I am told that environment has a tremendous bearing on character, habits, mental-health, how well adjusted we are in the society, growth, both physical and mental and so on. It makes for common sense as well, it is after all quite self-evident that the events surrounding us in our immediate environs and distant ones both have a huge impact on what and how we think and behave.
Karachi is a jungle, both in physical and mental terms...It is a concrete jungle with housing societies growing out of the ground like wild weeds taking over a garden, except, our city isn't a garden by any stretch of the imagination. So, we have houses, errr,, excuse me, pigeon holes being developed by shady contractors and available on very shady terms of installments with horror stories of many people losing their hard earned money over these deals. There are houses being built outside the city limits like in Malir Development Authority, closer to Hyderabad than Karachi. Thousands of semi-constructed buildings are in the city with no intention of their being completed while their ground and second floors are rented out or sold, such as GULF TOWERS on the Three Swords round-about which is under-construction since the past 25 years! Is there no check on this kind of building?
Then there are shopping centers being erected without any thought to access and parking? The commercial area of ZamZama is one such place where the streets are narrow, with absolute no parking spaces, and on top of this there are residential apartments and offices on the upper floors with minimal or very odd and difficult approaches and access.
The recent collapse of a residential building in Lyari killing 29 people and rendering several more homeless and destitute is a crude example of unsupervised old buildings being occupied by people. Usually, these buildings have no easy access for fire-brigades or other larger machinery so in case of a disaster rescue work is impaired. I am sure there are laws and bye-laws governing all these basic tenets of construction which are flouted like no one's business to tragic ends.
But, wait, this isn't the end of the jungle here - it isn't just the wild-growth of the buildings and ugly houses that make it dangerous - it is infestation of deadly man eating animals. We have anacondas read Police of Karachi which are very much capable of swallowing a whole person! then deeper in to the jungle we have cannibals who eat people, just kill them and eat them, pygmies inhabit the inner most regions ruling with their myopic visions and ideas.
So, Karachi is a jungle as dangerous as the Amazon or the deep nether regions of the Congo - the heart of darkness - where all that is misty and translucent and vague and shady reign and flourish. The under-belly of the city is infested with weapons of mass destruction readily in the hands of pygmies (small, provincial half animal half human beings who know nothing but their own whims and ends) so its best to not cross the dangerous limits and venture inside the most venomous of cities for ITS A JUNGLE OUT THERE .......................darling!
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