The Modern Bogeyman

Our beggars are not what they seem.
Many many years ago when I first visited Karachi, my nephew instructed me in no uncertain terms to just keep on walking with him quietly to the car. The swarm of beggars was overwhelming, in particular one middle aged lady. She was carrying a ten twelve year old healthy girl on the waist such as the girl`s legs were touching the ground.
I could not control myself as the lady pushed her heavy-gold-bracelet laden hand through the car window—“Behen, merey paas Pakistani Rupiye nahin hain, muaaf karo” I said politely.
“Rupiye kis ko chahiye…tumharaa Phaarun eskjen dey do” she said in the most humiliating way to this ignorant traveller.
Rashid

For the rest of us, where is the middle road?
In a land of extremes where extremely bad things are happening, how does a thinking feeling person approach these incidents in a `normal`, `moderate` , `oh well thats life` manner. Do you save one child and let the other child die? At what point is the hero/heroine`s involvement Optimal? In her essay Shandanan treats society like a badly injured patient in an emergency room. She is the doctor and at what point does she get to go home from the hospital. At what point is her `job` over? It is not the logic of numbers, that `yes i have helped 7 patients, time to go home now...` it is an emotional logic that extremely cruel events invite extremely emotional responses. Hopefuly something nice will happen to us when we decide to stop abusing the word ``Moderate`` and ``Balance`` and confront the reality which is niether balanced nor moderate.

Shandana,

Not the usual humorous light stuff from you. What gives?

And yes, if you had seen little babies with their eyes gouged out begging with their mothers outside the red fort in Delhi, you would have discovered then what you have discovered now a long while ago.

Be well.

I guess the point of this whole long article was ``our fascinations are becoming increasingly morbid. Instead of fearing nothing but God, we fear everything but God.`` Which I don`t why should make such a long article unless there are some compelling passionate personal reflections or some twisty turning style that keeps readers` interest somehow.

Good, thought-provoking read as usual, Shandana. Thanks.

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re. kulhee: ``Those who take pride in economic, military and other progress at the cost of poor give up any right to find faults with the society. ``

Truer words haven`t been spoken here in a long time!

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re. those (ranjit?) lambasting parents for their irresponsibility in bringing kids into this world they cannot support:

May I suggest that we consider that many of the poorest in our societies, robbed of all dignity and a sense of purpose in life, operate in a quite different way from the way us folks with at least the illusion of choice (and with it, responsbility) do. When meaning to life comes from working out where your next meal is coming from, literally, it doesn`t matter whether you have a child in tow or not. In fact, the kids usually help in the profession of `choice` for these folks. Or so is the `logic` they operate on, anyway, I`m betting.

And I haven`t even touched on the subject of lack of sex-education.

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#22: hey malik! long time, man.. good to see you back!

I just read your posting `The Modern Bogeyman` which turned out to be quite an interesting read ... and it got my mood pretty enchanting too : ) After reading this posting, I went to read your profile, which turned out to be even `More` interesting and fascinating .. I can certainly envisage you to be everything you depicted in `what you do for work` a good writer, teacher, actor, drama queen :) etc etc ... I just did not want to post this for everyone ... BUT just wanted to get my wandering thoughts across you, which may not at all be new to you ... :)

Adults who slap children, ostensibly to put them on the right path, should also be slapped when they screw up in their daily lives.

What do you want to say?
What is new in it?
I cannot say it is boring. But not as good as I supposed.
The climax of the article was good but it has no good ending at all.
You should have clarified it more.

Nice article, it only shows that you are going to a college because your English creative writing skills are improving with each post.

Sorry to hear about the description of the baby on the street.

If that woman was in USA, she would have lost the custody of the child and social services would have taken him.


Good job!

#13 dear sir, no wonder ur wit & wisdom r timeless

Re: # 15

Burpy,

U read minds? I liked the sentence flow......

With all this, Karachi still has a lot of catching up to do with cities like Rio and Manila. One day, Inshalla, the arrogance of middle classes will be dealt a severe blow by the Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatista National Liberation Army.

Things don’t look as bad from impoverished’s perspective. Those who take pride in economic, military and other progress at the cost of poor give up any right to find faults with the society. The Shahdaras are always built on poor people’s asses. You can only have one or the other. If it upsets you to see young kids being abused, start abusing your own, and it wont seem as bad.

Hi SM
what I think now a days it become Fashion to criticize the people and authorities either in Angarazi or in Urdu. How many of us spends time in criticize talking, reading, writing.Did any of us take a positive action only for 30 minutes in a whole week?

I still remember the day April 19 2006 when I read the news about Nur Jahaa a 14-year-old poor girl kidnapped andd shot her four times in an attempted honor killing in our beloved city of Karachi. Nur Jehan was shot in the stomach, leg, knee and arm in Karachi and left for dead by her cousins, who accused her of having sex with a man.
She was lying in a government hospital, at that time I was in Karachi. I have to visit her may be I could done some thing Alas shame on me because It was not my Busy ness Right ! I did not went their to help the poor little helpless girl.
Nur Jehan said she crawled out of the ditch to a road and screamed for help. “They will try to kill me again,”. She also feared for the lives of her parents and siblings, who were also kidnapped by her attackers.
Nur Jehan was declared a “kari” her cousins who accused her of having sexual relations with a man in Mirgoldop, a village in the southwestern province of Baluchistan where her father was a farmer.
Her cousins had also killed the man with whom she was accused of having sex. Fearing for his daughter`s life, Nur Jehan’s father moved the family to Karachi after she was declared a “kari”.
After couple of days I read the news that Nur jahaa was died, and her killer are living freely with out any fear; cos of us. Why the politician and the Molvess even the citizen of Sindh, don`t take any action ,these guys make big speech about the country but fail to give a justice to her murderer. She would be the daughter or sister one of us. The word Beeguyrat is very small to label them and us including me. Shame on us Chuolo Bhir Pani Main Mer Jana Chaiya ! We need to kill the Javed Iqbal inside us First.
Ahad

Powerful stuff, Shandana. Though I must confess, I didn`t quite get the connection between the strange obsessions/urban legends part with the second half.

You seem to be exorcising your own demons through these columns. Guilt of being a bad parent, perhaps? Frustration at leaving a career semi-cooked? The uneasy realisation that time is running out, one heartbeat at a time? Don`t worry lady, you got company, it`s called the 30`s. And it`s happening to an awful lot of us :)

For me, it`s not so much what I see anymore: the mind accepts what it can, forgets what it can`t and keeps us sane. But when things that happened to other people start happening to me/people I know- a seemingly healthy colleague my age keeling over in the loo never to return after a party, kids tumbling out of loving parents` arms to their death, messy divorces of those voted most likely to stay together for life- then it just starts to get a little scary.

Keep writing.

#9 by teshah

[Just tired and rambling like the writer!]

Nope. You make perfect sense.

:-)

Reminds me of the big scare we had in Rawalpindi when I was 12 (which was approximately the same time as when the Napoleon was vacationing in St. Helena). anyway - there was this dwarf who was supposed to be grabbing children and putting them in a sack and taking them home and boiling them for dinner. I dont mind admitting that for some time (until the dwarf disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared) when stepping out of the house, I (like other kids in the neigborhood) was on the lookout for any ``bona`` carrying a sack. :-)