Double one seven

“Pakistan Railway forms the lifeline of the country.” This is at least what the PR really claims to be according to its official website. No doubt, as far as the rail network is concerned it was very well designed by our British masters many decades ago.
Now after the years of neglect, new trains have been launched, railway stations have been given a much needed facelift, and above all e-ticketing system has been introduced, as the officials say, to cope up with the fast changing business demands. However, the picture is not all that bright, as a friend says problems start right from there as you call the well publicized railway inquiry number to obtain simple information about trains. His ordeal goes like this.
He was at his office one evening when his mother asked him to get her seat reserved in one of the trains for Khanelwal, a district in Punjab. Having no access to internet, he could not use the e-ticketing option. For information about train timings and fares, he kept dialing the number just to hold the receiver and hear the continuous monotonous bells. He left for the City Station to get the inquiry and reservation done. To his utter surprise, it wore a deserted rather scary look at night with all its lights off and windows of all counters closed. A man in civvies approached him to say that everything there gets closed at night and he better visit the station the next morning for an inquiry.
Feeling disgusted, he moved to inquire about the timings from the Cantonment Station on the gate of which he was charged ten rupees as the parking fee. Although that station looked better with all its lights on, he could not find a single staffer on duty to ask about the fares and timings except the platform’s ticket checker who did not know the exact fares. He found two policemen with cigarettes in their hands, puffing smoke in the air. When the friend asked them about a responsible officer of the railway to get the basic information, he was told to visit the assistant station master (ASM). With his tolerance level exceeding all limits, he took brisk steps towards the office of ASM as he thought to complain about all the sufferings he had been undergoing that night. In no time, however, he found out that it was not all that easy as there was no officer on duty. He waited for him outside the office for 20 minutes until he decided to return home with a heavy heart.
Just at that moment, he saw a police constable writing something in a register in the office of railway police. The friend knocked at the door and he was permitted to come in. The constable, in close to his retiring age, asked with a smiling face how he could help him. After getting all the required information about the train timings and fares and thanking the policeman, my friend with this dreadful experience decided never to buy a railway ticket what to talk of a journey by train in future.—HA

Slavery in City of Lights

A villager Razzaq in the interior of Sindh received an SOS call from his younger brother, Haji, employed by a milk trader in Karachi, asking for refuge from police as he had knocked down a girl in an accident last week.
He rushed to the dairy farm in Cattle Colony, where Haji used to work, for his rescue despite the fact that he was not much familiar with the City of Lights. He could not find him there and inquired from the labourers at the farm who told him that Haji might be with the milk trader at his shop in Ranchore Line, off M.A. Jinnah Road.
He got on the truck, transporting milk from the farm to the shop, and reached the shop. The employer told him that since police and the deceased victim’s family were after his brother he not only provided him a safe hideout but also gave Rs30,000 as compensation amount to the family and Rs5,000 to hush up the police.
Forbidding Razzaq and Haji to meet the aggrieved family, the employer bound them to pay off the debt within two weeks or work for seven months without salary. However, Razzaq sensed something fishy in the trader’s narration. He could not believe that the trader could give so big amount without prior consultation or striking a deal with any one of them.
Haji, meanwhile, told his brother that he was not sure if the girl had really died as he was riding a cycle when he had hit her. Razzaq managed to get it checked out from the duty officer at the police station concerned who confirmed that there was no accident of such nature. Wondering how the villager could believe that anyone could die this way, the policeman said, “At least in six years of my service I have never heard of any such accident.”
Now the two brothers were sure that the trader had made a mountain out of a molehill to cheat them and get bonded labour. Instead of going into any dispute with the trader, the poor villagers left for their hometown silently without any fear of arrest.
Though the trader failed in his evil designs and the two brothers were fortunate enough to find their way back, luck does not favour everyone every time and many do fall prey to such traps. This incident is just the tip of the iceberg as over 1.7 million haris remained in bondage across Sindh, according to a study of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
With growing poverty and joblessness bonded labour is taking roots in the multinational companies and the booming media industry as well though there the bonds are not lifelong. Such bondage is more common among the haris of Sindh where poverty and illiteracy of workers are exploited. The landlords are too willing to advance a loan to their workers, albeit on phenomenal rates of interest. The loan as such never gets repaid and the indebted worker as well as his family is bonded for life.
Sometimes the bond is passed on from one generation to the next and from one landlord to the other. Not being able to read and write and entirely at the mercy of their creditors, the workers get bonded without understanding the implications of their action.
Women and children have to share the burden of the credit and are obliged to work without remuneration for their work. It is psychologically crippling for them to know that they have been robbed of their freedom. Worse still they are subjected to abuse of all kinds — sexual, verbal and physical. They are also kept in chains and private jails. This is the price they have to pay for their poverty and ignorance. They do not have NICs and very little recourse to legal intervention. Local police turn a blind eye to such practices due to their strong ties with landlords and the politicians do not emphasize implementing the relevant laws, after all getting a bonded worker’s vote is easier than a freeman’s independent vote.—HA

