a narrow, riven with potholes road. And God help the colony residents who live past the roundabout of Zia uddin Hospital.
For months they had difficulty commuting as the main road, which is thoroughfare for tankers, was closed for construction and continues today. Even now mass confusion reigns as cars and tankers come from both sides on the road, switch sides, gingerly edge along avoiding each other and the under construction areas, the usual story. And in all this the pedestrians seem to be totally forgotten. The criticism is leveled that there are no footpaths provided for them. Then one thinks if we will have enough funds to finish the work, which is so insufferably slow.
Midnight hour, trying to navigate the dug up earth-strewn bypass roads near the underpass. A huge gaping excavation ribbed with iron and steel grid work poking out, an invitation for any car to veer in and take a dive.
Duck into the narrow gully, brave the excavated stretch. Here too entire rectangular bits of mortar prized out try to maneuver around the aggressive incoming cars that threaten to edge you into the craters.
Finally around the circuitous path. Almost home now, but the other narrow the gully too is blocked by gentlemen with a strange machine trying to blow dust onto or away from the road. Wait with trucks and buses breathing down your back in the inky darkness.
I guess one should be positive right? So yes, we get to see parts of Karachi we'd never venture into before in trying to get to our destination and of course the petrol/ gas vendors are having a field day with the extra demand for their goods as a result of the longer convoluted routes. And for us its going round and around.
Comments
Comments are closed.