The Barricades to Our Rightful Anger
At twelve noon, I kept my car to the left as I slogged past the Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed Rd. intersection over to MT Khan Road. Driving from the Club Road end, I now have to drive an extra 100 meters to make a turn towards Clifton, thanks to a new security arrangement for the Chief Minister House. This extra 100 meters portends a dark turn for my generally jovial mood, for I, along with a plethora of lorries, rickshaws, motor bikers and water tankers get funneled into a kinky and narrow lane lined on both sides by parked sedans, at instances doubly parked, and dutifully attended by their reclining drivers.
It’s the busiest district of Karachi, and I am not the only one in a hurry. Day and again I find other motorists and myself steaming and honking over petty lapses on part of rickshaw drivers, school vans, and officer workers scuttling past this narrow street. The succumbing tarmac on the road exposes the gritty underlayer every few paces, covered by a thick layer of Karachi dust that is flung up in the air on slightest provocation. Food vendors, car cleaners and expecting Rickshaw drivers stubbornly hold their ground, giving merely a few inches upon intense honking. The whole place has a tense air, mired between the rush on part of the motorists and day to day neighborhood activities of the ‘natives’.
And then, as sun finally sets on the I.I Chundrigar and the horizon wears its twilight shades, cars begin to line up right up to the Muslim Gymkhana. Street lights are gaining strength and cars begin switching their headlights. They are all reduced to a virtual standstill over nearly half a kilometer stretch, thanks to the sudden surge on all sides at the same MT Khan-Dr. Ziauudin junction. Traffic Sergeants fanatically waive their arms in vain attempts to resolve the brewing crisis, letting the most belligerent of all sides move until the next in line turn aggressive. Deeper down, motorists evade eye contacts and instead thrust their cars forward as much as they can. Rickshaws shove their narrow beaks at any space left unattended. Motorcyclists squeeze in between the cars and chart their own course. Everyone sits tense on the steering wheel, ready to make the move for the next sprint, that wouldn’t last two feet.
As night cloaks the Karachi sky, the stars are barely visible on the choked Brunton Rd (that passes the Hotel Marriot). Glaring headlights and intermittent surge of humming engines keep the traffic policemen on their toes. The shunted traffic that would otherwise have crossed the CM house is redirected here. After a snail’s ride past the leading hotels, two of the city finest leisure clubs and a host of other important city spots, the drivers are obviously exhausted. After all, after a hard day at work, all most of them want is to commute to their homes, quickly.
The expectant road rage around the CM House blockade needs no explanation for a Karachite, unless of course, you are living inside the very siege. From morning till evening, this foremost bane from which emanates all such traffic problems, appear remarkably calm. Walking right past the CM House blocked street as a pedestrian, you can almost hear the gentle breeze flapping the leaves of the giant trees, the chirping birds and the policemen chatting over some distance. A peaceful nest of an empty street, ligated on both ends by heavy black-and-yellow cement barricades and nestled right in the middle of a street grid that features maddening traffic on all sides.
And what’s even more remarkable is the sheer absence of all such features that seem so palpable at every street that paid its price –the anger, frustration, rage and the urge to undo the misdemeanors of others. Out here, there is simply no reaction. One day: they decided to siege the road; the next: everyone learned to flock elsewhere. The thick, cemented and brightly painted barricades are not merely road blocks; they stand as a symbol of what any non-compliance will strike against –devoid of logic, reason or rationale.
For all the motorists who honked on lorry drivers for cutting them, for those who shouted on skirting motorcyclists, or the more aggressive who stepped out of their car to get it even, was the expressions of anger really that helpful? Or were they really mere obstinate gestures to feel better, to cope up, and to cover up the helplessness we feel towards those thick, painted barricades?
At peak hours, cars in their hundreds can clog up right before these barricades. These motorists give up on their rights to commute through a public road without a fight. Instead, they juggle whatever space the kinks on such detours offer to fit together and make some semblance of a moving traffic. Every motorist who arrives at this junction is left with two choices: to reclaim his right to commute and demand these obstructions to be removed by relevant authorities, or to turn left or right. All of us choose the latter.
The thousands of work hours that are lost each day circumventing this ‘security arrangement’ leaves us all in an uncomfortable position. Our social behavior is predominantly steered by a sense of prudence. We look away, much like the motorists eager to cut each other, from festering issues we find too hard to shatter. Anger, which happens to be one of the most potent expressions of human emotions, is a vent that lets us channel what we truly feel towards things done wrongly. It’s an outlet that lets us rectify things. It is then all the more ill-fated that we have settled for laterally dissipating this hugely potent force simply to get rid of it before we reach our homes.
