It was the sunny morning around June of 2002. Whenever I am in Karachi I like to use public transport as it is more convenient. I hopped on to a bus which they call as coach in the City of Karachi. I boarded from submarine roundabout and my destination was defense. It takes hardly around 5 to 10 minutes to cover the distance, as the roads are wide and the traffic moves fast. It was a very usual trip. But this time this small distance will change my thinking to such a big extant I never had thought.
Let me give you a little background about public transport in Karachi. There are beautifully decorated buses, they use chassis of Japanese busses and they then install custom built bodies as per their own taste. There is a driver and a cleaner. The driver drives the bus in fact flies it and the cleaner directs him when to push the gasoline and when not to. The cleaner taps the door once, it means to slow down and when he hits the door twice that means to ‘taxi’ again, and they never apply brakes fully. If you see a bus slowing down just hop into it and the cleaner taps it again, keep you balance else Edhi guys are always there to do the finals.
Now let’s get back to where I already had hopped into the bus after a while the cleaner tapped the door once it slowed down, a young policeman hopped in. The cleaner slapped the door twice and the bus speed. While the policeman was jumping in I gave him a hand. He thanked me very politely and sat beside me. We starting chit chatting, I was really impressed by his outfit. No loose trousers and un ironed shirt. He was young of my age then, looked educated though just a foot soldier. His name was Ijaz, I told him I was coming from giving an exam, and he replied he too had an exam next day. He was doing Masters. I was really impressed, I started asking him questions. He replied to each question politely. He was married. He was going to somewhere in Corangi to pick his wife where she worked as a school teacher in a private school for mere Rs.3000/- a month. I asked him you are a policeman why does your wife need to work. (Keeping in mind I had a concept since he is a policeman must have a quarter in police lines, and then above all they have extra income). He said, “bahiya hamara beeta bhi haay” Brother we have a son too. I said mashAllah, so you and your wife have to work for your child. He said yes we have only one child and the child has a heart condition. What they call it a hole in the heart. I was not softened yet. I said maybe it’s a repercussion for what our police do. Then he told me they had admitted him in an English medium private, the fee also costs besides the medication and continuous treatment and care for their son. I then looked again at the man, he looked pale like a person who eats less. Another question arose, why a private English medium school, why not the same school where his wife taught. He replied in a very confirm voice. I do not want my son to be a policeman, I studied at govt. funded school my wife was the most brilliant student of our town. What have we got, “this police job”, my wife is a gold medalist in literature and she is teaching in there. Every day I leave my wife there and remain worried until I pick her up. And now they have transferred me to the admin block which is far from my home, my kid’s school and my wife’s school just because I do not want to feed my son with haram. He has finished this sentence and my stop came. My heart was heavy, I was apologizing to that person with in my heart had no courage to speak. I just greeted him, expressed my pleasure and wished him good luck and hopped out. He waved in gratitude.
While walking towards my uncle’s home, I started noticing all the beautiful villas and the happy jolly faces, but I was no more happy. I was thinking about this Ijaz He was fighting so hard against the daily hardships. He was a policeman and still keeping himself clean. Why on earth his son had such a condition. Why on earth his wife being a gold medalist at the Karachi University would end up teaching at a private school and not at some good college. How long will he keep himself and till when the society will not engulf him in its evils.
I still wonder how many Ijaz are there in our society. How many gems are being wasted like this? And what did I do, I never meet Ijaz again, I never heard his story again. But I believe if all of us became like Ijaz, we will be able to remove so many evils in our society. If only we cared to provide halal rizk to our children, our children will no more be disobedient. If only we cared to provide the best possible education to our children their future will be brighter. We need to find Ijaz in ourselves and we need to correct ourselves the foremost and then look inside some ones collar. And lastly let’s stop this generalizing game that is taking our society by an epidemic, Not all policeman are bad and neither does the entire citizen a victim. We need to respect them; they protect us and sacrifice their lives so that we can sleep. Yes there are rotten eggs, but how clean are we ourselves? I leave you all with this question. You may answer to yourself and no one should judge anyone.
