public transport – Zeenat Hisam

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2021

ONCE upon a time, Karachi’s Shaheed-i-Millat Road comprised two narrow and uneven metalled roads, with a dirt-and-dust field in between. It looked vast to us children who crossed it every day to reach school, a 15-minute walk from home. Serving a number of peaceful neighbourhoods, the artery connecting Sharea Faisal with Jail Chowrangi was later developed into a double-track shahrah with a green median strip, service lanes and traffic signals at six chowrangis. Plant nurseries sprang up on the sides. For decades Shaheed-i-Millat Road was a delight for the eyes, despite its drastic land-use change from residential to commercial.

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Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2017

‘He’s stabbing women because he wants us to stay at home. He’s instilling fear in us. But we will continue to come out and work’. — Gulzar, 27, domestic worker

SO says my domestic help (maasi) after visiting Humaira, a 16-year-old girl from her community, in a hospital after she was stabbed near Liaquatabad while returning home to Moach Goth, a low-income settlement in Baldia Town, Karachi. Gulzar, divorced and a single parent, tells of another stabbing, this one of a 45-year-old maasi in the area where I live near PECHS. “She was stabbed in street number 10. She makes chapattis in bungalows and lives in Korangi,” I am told.

How would city officials have reacted if the lunatic was stabbing powerful, rich, influential men? Would they have shrugged it off saying it is impossible to find the lone knife-wielding man in a city of almost 20 million?

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