human angle
The curse of the coast
The recent rainstorms left villages in and along the Balochistan coastline devastated. But this one incident drew attention to the permanent problems these villages face, which in the longer run might be more damaging than any cyclone.
By Shahid Shah
If the engineers of our economic policies see the socio-economic condition of the coastal fishermen of Sindh, they would think twice before claiming that Pakistan's economy is booming. Village Haji Muhammad Bhand, which lies under the jurisdiction of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) and dates back to colonial times is only one example. This village has no basic facilities; health, education, water and power seem a distant dream to the residents here. Instead of running for cover into their mud houses, the people of this village saved themselves by staying in the open air during recent storms. Their homes turn into death traps when it rains.

Washed away: Interior Sindh
By Imran Ayub
The cooking fires at  sunset in Inayatullah's family camp at Shadadkot at first glace seem like a distress signal in this upper Sindh town, as the flood-battered villagers prepare for their only meal in the day.
Stranded in floodwater, the largest concern of the nine-members of Inayatullah's family is procuring safe drinking water.  Sri Lankan aid-worker, Ashkawf is out there to establish a water purification plant.

sporting spirit
The resurrection game
For a decade, the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad served every purpose under the sun except for being used to play cricket in. Now that it has been handed over to PCB, Hyderabadis can once more look forward to international level cricket being played in their city.
By Adeel Pathan
Stadiums are meant to be sporting grounds, but as with many other things in Pakistan, in the past the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad, named after the former commissioner of the city, Niaz Siddiqui, has been used as everything but. The stadium, which is the only venue for international and one-day cricket for Hyderabad and interior Sindh, has moonlighted as a helipad for important government officials, a parking space and the location for a communal wedding in 2005.

human angle
The curse of the coast

The recent rainstorms left villages in and along the Balochistan coastline devastated. But this one incident drew attention to the permanent problems these villages face, which in the longer run might be more damaging than any cyclone.

By Shahid Shah

If the engineers of our economic policies see the socio-economic condition of the coastal fishermen of Sindh, they would think twice before claiming that Pakistan's economy is booming. Village Haji Muhammad Bhand, which lies under the jurisdiction of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) and dates back to colonial times is only one example. This village has no basic facilities; health, education, water and power seem a distant dream to the residents here. Instead of running for cover into their mud houses, the people of this village saved themselves by staying in the open air during recent storms. Their homes turn into death traps when it rains.

More than 1.5 million fishermen inhabit this 350-km long coastal belt in Sindh and a majority of them are deprived of the basic amenities in life, above all roads, the lack of which leaves them stranded during rain and storms.

The union council Gabo Pat is not far from the Hawkeís Bay beach. Almost all of its nine dehs and 300 villages want for drinking water all year round. Rundown huts made of wood and grass provide them partial shelter, but only from the scorching sun. Fishing nets serve as walls.

Despite having a roof over their heads, they remain vulnerable to storms and rains. More than 50 per cent of these houses collapsed during the recent storms and cyclone. Desert plants line the path from Hawke's Bay to Mubarak Village, the last coastal village of Sindh along the Balochistan border, about 50 km from Karachi. Mubarak Village has a single connective road, often damaged by rain.

A child, not quite eight yet, recites Azaan over the debris in Haji Yaqoob village, Deh Allahbano, three kilometers  left of this road. Children do not go  to school here, as in a one room primary school, teachers don't really pay attention to the students, according to a villager. These children even can not write their names, he says.

These villagers have three main sources of income, most of them depend on fishing, some depend on agriculture, but they sow their crops only after the monsoon season. A third, very small group of villagers have camels, which they bring to Hawke's Bay and Clifton Beach to entertain visitors.

These villages have no water supply system and store rain water in natural ponds. Humans and animals drink from the same ponds. Deh Allahbano has only one small tanker to distribute water among 18 villages and villagers are charged for this service. During the last three years, they received only two underground water tanks from the local government.

The most valuable commodity for these villagers is water. Apart from the natural ponds, they store water in a few self-made underground tanks which they cement over. These are used when there is an acute shortage of water in the village.

