Tyranny of the privileged

Violence against paupers on the streets of Karachi is hardly a new occurrence. We have often seen people shoving them away and hurling curses if they insist too much on receiving a rupee or two. However, what I witnessed the other night at Boat Basin was new to my senses and left me quite thunderstruck.

That night I, along with my family, entered the street at Boat Basin where quite a few local fast food joints are located. While we were parking our car, we heard someone shouting. On turning around, I saw a grey-haired, burly man dressed in an olive green shirt, shouting at a child who was covered in dust, lying on the ground beside his golden-coloured Hilux Surf. After a while, the man picked the child up, the one whom he was shouting at, just like one picks up a dirty cloth between the fingers, and banged him on the ground. Here I admit my fault, as I did nothing besides getting out of the car and yelling at the person; he did not seem to listen.

Crying and struggling to lift himself off the ground, the child slowly walked away in the direction of the main road when the man asked him where he was going and without listening to what he had to say, lifted him once again and was going to lock him in his car when a woman from his car ventured out to save the boy from another round of kicks.

This might not have happened for the first time here. When I asked some of the bystanders why they did not go and beat the man to the ground, one of the waiters there said, “ This happens, the man was drunk and would hit us too had we ventured to help the child.”

When I looked back again to note down the number of the man’s car, I could only see an AFR-2014, meaning that the owner applied for registration in 2014 and the ‘powerful’ man – who could kick a child to the ground could not even get his car registered. What irony!

By writing this piece, I do not intend to gather sympathies for the boy or any other child on the street. I just ask how can we, without arms and ‘power’, stand up to such cruelties that we witness every other day?

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2015.