Constant rebuilding means the street is rising, my 45-year-old house, built above street level, is now a foot below.
KARACHI: This is with reference to Kamran Shafi’s article of December 7, titled “Filthy Karachi; K-P Blues”.
I have to say that the writer’s grandson is correct about muggings in Karachi. For instance, I live in Bath Island, and I’ve been mugged/robbed three times in the past few years. The first was at a flat behind the French Consulate and it happened at 11 in the morning! The next time was at my own house in Bath Island, at 8:30 in the morning and then another time while walking around Punjab House at 6:30 in the evening.
I would like to add that whilst the authorities don’t care too much about the garbage that is often seen lying around uncollected, they do love to keep rebuilding the road used by all the ‘VIPs’ mentioned by the writer. The footpaths, which are usually in perfectly good condition, are repeatedly broken by labourers and rebuilt with a new set of tiles, or side tiles, or the road is laid with fresh asphalt. As a result, the street is rising, and my 45-year-old house here, which was built above street level, is now nearly a foot below the street. This is a fate that awaits all houses on these ‘VIP’ roads in time.
I fail to see why they don’t scrape the road and then lay on the asphalt so that it always stays at the same height above sea level.
Sohail Osman Ali
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2012.