"We guard this water like treasure," said one fisherman. However when it does rain, the villagers have to stay put till it is over and the land is dry before they can move about, as there are no proper roads in or out of their village. Because there are no proper roads, there is no proper transport system either, and if a vehicle owner does agree to help villagers commute, he charges them an exorbitant fee. The only dispensary they have is about four kilometers from the village but that too is closed.

Gul Mohammad, 70, told Kolachi that he does not want to leave Deh Allahbano despite the scarcity of water and other resources because he was born and raised in the village, and is reluctant to leave his parents' graves there unattended. "My family has been in this village for seven generations," he said. Abdul Rehman, 40, was of another opinion. He said the villagers have no place to go. If the government rehabilitates them somewhere else and gives them houses to live in, they will surely leave that area.

Before the onset of this monsoon season, the people of Deh Allahbano enjoyed the rain. Now they are afraid. When a few villagers got injured during the rain and several houses collapsed, the rain became a symbol of destruction for them.

The villagers of Haji Mohammad Bhand took refuge beneath the open sky during the rains to avoid having the roofs of their houses collapse over their heads. The village has been around a long time, Umer, 60, head of the village said, "I don't know how old the village is, but we possess ownership documents dating back to 1904." The village school is non-functional. The villagers have complained several times, but to no avail. "When we go to the UC office," said Umer, "the official orders for a glass of cold water, then hot tea and says 'the teacher will have reached the school when you go back,' but no one has arrived to date," he said.

Though the Sindh Chief Minister visited the storm affected Mubarak village, his protocol officers were offended by the poor people in ragged clothes. One DSP level officer asked Mama Haroon to change into better clothes.

"I told him that I was in my best clothes, which they didn't consider suitable to welcome the CM in," he said.

The situation in Thatta is no different. Nearly a month has passed since the storms, but more than 500 villages in the district are still disconnected as there is no regular transportation to connect these villages. Around 200 coastal villages of KT Bunder, Kharochhan and Shah Bunder have no land path. They are only connected through the raging sea. Adam Janiaro, a local journalist, said there is no system to shift the people stranded in creeks under any emergency situation.

Like a balloon in the air with the string in a child's hand, KT Bunder is surrounded with marine water but connected to the mainland with a single lane road. Around 30 years back, it was a dry land with fruit farms. Once upon a time, KT Bunder used to give credit to Karachi, now its major export is its population, with residents moving to the safer city. KT Bunder has a population of 3,000 people, with around 300 houses. Prior to the storm and rain, more than 75 per cent of KT Bunder's population  had migrated to safety.

Many fertile villages also remain disconnected after rains. No one dares to take their vehicles in to these villages. Sometimes the lack of communication costs lives. The 20-year old daughter of Jummo Mallah died only because they were stranded in water and could not reach the hospital in time during the rain. She was suffering from tuberculosis, but her life could have been saved had she been provided with immediate treatment. Jummo said that just to buy medicines worth 50 rupees, they have to spend around 5,000 rupees on transportation. When they cannot find a way to commute to Garho, where they go for medical treatment, the 20 km distance from their village Suleman Mallah seems like a thousand miles.

When asked if they had receive any warnings prior to the cyclone from the government, Muhammad Solangi, a local fisherman, said they hadn't till then. "We are experienced people, we can judge the weather, but received no warning from the government," he said.

The recent rains damaged more than 50 per cent crops and vegetables. Around 55 per cent houses either collapsed or were damaged partially. Though many of the people are inhabitants of the katcha houses, even those with pukka houses suffered collapses.

The government played a negligible role in the rescue after the rains but the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) performed brilliantly. The organization provided timely information to the villagers, who shifted people from more vulnerable houses to safer shelters. This saved almost the entire belt from casualties. "On instruction of the PFF people we shifted around 70 to 80 people in each of the bricked houses that provided shelter and saved lives," Mama Haroon told Kolachi. The PFF has trained volunteers in the coastal belt of Thatta, who inform people before any emergency. Ghulam Hussain, 30, a volunteer, said the PFF Thatta district President kept them informed of the situation, which they kept flowing to the other villages.

