Books in sewage

About a decade or so ago, I got to know a bookseller in Urdu bazar Karachi. This bookseller was introduced to me by a friend who runs a small Urdu magazine that focuses on literary criticism, essays and travel writing. The bookseller's shop is pretty much in the centre of Urdu bazar, and is surrounded by other booksellers. He had inherited this shop from his father, and over the years grew the business and developed a name for himself as someone who not only sells books, but is deeply familiar with the culture of Urdu bazar, connected to other booksellers and when possible convenes meetings of other authors interested in Urdu literature. I try to visit him every time I am in Karachi, and when I am with him I lose track of time, mesmerised by his knowledge. In the last decade, I have benefitted tremendously from him. Anytime I want to inquire about an Urdu book, or am looking for something that is out of print, he is my go-to person. He responds to my WhatsApp texts within minutes, and taps his large network for accurate information immediately. Every few months, I order a bunch of books from him that are packed with care, and delivered with a reliable courier at my door seven thousand miles away.

Last week, as I was placing another order of books, my bookseller friend sent me some really disturbing pictures of the neighborhood of his shop. There was water, up to several feet, in the street. But this was no ordinary rainwater. It was wastewater – sewage from nearby drains and nallas that had inundated the streets and entered the bookstores. This, as I learned from my friend, was not the first time. His shop had two openings, each facing a parallel street. Both streets were now flooded. Over the last several years, he had to place a barrier to avoid sewage coming into his front door. But the architecture of the backstreet is more complicated, a simple barrier is insufficient to stop water. As a result, he has had to reorganise his entire shop to protect his precious books. He was among the luckier ones, other sellers were facing much worse. When I spoke to him, it had been days since it had rained in Karachi, yet the stagnant wastewater, with its suffocating smell, was still there.

The fact that sewage is incubator of disease is not news. Infectious agents thrive in this environment and in some cases wastewater carries particularly deadly pathogens within it. Researchers in infectious diseases and epidemiology routinely analyse wastewater to predict outbreak of diseases in a community. Researchers who study this will tell you that you should not be near wastewater unless you are adequately protected and have minimal risk of it coming in contact with it. But protection is a luxury for those who are surrounded by it in Urdu bazar and elsewhere. They do not have an option because the government (local, provincial and federal) has failed them, repeatedly.

As the problem continued for days, local communities have started calling out on both the ineptness of the local authorities and the hypocrisy of institutions that claim to be both pro-health and pro-business. In addition to the extraordinary risks to health, welfare and business of those who live in the area, I am also troubled by something else. I want to believe that there is something sacred about books and the written word, something special about knowledge that is worth protecting for generations. Books give me a sense of hope for a better future, a light of knowledge in an otherwise dark time. Libraries play an important role in preserving and celebrating that knowledge, but so do booksellers, especially in places like Urdu bazar that have storied history and rich traditions. The image of sewage entering a bookstore is something really dark and disturbing for me. I cannot help but imagine that those in power, or with authority, who have lost sanctity of books, have probably lost a whole lot more.