Again....it's Karachi on my mind!

A friend commented the other day most aptly..."the only thing cheap in this city is human life" everything else is so bloody expensive and definitely out of reach of the common man. When a people come to this state of affairs, when every sunrise is witness to discovery of yet many more mutilated bodies in bags, when apparently sane men go about burning their fellow country men alive in by trapping them in buses, when thugs check the ethnic background of people and kill if it offends them, when the police is itself a victim, when the government has failed miserably.....the tragedy that unfolds in front of us is mind-shattering.

Reports of massacre of people, of incessant firing, of looting, of ethnic cleansing, of sheer hatred amongst the inhabitants of a country are rampant, they aren't dull scared and unverified rumors that do the rounds in the city, the reality of the end of days is displayed and splashed on every news channel.

How can anyone living in this city feel safe? And how can anyone feel unsafe and in a state of panic at all times? We hover between the two extremes, the 15 million people swing psychologically from complete security to absolute mayhem and terror within a span of few minutes. Karachi is a time bomb, ready to explode at every utterance of a leader, at the killings of people of an ethnic group etc. And amidst this war-like state where essentials disappear from the shelves of supermarkets within seconds of reports of unrest we are to lead our lives as sane and reasonable people..... How is that possible...

There is a rampant use of sedatives, anti-anxiety pills, anti depressants amongst the populace for all around them is death, ruin and uncertainty. We have come down to the lowest of the low, we as a people suffer collective depression at the lack of safety and hope in the city, various areas are marked off as unsafe and hence unapproachable, killers abound and roam the city killing whomsoever they desire, there are shut-downs at one-call that last for days, economy is reeling, and looting, mugging, car-snatching, kidnapping is the rule of the day. In this background of hell we are expected to lead what one normally calls, normal lives. How is one to do that?


Perhaps, a tablet of Xanax? Maybe lexotonil or just some hard LIQOUR to wash down the grim reality!