Mohammad Ali Shah, Chairman Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) suggested the government should rehabilitate the people of the Kharo Chhan Taluka at Baghan by developing a model village complete with all the necessities of life and they should also  provide a jetty at KT Bunder as their fish market.

The governer of Sindh had constituted a Steering Committee for the development of the coastal belt in June 2005. The committee remains a pipedream thus far, as no tangible results have been reaped by it yet.

On the one hand Pakistan's economy is said to be showing solid expansion despite all hurdles, on the other one finds that there are thousands in the country who do not have the very basic structure everyone needs just to get by. The half clothed children swarming around these villages that, even before the rains, lacked basic facilities that are the right of every citizen, paint a vivid picture of extreme under development and official negligence.

Washed away: Interior Sindh

  By Imran Ayub

The cooking fires at  sunset in Inayatullah's family camp at Shadadkot at first glace seem like a distress signal in this upper Sindh town, as the flood-battered villagers prepare for their only meal in the day.

 Stranded in floodwater, the largest concern of the nine-members of Inayatullah's family is procuring safe drinking water.  Sri Lankan aid-worker, Ashkawf is out there to establish a water purification plant.

Having experience of working with the survivors of  the Tsunami, he sees the disaster as not as drastic as what his country went through in 2004 but feels the pain with the same intensity, which pushed him to land into the calamity-hit zone to offer his expertise.

"We have been here for the last two weeks with a 25 million  rupees water treatment plant," says Ashkawf, the 30-year volunteer from UK-based Muslim Aid. "Safety and hygiene is of prime concern, and should be taken care of first. The storm might be over but the dangerous after-effects remain."

 The inhabitants of Kabu Saeed Khan in Shahdadkot and Kamer District have been lucky enough to consume safe water following the prompt action of the foreign organisation.

However, Inayatuyllah believes he is still condemned to fight at several fronts for the survival of his family due to the sluggish manner the authorities are carrying out the relief process.

"Livestock, houses, fields - we have lost everything," he says. "Should we try to revive our livelihood or queue up before the government camps to get relief goods for just one meal a day?"

Disappointed, aggrieved and tired, hundreds of survivors have lived in tents, or under sheds they have fashioned out of the charpoys they managed to save when the storms destroyed their homes  on main Khuzdar Road, for the last 18 days to live out another day of misery.

As the government remains busy tackling fatal attacks on the capital and in the northern parts of the country, the catastrophe has flown beyond the control of local administration.

"Around 200 people have  died during and after floods so far just in this part  of the province," says Wali Gul, an area officer of the government-backed Sindh Rural Support Organisation (SRSO).

"More than 200 villages have been inundated.Crops and livestock have been affected, and people have gone missing. It may take several months or maybe more to rehabiliate these people."

The flood hit the area on June 29 when the main drain developed breaches inundating hundreds of villages and more than 1,500 acres of cultivated land in this area along with Balochistan.

The villagers say about six breaches occurred in the drain late last month near Johi taluka's Mirzo Khan Jamali and Wani Jamali villages while another breach occurred near Khairpur Nathan Shah taluka's Murad Chandio village.

The floodwater has mounted pressure on the embankments of Johi with each passing day, threatening villagers with more angst-filled days to come.

Unaware of the approaching dangers, Ghulam Ali is more concerned about his three children suffering from skin and water borne diseases.

"I have travelled some 20 miles on a bull cart to come to this place," he says crouching outside a field hospital set up by Muslim Aid, the only medical facility so far in the affected area.

Sweat glistening off his back in the sizzling 50-degree afternoon, Ali says his 12-year son has been almost unconscious for the last couple of days and there is no one in his area who can treat him.

"We have witnessed floods in the past but this time it is more grave, and it seems as though we live in a government-free state."

Khobaib A Vahedy, the country director for Muslim Aid says more than 300 people visit his field hospital everyday and most of them suffer from gastroenteritis.

