Why should anyone complain about our "comfortable" lives?
KARACHI: This is in reference to the common misconception feudal people and others living in interior areas of Pakistan have about those who live in the cities. A friend of mine from a feudal background said to me the other day: “You people who live in Karachi are living in paradise. Every day you have loadshedding for three hours while in interior Sindh we have to live without electricity for 18 hours every day.” This man steals electricity to run the tubewells on his farms, and the meters in his house are rigged to show only a fifth of the power consumed. He has never paid income tax, since all his income is from agriculture. Most of his workers are paid 2,000 rupees a month.
Yet he can't understand that his town's poverty is due to the rampant electricity theft, tax evasion and exploitation of labour. I, on the other hand, city dweller and all, have to pay through my nose for electricity, water and on domestic staff. In addition, in spite of spending our earnings on taxes and spending so much on daily necessities, we still have to suffer power outages and water shortages. So why should anyone complain about our "comfortable" lives?
Shakir Lakhani
Published in The Express Tribune, September 17th, 2010.
