A city that has forgotten fear

Children are fast catching on. Days when you wake up to the sound of a text from the school informing you that schools off because of the situation in the city are quite common. Children just slide back into their beds with an Oh, when you tell them that things are bad in the city.

Time was when we were younger,the words Halaat kharab hain would instill fear in our hearts. Such days were relatively few and far between and they were dreaded. Today the words dont scare my kids anymore. It gets more or less the same reaction as one would get when you say,Sorry you cant have that candy. Ah but tomorrow I can,na?

Simple things like going to the tailor have become fraught with uncertainty. So you decide to go to your tailor and if you are lucky the man (they invariably are!) has risked his life,bravely driven around burning tyres to make it to his shop. The minute you ask for the outfit you gave him two weeks ago and want to wear that evening,you discover he hasnt got round to it because of frequent electricity breakdowns. You may be lucky and have a wise tailor whos installed a generator. But then your outfit probably costs you an arm and a leg. Oh and by the way,that dinner you wanted the outfit for… did someone check? Is it still on? Because I heard halaat kharab hain? There are those words again.

The reason I may sound kind of like its all happening to someone else is because in a way it is. You see while a big hoo-haa is made about the division of the city along ethnic lines,theres also another divide its a bridge actually that divides this city physically and psychologically. Clifton Bridge divides the haves and the have-nots. Most of whatever violence happens,happens that part of town. The barrier is psychological. People from all over town even drive better when they enter Clifton or Defence Housing Authority. And significantly the violence barrier has seldom been broken.

Benazirs assassination broke that barrier and buses were burnt and shop windows broken,much to the shock of residents in this upscale neighbourhood,many of whom had moved here because the rest of the city regularly dunked its head in a furnace. Generally speaking,though,violence in other parts of the city only becomes real for DHA residents when it makes its way into their living room via the idiot box. Or when their neighbours first cousin is shot while waiting at a traffic light. And such episodes are happening more and more frequently.

The artificially-induced reverie of residents in this part of town was dented once again last year when reports of Taliban groups entering the city with plans to target and bomb schools started filtering in. After announcing a two-week emergency holiday,my childrens school reopened in a new avatar. It had stopped looking like a school,and given a new twist to the description academic fortress. Walls were raised,spikes put up,gunmen posted on the roof,security cameras installed and the whole thing topped with a hurried meeting to discuss security measures with distressed parents. We spent about four months sending children to school with sinking hearts and gunmen hovering over our heads. Relief only arrived in the form of summer vacations. And the message that you are vulnerable regardless of where you live was driven home.

Do I sound thick-skinned? Perhaps,but its not insensitivity. Its a survival mechanism; reality becomes easier to bear when splattered with doses of acerbic humour. So we laugh at ourselves too. I got a peek into that (and laughed my head off) when I read someones Facebook status. Recently when the number of targeted killings became alarming even for a Karachiite,MQM majordome Altaf Hussain,who is in self-imposed exile in London,warned that things could get uglier still and that residents should stock up a months ration. In the spirit of comeuppance,the fellow Facebookers status echoed the words right back to Altaf after hearing about the London riots.