"We have more than a dozen medical team members including a lady doctor," he says. "We are here, till the local people need us and arranging more relief set ups for the victims of the areas."

sporting spirit
The resurrection game

For a decade, the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad served every purpose under the sun except for being used to play cricket in. Now that it has been handed over to PCB, Hyderabadis can once more look forward to international level cricket being played in their city.

By Adeel Pathan

Stadiums are meant to be sporting grounds, but as with many other things in Pakistan, in the past the Niaz Stadium in Hyderabad, named after the former commissioner of the city, Niaz Siddiqui, has been used as everything but. The stadium, which is the only venue for international and one-day cricket for Hyderabad and interior Sindh, has moonlighted as a helipad for important government officials, a parking space and the location for a communal wedding in 2005.

Originally meant to be a football stadium, Niaz Stadium can hold up to 25,000 spectators and hosted its first test match in 1973 .The first ever One day cricket hat-trick took place here, while the inaugural first class match was played between South Zone vs. Pakistan Education Board (PEB) on March 16-18, 1962.

For about a decade, the Hyderabad media encouraged the move to hand over the stadium to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) through their stories and television coverage, emphasizing and bringing to attention the poor conditions of the stadium. The media reported the misuse of the stadium right from its conversion into a helipad to a marriage hall and the occasional parking lot. "I salute the media of Hyderabad for their contributions in this regard especially with reference to Niaz Stadium," said Mir Hyder Talpur, president of the Regional Cricket Association

Former District Nazim Makhdoom Rafik Zaman had begun the paper work for handing the stadium over to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) so that the stadium could be made suitable for hosting international matches. But it was the present District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jameel who worked tirelessly to accelerate the whole process and finally handed over the stadium to PCB. And while cricket fans and the media must be acknowledged for the role they played in bringing to attention the plight of the stadium, Kanwar Naveed Jameel soon after assuming office in last quarter of 2005, took measures to improve the stadium's dilapidated condition. He slapped a complete ban on hosting marriage ceremonies in early 2006, ordered the shifting of the helipad elsewhere and announced that only sports events would be organized at the stadium.

"I was surprised as to why the Niaz Stadium had not been handed over to PCB, the organization established for the promotion of cricket," wondered Kanwar Naveed, adding that this negligence had deprived the people of Hyderabad and interior Sindh of witnessing world-class cricket. He said that he had started communicating with PCB shortly after being elected nazim and as a result of all his an PCB's efforts, the people of Hyderabad and interior Sindh will finally be able to enjoy international level matches. Niaz Stadium last hosted a One-day International between Pakistan and India on September 28, 1997, which Pakistan won by five wickets. The stadium is the only venue where Pakistan has never lost a Test or One-day match.

"The people of Hyderabad had long demanded handing over of the stadium to PCB so that it could be properly maintained and, and now that it has been, we are hopeful that the city will once again witness world-class matches," said Shakeel Qureshi, former president of the District Cricket Association.

The chief executive of PCB, Shafqat Naghmi and District Coordination Officer (DCO) Hyderabad Aftab Ahmed Khatri signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the stadium in a simple ceremony. District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jameel presented a symbolic key to PCB chairman Dr Naseem Ashraf who was in Hyderabad for the ceremony. Dr Naseem Ashraf cites the take over as a first step towards the development of the stadium. "We will bring Niaz Stadium up to international standards and international matches excluding the upcoming World Cup will be organized here," announced Dr Naseem Ashraf after taking over Niaz Stadium- a welcome addition to PCB stadiums across the country.

The take over by PCB was a mostly welcome move, but met with some protest as well. There has been a rift between the elected representatives of Taluka Qasimabad and the district government as Niaz Stadium falls under the jurisdiction of the taluka. The District Nazim to ease the tension, signed an agreement with the Taluka Municipal Administration, admitting that the stadium is Qasimabad property, and ensuring that revenue generated would go into Qasimabad account.

