Big city, bigger woes: Mehmoodabad road - facing the other side

Amenities that most residents deem basic are lacking in this Karachi neighbourhood.

KARACHI: All big cities have their posh areas and slums - sometimes next to each other - where the inhabitants are spilling over with their physical and psychological baggage. Mehmoodabad Road takes this dynamic a few steps further as sprawling lawns peer over a ramshackle settlement, where people live without amenities most people in Karachi deem “basic”.

“A pile of firewood costs me Rs10 a day,” said Raani* as she sits on a concrete pavement outside a large black gate. “Sometimes I need to use three a day.” Raani’s house has no gas lines to connect a stove to. It also has no running water.

“Water’s a big problem,” said Mala*, a mother of four. “We usually get water from the houses across our basti,” The five houses facing the settlement are part of the Defence Housing Society and the exploding slum to Chanesaar Goth, Jamshed Town - split apart by the 1.3 kilometre stretch of tarmac.

Mala says their neighbours are kind enough to give them clean water when they go knocking at their door. The local politicians only come looking when they want votes, otherwise residents claim, their calls are never answered.

Her husband works and all four of her offspring beg on the street to add to the family income - this is a common trend in the community occupied mostly by Hindus. The rest of Chanesaar Goth is, however, as diverse as the city itself, with Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Sindhis, Baloch, Pakhtun and Punjabis.



“Our men go to Saddar to sell used clothes on carts. Some of our children go to school, others beg. I beg, but most women don’t work.” Mala explains they do not feel safe working in anyone’s house - they cannot trust anyone. Another domestic worker chips in once Mala moves out of earshot. “We think the older Hindu’s are not very clean,” says the elderly lady, who cuts through the settlement every day for the last 10 years to reach work. She promptly blames their living constraints into a matter of personal hygiene.

Meanwhile, Raani beckons to a shy 10-year-old. “She used to go to school.” Arya* used to study at Zindagi Trust. Barely audible, she shuffles her feet and tells no one in particular that she now wipes car windows to help her family.

Chanesaar Goth is full of crime. “People keep killing each other, there’s firing, theft. When the tea and paan shops close, we just sit outside our homes with our children.” To add to their woes, getting out of Mehmoodabad Road is not easy for the women - a repute of not paying their fares and inherent biases makes bus drivers mistrustful.

Several buses fly over speed bumps, screeching to a halt for other customers. With her blue eyes and silver hair, Madhu* fails to flag down a bus, stops a rickshaw instead. Another female joins her to haggle, but with a flick of red lacquered nails, she dismisses the price and walks away. Madhu joins the gaggle of women at the pavement, smiling toothlessly. Cursing and muttering follow as they all wait for any vehicle to stop and take them to their respective destinations so they can beg a living.

Walking down Mehmoo-dabad Road before 8am, you discover a quiet beauty in peoples’ morning rituals. A young man vigorously brushes his teeth as he strolls outside his house.

A woman combs her long freshly washed hair and children bathe from a bucket, while a neighbourhood dog sits on her throne - a speed breaker - forcing the slow stream of cars to split around her.

But this beauty is perhaps unique to the observer. Those who live there, do so in quiet, forced indignity. Their beleaguered existence faces households that are more than functional, where a broken telephone line is the only discomfort.

*names have been changed to

protect identities

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2013.