This is the fourth journal entry in a series of about 15 which I wrote over a three week period while I was in Pakistan this summer. If you go to the category Pakistan Journal you can see all the entries. There are some really interesting experiences and observations which I make throughout the trip(or well at least in my opinion).

6/8/2004

Okay So I missed a day, can you blame me? well I’ll fill you in anyways. So I left off before I came to Karachi, so I’ll start from there. As we were going to get our luggage there was a man in white uniform who was holding up a sign which had my fathers name as well as my grandmothers name on it. My father asked “Who sent you? So and So?” And I’m just thinking I don’t trust anyone! Why not let him say who sent him! In Pakistan especially in Karachi everyone is in constant fear of getting robbed at gun point. So this guy says “Yeah”. And then I see other men in white uniform who are treating us like VIP’s. The reason is because my grandmothers little brother is some big time air force guy. He was retired from the air force. Then he himself came in and they let us leave with the quickness. He wouldn’t let me carry my own bags and made the guy in uniform do it. At that moment I thought wow all these big time guys really use their power and influence (or at least accept the perks). Any public officer in any country should be a public servant. But sometimes what happens is the public becomes their servants. I’m not saying the guy is not a good guy, he’s really nice… but I call it like I see it.

As we exit the airport I meet my brother in law to be for the very first time. He’s wearing a baseball hat and dress shirt and pants.. that could only mean one thing: He’s Bald! So he takes a look at my shiner and says “And I thought I had hair loss problems” or something like that ha. Right off the bat I could tell that he had a good sense of humor. Upon observing his teeth I thought oh no this guy either drinks a lot of tea, chews tobacco or smokes or worse – all of the above. One thing that I noticed about Pakistanis is that the majority of them don’t give a damn about dental hygiene… well I would make the point about them not caring about hygiene in general but lets stick to this for now. In most bathrooms at peoples houses you can’t find toothpaste… and its not because they cant afford it.. They just don’t know how important it is. There should be a dental revolution here. It should be stressed in the educational system. A few of my cousins never brushed in their lives… I don’t think they will have any teeth left by the time they hit 50.

The first place where we went was my brother in law to be’s house. We met his parents they were seemed pretty nice. I liked most of his brothers. One just popped in for a minute and left. I thought that was kind of weird. But the other guys seemed really cool and hard working. The youngest was running an English learning institute for youth. Two others (twins) were running a gift shop.

After that we went to my cousins home where my sisters were staying. It was really cool reuniting with my family. It had been 5 months since I had seen my mother! My sister, (the one getting married) was really happy to see me (in Pakistan) ha. This reunion was just like the Brady Bunch reunion. Well not just like it… well maybe it was more like the Capone N Noreaga Reunion… No wait it was more like the Jetsons meet the Flintstones… since it felt like we came from the future (America) to the Stone Age (Pakistan). One of my sisters commented that Pakistan is like the 1920’s (in America).

My other sister pointed out to me that over here (Pakistan) the older people, the people in their midlife (40s-50s) were the most important people in the family. While in America as you became older you become more irrelevant. It was an interesting point… but the problem with it is that the young adults have less worth in this society. I could tell by how people talked to me as if I was an inexperienced little kid. I seriously thought my mother has been here for too long when she went through all my clothes and said “I will not let you wear this here”. She told me to button up my shirt because it’s considered “bad” here. So I said “No, I’m from America this is how I dress” why should I conform to their norms. They should get over these petty things. I don’t care if someone wants to judge me according to their false precepts. Anyways, I thought she was nuts for thinking she could tell me how to dress. She had been here for way too long. Maybe parents over there could dictate what their kids wear. I rebelled against that notion when I was in the third grade… I thought I had laid down the law, guess not. My mother didn’t like the watch we got for the bro-in-law-to-be. I told her that she had lost her taste…ha. We paid a decent amount for that thing dang nabbit.

I have to write about Karachi. Karachi is a crazy place. I could tell by the first time I sat in a car… it was even worse than Lahore. Unlike Lahore there were no animals on the main road including horses and donkeys. But it had tons of cars, motorcycles, rikshas, and funkdafied busses. These people barely stop at stop lights. They have no problem driving on the wrong side of a 2 way road. In fact they drive against traffic on the wrong side of a major 3-lane 2 way street (3 lanes on each side) Also there is no real concept of a lane. The only right a pedestrian has is the right to get the hell out of the way before he/she is killed. Cars will honk every 10 seconds. They expect motorcyclists to immediately clear their path if they are in front of them. I had always head that the bigger your vehicle is, the more command you have on the road… now I saw it in person. No one stops if a pedestrian pops out of nowhere on the streets, they keep going. I am surprised I haven’t seen anyone get hit yet. Although I did see a motorcyclist crash his bike and land in the middle of the road. I have seen a family of 5 sitting on one motorcycle, its ridiculous… and the way women sit is sideways, sometimes only holding the man riding by his shirt. Then again in Karachi there is so much traffic you can’t really go that fast (over 40). Although the busses go as fast as they want.