The elected representatives had been protesting the past one year since the process to hand over the stadium to PCB was initiated. The representatives, though few in number, staged demonstrations and took out rallies but these thinly attended rallies proved that a majority of Qasimabad residents favored handing over the stadium to PCB. Moreover, the representatives save those with political motives agreed with the district government.

Mahboob Abro, who headed these protests, argued that Niaz Stadium belongs to Qasimabad and PCB should sign an agreement with the taluka administration instead of the district government. Abro is possibly unaware of the details of the agreement between the district government and the Taluka Municipal Administration. Furthermore, PCB only signs MoUs with district or city governments when taking over stadiums across the country.

The people of Hyderabad and interior Sindh are now anxiously waiting for the stadium to develop rapidly, so they can finally see world-class cricketers playing in Niaz Stadium. "I will not make false promises and must say that none of the 2011 World Cup matches will be played here but the Indian cricket team is coming to Pakistan in 2008 and we will try to bring them to play in the Niaz Stadium." PCB chairman Naseem Ashraf has assured Hyderabad cricket fans. Although Hyderabad falls short of the International Cricket Council (ICC) requirement of having a five star hotel in the city where the match is being played at, Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has revealed plans of establishing a five star hotel in the city and restoring the airport.

Advisor to Governor Sindh on Sports and President Karachi City Cricket Association, Surgeon Mohammed Ali Shah urged the media to take as many pictures as possible of the stadium in its current condition for record, as "You will not see Niaz Stadium in such a condition after some time as PCB will completely revamp this historic stadium." Dr Shah's statement seems to ring true as PCB's past record boasts of beautifully refurbished stadiums that meet ICC requirements, and Niaz Stadium will hopefully be no different.

--Photos by Mohammad Rehan

The way we were
First jobs of the rich and famous

  By Kaleem Omar

Australian former fast bowler Geoff Lawson has been appointed Pakistan's new cricket coach. He succeeds onetime England batsman Bob Woolmer, who died of cardiac arrest in the West Indies four months ago during the 2007 Cricket World Cup tournament.

I wonder how much Lawson is being paid? I ask this question in the context of the fact that another Geoff - former England Test cricketer Geoff Boycott - was paid 30,000 pounds by the Pakistan Cricket Board for a two-week coaching assignment in 2001.

Thirty thousand pounds for a couple of weeks' work is a tidy sum by any standard, all the more so because that was six years ago.

Boycott didn't always command such high fees for his services, however. As an eighteen-year-old, his first job was keeping a straight bat as a trainee clerk at Britain's Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Barnsley, an industrial town in Yorkshire, Boycott's home county. The job paid five pounds a week. So, in two weeks, he would have earned 10 pounds - a far cry, indeed, from what he earned in two weeks as a coach with the PCB.

The building where he worked in Barnsley was a short distance up a slight hill from the town's bus station, and Boycott says he was horrified at the number of people who arrived coughing and wheezing. Many, he says, had struggled up, pausing en route to catch their breath, because their benefit money was a couple of days late and they had nothing to live on.

"The job opened my eyes to some of the raw realities of a working class existence," says Boycott. "I felt uncomfortable dealing with the forms, especially those relating to maternity benefit which required applicants to say whether they were married, divorced, separated and so on. People would leave that part of the form blank on purpose. I had to press them for answers - it seemed very hurtful and personal and I hated it."

Then, there is Boycott's compatriot, former England Test captain Mike Gatting. In Pakistan he is notorious for his rude behaviour with Umpire Shakoor Rana at Faisalabad in 1987. When he was sixteen, Gatting worked for a while as a part-time plumber for family friend Les Elliott in Kingsbury, Middlesex.

As Geoff Tibballs recounts in his delightful book "First Jobs of the Famous", Gatting and Elliott once worked together on a central heating job.

"I was downstairs finishing up and Mike was in the loft laying the fiberglass when suddenly there was an almighty crash," says Elliott. "Mike had come through the ceiling. Luckily he came through the one room in this maisonette that the owners hadn't decorated and the tallboy broke his fall, or he might have been a tenor. Another time we had to take out one of the sink units in the house. Mike didn't just take it out - he demolished it with a club hammer. And it was the wrong sink!"