Flood lights

With the advent of Ramazan, young men are seen putting up extra lights on various lanes and roads to hone (or as some would say to spoil) their cricket skills in the night matches.
Though there are a few playgrounds in the city the exuberant youth prefer to play on roads, probably because the grounds are seldom maintained and the roads are relatively less bumpy for cricket. Or perhaps the players have grown so used to playing on concrete that they don’t feel comfortable playing on the soft rubble of open grounds.
Interestingly, the game not only offers a thrilling experience to its players and spectators, it also gives them a reason to sleep the next morning after Sehar till Iftar when they are served delicious food lavishly. (Never mind, there are others also who don’t play cricket but have a similar sort of passion to enjoy the blessings of the holy month).
Almost every one of us at one stage or the other in our life has participated in street cricket (not necessarily during Ramazan), but it was never such a cut-throat experience in the old days. What were unwanted but more common in those matches were the shouts from the affected house whenever a ball crossed its boundary wall or, worse, smashed its window. Now, with the gradual advance from streets to service lanes to roads the sport has become all the more risky for its players, passers-by and motorists. Drivers often pray for life while coming across such enthusiasts on roads now and hope the windscreen of their car does not meet the same fate that the unfortunate house window did in the old days.
Though it is beyond comprehension to many why the young cricket-lovers opt for roads to play on (the scarcity of public grounds notwithstanding), some do understand the thrill involved and ask road-users to be cautious in the holy month as with each passing day, the number of players and night matches grow till Eid-ul-Fitr. By then, every street and road - except the thoroughfares - is occupied by the young and old cricketers. However, drivers need not fear for long since the cricket craze fizzles out as soon as the holy month is over.—HA

Chinese mania

It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice, says the modern architect of China, Deng Xiaoping.
One wonders how Chinese products have captured the world market and strengthened this notion. This makes sense when one visits the bazaars of Karachi. Being cheap and affordable, Chinese needles, nail clippers, balloons, handkerchiefs, automobiles, tooth brushes, garments, shoes and any other commodity one can think of have thronged the Karachi market like other metropolitan markets.
The Boultan Market, Light House, Zainab Market, Saddar, Tariq Road and even at roundabouts and roadside stalls Chinese products have hoisted victory flags everywhere. Now buses and minibuses too are used for business of such products.
A couple of days back, my mother asked me to bring her a Tasbeeh and a shawl. To my utter surprise, Chinese made Tasbeeh and shawls were being sold at a number of shops.
No doubt, cheap products are more attractive to the middle and labour classes and they have outclassed local products. This may seem counter productive to the weak economy of a country like ours, but not the millions of people living below the poverty line.

-HA

Sitting on the fence!

During the last few years the railway ministry has launched several new trains including the Sindh Express, Pakistan Express and the Jinnah Express. The latest among them is the Bhambore Express, exclusively meant for low-income travellers.The reservation of seats for some amongst us has also become easier as our federal railway minister says people can now reserve seats at any booking agency, even with their credit cards. The renovation of many railway stations has also given a much-needed facelift to these places while the eateries and other stalls on platforms speak volumes of the current, burgeoning trend of public-private partnerships. Furthermore, the official claim that the Pakistan Railways has earned Rs3 billion in annual revenue, which is an all-time high, is also impressive.However, despite all these supposedly inspiring achievements, the ministry appears helpless and the local government weak when it comes to the safety of the poor who have been living along railway tracks for decades.The simple and obvious solution is to fence the tracks. Though a feasibility report of fencing — with Rs18 million as the estimated cost — was sent to railway headquarters in Lahore a few months ago, the long delay in its approval and implementation put in doubt the efforts of those at the helm of affairs. And with the stated record annual earnings, the railway authorities must certainly not be facing a shortage of funds as a hurdle, at least in this project’s implementation.The officials blamed the delay in the project’s implementation on the poor who had encroached upon the railway’s lands, though the government still cannot absolve itself from the responsibility of giving protection to the lives of the people. Encroachers might have become a hurdle now, but methinks it’s the other way round: The absence of fences had invited the usurpers to encroach upon the railway’s lands.It seems it doesn’t matter if this year’s figure of fatal railway accidents in the city crosses 60.The media will routinely report any such accident when it happens, while officials will term such people ‘trespassers’ and will move on. After all, time’s a great healer. This is at least what has been the practice in 2006 and 2005 when, respectively, 48 and 65 ‘trespassers’ were killed after being hit by trains.Under the Pakistan Railway Act, moving on rail tracks in areas without a railway crossing or overhead bridge is a crime. The violators are considered ‘trespassers,’ and as per the law, any person found in violation of this rule may be fined Rs2,000 or serve a six-month prison sentence, or both. However, railway police officials say public protests prevent them from taking any action and suggest that fencing is the only way to stop this gross, dangerous violation.The densely populated areas around the Drigh railway station in the city are the worst-hit. Half of this year’s fatal accidents on the tracks had occurred here. Thousands of people cross the fence-less tracks on a daily basis and during the last eight years 297 have lost their lives while crossing the tracks here.A hundred feet of open space on either side of the track is mandatory to ensure the secure movement of trains as well as to avoid the loss of life, according to the PR rules. However, thousands of encroachers have occupied this mandatory space in Karachi. In some densely populated areas this space has even shrunk to five feet. Mind you, children cannot be chained all the time. So sitting on the fence will never resolve the issue. The grave risk involved calls for initiating the project at the earliest.—HA