The morning after
When was the last time it ever occurred to me to call up a destination even before venturing out of the house just to ask if it was safe to come?
The ugly side of Pakistan has become so much uglier that I am almost tempted to disown it. As if having a mob rioting and pressing down against our building, breaking into the Diplomatic Enclave then breaking glass at Standard Chartered our next-door-neighbours weren't enough, teargas has to become the norm in Islamabad. Since when? I listen to Moeed tell the boss how sitting out in the Club was impossible because the teargas from Aabpara was wafting over to that side all day Sunday. Yesterday I saw the largest single movement of Rangers crawling from the Peshawar end of the city to the Pindi end that I have ever seen in my life, I never saw this in Karachi, not even when we used to duck down low driving over Shah Faisal Colony at any time after 10 p.m. way back when things were so ugly we used to wake up to 7 a.m gunshots sometimes.
I don't like this.
No memories of four monsoons' worth of rains could stand up against a paintbrush dipped in off-white. I find myself feeling suddenly empty looking out of the window at the boundary wall in the morning. I wonder if the wall will bear the same dusty brown pattern again, and if raindrops will still always follow the same course that is charted by the first rain drop of the first rain, like a tearstreak along the wall. I think about this, and about other things, and then I brace myself to face the day.
Outside the sun is cheerful, the city is normal. A man is getting a ticket for being on the zebra-crossing at a red light and I am delighted.
The ugly side of Pakistan has become so much uglier that I am almost tempted to disown it. As if having a mob rioting and pressing down against our building, breaking into the Diplomatic Enclave then breaking glass at Standard Chartered our next-door-neighbours weren't enough, teargas has to become the norm in Islamabad. Since when? I listen to Moeed tell the boss how sitting out in the Club was impossible because the teargas from Aabpara was wafting over to that side all day Sunday. Yesterday I saw the largest single movement of Rangers crawling from the Peshawar end of the city to the Pindi end that I have ever seen in my life, I never saw this in Karachi, not even when we used to duck down low driving over Shah Faisal Colony at any time after 10 p.m. way back when things were so ugly we used to wake up to 7 a.m gunshots sometimes.
I don't like this.
No memories of four monsoons' worth of rains could stand up against a paintbrush dipped in off-white. I find myself feeling suddenly empty looking out of the window at the boundary wall in the morning. I wonder if the wall will bear the same dusty brown pattern again, and if raindrops will still always follow the same course that is charted by the first rain drop of the first rain, like a tearstreak along the wall. I think about this, and about other things, and then I brace myself to face the day.
Outside the sun is cheerful, the city is normal. A man is getting a ticket for being on the zebra-crossing at a red light and I am delighted.
posted by mercury @ 12:09 PM
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