Gatting concedes that he "wasn't much of a plumber's mate." Pakistani cricket enthusiasts would say that he wasn't much of a Test captain either. A captain is supposed to be a calming influence on the other players in tense situations, not lead the charge in the rude-behaviour department.

West Indian master blaster Viv Richards' first job was as a waiter at D'Arcy's Bar and Restaurant in St John's, the capital of the tiny Caribbean island state of Antigua, which has a population of only about 65,000. Antiguans have a very laid-back attitude to life. Many sleep on the beach, catch a fish or two when they're hungry, then go back to sleep again. Money doesn't mean much to them.

Richards was said to have got the job at D'Arcy's not because of his ability as a barman but because the proprietor of the establishment recognised his potential as a cricketer and wanted to take him under his wing. In fact he gave Richards his first cricket bat. "Once I spilled the drinks when someone bumped into me," says Richards. "But I soon got the hang of gliding between the tables, calculating the tips by the size of the customer's cigar."

After less than a year as a barman, Richards became an apprentice motor mechanic repairing cars and old tractors. But the mechanic's job didn't last long either because it was too far out of town for Richards to be able to report on time for the weekend cricket matches. Besides he knew his future lay in hammering fast bowlers not rusty tractors. And what a hammerer of the ball he turned out to be.

Born in Antigua in 1952, Viv Richards became, probably, the best batsman in the world as his South African namesake Barry Richards passed his peak. He was certainly the best of the West Indian batsmen, in his prime.

Richards holds the record for the highest number of Test runs scored in a calendar year: 1,710 in 11 Tests in 1976. Of these, 829 were scored in 4 Tests against England, giving him an average of 118. I was fortunate enough to be at the Oval that glorious summer day in August 1976 when Richards reached 291, with the West Indies declaring at 687.

The way Richards was going that afternoon, the way he was smashing the England bowlers to all sides of the ground, we all thought he was going to break Sobers' Test world record of 365 not out against Pakistan in the West Indies in 1957. Sadly, it was not to be.

Richards had an element of unpredictability in his masterful strokeplay which was a special delight, not only to the Sunday sloghunters but to the connoisseur. A fast bowler, tired of trying to plug the gaps on the off-side, would switch his field and bowl a full length outside the leg stump. Richards would step away and hit him for six over extra-cover. Unconventional, yes, yet the foundations of his play were classical. In today's age of hype, any batsman who gets fifty or sixty runs in a match tends to be called a "master blaster." But a true master blaster is what Richards indisputably was.

The late great Pakistani bowler Fazal Mahmood's first regular job was as a police officer. He eventually retired as a deputy inspector general in the Punjab Police. Born in 1927, he began his first-class career in the Ranji Trophy Tournament when he was 17. In 1946 he narrowly missed selection for the Indian team to tour England. After partition, his fine bowling in 1951 helped Pakistan to beat the MCC at Karachi and did much to earn Pakistan Test Match status. He played in 34 Test matches, 10 of them as captain.

He had magnificent stamina, being able to bowl for hours on end to a nagging persistent length at just above medium pace with a regular movement from leg. There were times on matting pitches in Pakistan when he was virtually unplayable. "If you look at my figures for caught-out victims, you'll see that most of them read: bowled Fazal, caught Imtiaz. That's because our fielding was so bad in those days that hardly anybody except Imtiaz could take catches," Fazal once told me. 

His bowling at the Oval in 1954 was mainly instrumental in Pakistan's surprise victory over England. "England Fazalled" read a famous headline in a leading British newspaper. Fazal's bowling resembled Alec Bedser's, the great England medium-pacer. After the Oval Test, Bedser generously paid Fazal a great compliment: "Fazal is not Pakistan's Bedser; I am England's Fazal," he told a newspaper reporter.

A.H. Kardar, known to one and all as "The Skipper", worked for Pakistan's Education Ministry. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a friend of his. In his book "Failed Expectations", Kardar says, "Bhutto's interest in cricket was that of a scholar. He knew the history of cricket, including such technical developments as the introduction of the third wicket and the sight-screen."