Let me give you a little background about public transport in Karachi. There are beautifully decorated buses, they use chassis of Japanese busses and they then install custom built bodies as per their own taste. There is a driver and a cleaner. The driver drives the bus in fact flies it and the cleaner directs him when to push the gasoline and when not to. The cleaner taps the door once, it means to slow down and when he hits the door twice that means to ‘taxi’ again, and they never apply brakes fully. If you see a bus slowing down just hop into it and the cleaner taps it again, keep you balance else Edhi guys are always there to do the finals.
Now let’s get back to where I already had hopped into the bus after a while the cleaner tapped the door once it slowed down, a young policeman hopped in. The cleaner slapped the door twice and the bus speed. While the policeman was jumping in I gave him a hand. He thanked me very politely and sat beside me. We starting chit chatting, I was really impressed by his outfit. No loose trousers and un ironed shirt. He was young of my age then, looked educated though just a foot soldier. His name was Ijaz, I told him I was coming from giving an exam, and he replied he too had an exam next day. He was doing Masters. I was really impressed, I started asking him questions. He replied to each question politely. He was married. He was going to somewhere in Corangi to pick his wife where she worked as a school teacher in a private school for mere Rs.3000/- a month. I asked him you are a policeman why does your wife need to work. (Keeping in mind I had a concept since he is a policeman must have a quarter in police lines, and then above all they have extra income). He said, “bahiya hamara beeta bhi haay” Brother we have a son too. I said mashAllah, so you and your wife have to work for your child. He said yes we have only one child and the child has a heart condition. What they call it a hole in the heart. I was not softened yet. I said maybe it’s a repercussion for what our police do. Then he told me they had admitted him in an English medium private, the fee also costs besides the medication and continuous treatment and care for their son. I then looked again at the man, he looked pale like a person who eats less. Another question arose, why a private English medium school, why not the same school where his wife taught. He replied in a very confirm voice. I do not want my son to be a policeman, I studied at govt. funded school my wife was the most brilliant student of our town. What have we got, “this police job”, my wife is a gold medalist in literature and she is teaching in there. Every day I leave my wife there and remain worried until I pick her up. And now they have transferred me to the admin block which is far from my home, my kid’s school and my wife’s school just because I do not want to feed my son with haram. He has finished this sentence and my stop came. My heart was heavy, I was apologizing to that person with in my heart had no courage to speak. I just greeted him, expressed my pleasure and wished him good luck and hopped out. He waved in gratitude.
While walking towards my uncle’s home, I started noticing all the beautiful villas and the happy jolly faces, but I was no more happy. I was thinking about this Ijaz He was fighting so hard against the daily hardships. He was a policeman and still keeping himself clean. Why on earth his son had such a condition. Why on earth his wife being a gold medalist at the Karachi University would end up teaching at a private school and not at some good college. How long will he keep himself and till when the society will not engulf him in its evils.
I still wonder how many Ijaz are there in our society. How many gems are being wasted like this? And what did I do, I never meet Ijaz again, I never heard his story again. But I believe if all of us became like Ijaz, we will be able to remove so many evils in our society. If only we cared to provide halal rizk to our children, our children will no more be disobedient. If only we cared to provide the best possible education to our children their future will be brighter. We need to find Ijaz in ourselves and we need to correct ourselves the foremost and then look inside some ones collar. And lastly let’s stop this generalizing game that is taking our society by an epidemic, Not all policeman are bad and neither does the entire citizen a victim. We need to respect them; they protect us and sacrifice their lives so that we can sleep. Yes there are rotten eggs, but how clean are we ourselves? I leave you all with this question. You may answer to yourself and no one should judge anyone.
I hope this Ijaz ..the policeman..was not making up stories to gain your sympathy:)..anyway..good artcle.keep it up!
ReplyDeleteWhy would he do that, he did not knew, I was a nobody and we did not expect to meet again.
ReplyDelete