Of traffic jams and class differences

Although there is nothing wrong to wait outside one's children’s school, causing traffic jam is plain unfair.

Every day, I dread that hour. From the moment I wake up till the time I am in the bus, nearing that spot, I am in constant dread of the mess I will face. On every weekday, between one and two o’clock, the road leading from the Baloch Colony bridge towards Qayyumabad Colony and Korangi Expressway is blocked due to heavy traffic. It is this hour that I fear as this patch falls on this route to work.

From public buses to rickshaws, taxis, cars and motorcycles, almost every vehicle is forced to remain in a state of stativity. Add heat and the excessive pollution to the equation and you have a perfect day to hate your life.

The first day this happened, I was really surprised. A traffic jam at 2:00pm is unexpected in Karachi. Stuck amidst the jam, I saw a number of cars parked in the middle of the road with their drivers missing. Turns out, a branch of a prominent private school is located here and these cars parked in the middle of the road were here to pick up the students.

Now, although there is nothing wrong with parents (or drivers) waiting outside their children’s school, doing it at the cost of bringing the traffic to a standstill is plain unfair. These parents do not understand that they are causing a huge traffic problem every day.

The parking space that the school has is a large one, where a majority of these cars can be easily parked. Space has also been allocated for parking on the adjoining streets, beneath the bridge in front of the school and across the road, but very few drivers and parents end up using this space. I am forced to write about this issue because this particular situation has another, deeper meaning to it.

By parking their cars and disrupting the traffic, the message these people are giving to rest is that “because we have money, power and control, we can do this. We don’t care about you, because you are insignificant.”

This is class divide personified. This is a gross representation of the fact that, in this country, some people are better than others because they have more money. It crushes any notion of civil rights and civic sense amongst the masses. And it increases the level of frustration people have within them.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2014.