During Bhutto's days as a minister in Ayub's cabinet, Kardar often used to meet him. "He was a friend of friends," says Karadar, "and any time I made a recommendation to him to support an appointment, he was kind enough to oblige. So much so that one day he caught hold of me and said, 'What are you doing here as Deputy Education Adviser? You should be our Educational Attache in London."

Back in the mid-1980s I once wrote a column in a Karachi evening newspaper about life in East Pakistan in the 1950s. A few days after the column appeared, I received a very sweet letter from Kardar in Lahore saying, "It's nice to know that someone still remembers the old days."

If Kardar were alive today, I'd like to tell him, "I still remember the old days, Skipper."

karachicharacter
Flying without wings

  By Zobia Zaman

Imran Hassan, 28, is a strong man who despite having a physical disability did not lose hope. He not only acquired education but also financially supports his family. He completed his education privately and now sells internet and phone cards at a local university. His has never let his disability stand in the way of his progress. Living in a city like Karachi is challenging but he has confronted every challenge life has thrown his way head on. People like Imran are a source of motivation for those who despite having every benefit in life let the most minor obstacles deflate their enthusiasm.

Kolachi: How did you conceive the idea of making a living by selling cards?

Imran: I had no other options, and as necessity is the mother of invention I had to myself devise a way to earn a living. When faced with a lack of options,one has to look very hard for any that can be found and opt for the best. So I think having limited resources this is the best source of income and I earn a reasonable amount per month, which is sufficient to support my family.

Kolachi:How many family members do you have?

Imran: We are five siblings, three sisters and two brothers. Our parents are not alive. Me and my brother financially support  the family.

Kolachi: How do you manage to get around?

Imran: Transport is a major problem and in fact was a hassle for me. I find travelling through public transport very difficult, I had tried several times to take a bus but bus drivers hardly ever stopped for me, and this discouraged me, previously I would hitch rides from random drivers, but now I have bought a three wheeler bike for my personal use.

Kolachi: What is the attitude of your family and the people around you?

Imran: My family has been very supportive. The students in the university are also very compassionate towards me. People in our society are very caring. I have never let the disability that I possess hold me back from anything.

Kolachi: Is there anything about Karachi that you don't like?

Imran: There are several infrastructural draw backs which then call for the citizens to aid the situation, Karachiites somehow are not very sensitive about their own city and take it for granted. They have no civic sense. The roads and sidewalks are riddled with spit and we see a lot of wall chalking and graffiti all over the city. Then there are other issues such as a lack of electricity and water. All this makes me feel bad about the oblivion that our people seem to be living in. Apart from all of this, quarrelling over minor things and picking fights is also a common occurrence, which disturbs me, a lot.

Kolachi: How has Karachi changed over the years?

Imran: Karachi is a very nice place to live in but recent changes in the attitudes and psyches of people and the society as a whole, like prevalent commercialism and materialism has damaged our cultural values. Awareness that one is part of a bigger picture is required, transforming infrastructure does not matter it only brings about minor changes. One's roots matter to a great extent and Karachi being a metropolis is home to people of every type of class and mentality. Besides the younger lot, especially the males have a very irresponsible attitude towards life and seem to be living in la-la land. They lack ambition and sadly, even proper guidance, which has put their future at stake.

Kolachi: Would you rather stay in Karachi or go abroad if you get a chance?

Imran: If I get the opportunity, I will avail it to build a better life for myself. It is a good idea to move abroad as far as earning money is concerned. In another country, perhaps I would make four times the money I do now, in a similar job.

Kolachi: What makes Karachi special to you?

Imran: It's my hometown, Karachi has always been special to me people here are very cooperative and humble. Karachi has been ignored in terms of  developmental work but still it's a nice place to live in. There are limited opportunities but it's we have to work hard ourselves and find ways to prosper.

Imran might not be blessed with perfect physical faculties, but he has a thousand times more spirit than most people. He has a can-do attitude, and that is what makes him a perfect Karachi character.

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