Yesterday morning, well yesterday afternoon I went to a masjid here for the first time. I was walking from where my father and I were staying to where my sisters were staying it’s a good 15 minute walk and stopped to pray at this masjid called masjid Bilal. There I was handed a loaner topee made of straw.. which I was required to wear unless I wanted to be killed, or at least lectured, well at most banned from the masjid. I wish I could tell them… “You guys are hanafis and you don’t even know it!” I inspected the straw hat for lice before I put it on. In this masjid I noticed that when Rasulullah (S) is mentioned even in the adhaan or Iqamah these people kiss their fists, rub their eyebrows, and then kiss their fists again. They all did it suddenly and in sync… and the guy next to me noticed that I didn’t do it. Then this dude starts staring at me. And I am like OH MY GOD what’s going to happen next. I had always been warned to do as the natives do in the masjid… or else who knows what they will think or do to you. Especially in a place like Karachi where there is so much sectarian violence. What if they thought I was shia. There were a lot of Hari Pugurs (Green Turban wearers) present. They hate shias with a passion and have declared them kuffar and think they should be killed. So I just got out of there. One thing I noticed is that these bida doers always talk about this silsila nonsense. They say that they are only following alim-e-deen of the past. Now I know why these Salafis are so against blind following… because as Brother Musa Bryant once wisely said “Shrik happens”. The masjid itself was very nice though. I was very careful about not making massa on my socks because I know Pakis don’t understand that. I don’t know if it’s just hanafi fiqh or what. Its not like I could ask anyone here… they’d just give blanketh reference to the alim-e-deen whose silsila they have been following for so many years. Alim-e-deen who these people can’t even identify. I asked my elder cousin who is like 40 about all this bida stuff and he simply said it’s due to their not being any real people of knowledge around, then of course because of widespread misinformation aka silsila followers just copying each others actions. Also I realized that these people have a very strange figure head mentality of Islamic leadership. They want a molvi to lead them. The person MUST visually fit the bill. He must have a long beard, the older he is the better, or more sound his knowledge is. And as he becomes older his knowledge becomes even more authentic. And we know in Islam this is totally false. Look at the example of Hadrat Ali (r) who was younger than most but had a better understanding than most. I don’t think these people will ever get it. Why should any youth come to them, its much better if they stay away. Then again the majority of this country’s citizens are illiterate, but still in the biggest city you would expect more… but I guess it takes time for change to occur.

I went to an internet café here, it really sucked it was slow as hell, and I couldn’t access my AOL e-mail from it. The water here is supposedly really bad. So I was avoiding drinking it. I was only drinking bottled water that I bought from the store. That plan lasted for like a day. Then my relatives made me “say bismillah” and just drink the tap water. Since then I have experienced some headaches and some mushy goo.

Today is my sister’s mendhi. I hate this cultural crap. All the girls at my cousin’s house have been singing wedding songs and have been listening to music like crazy for the past few days. Which is okay, but I still don’t personally take a liking to it. I am much more pleased to see Wham Bam thank you I’mam nikkah ceremonies (simple) followed by a big waleema. Although I don’t think even my wedding could be small in terms of guests because I would invite EVERYONE. All of YM would definitely have to be there.

Yesterday I went to Tariq Road with my cousin and his wife. It was really cool because they are so chill. We first got me some dress shoes. Got real nice dress shoes for like 35 US. My cousin did a really good job at bargaining. It was funny because all the store owners would say “You can check all the stores on this road, I guarantee my price is the best”. And my cousin would say “Yeah, sure I will check all the stores prices, but I would rather be your customer, and don’t you want me to be your customer?” Then the numbers game would begin. His wife did a good job of saying “that’s way too much” every time any price would initially be thrown out there. The name of the game is making the person come down as low as possible even if you are already getting a good deal. It was really awkward for me because I still can’t count past 13 in Urdu. So I couldn’t understand the prices. My cousin would just whisper to me telling me “it’s too expensive”.

The scene at Tariq Road is so interesting. There are so many kids out there hustling, selling one thing or another. First you have your street vendors selling all sorts of funky snacks. Then you have your beggars walking around with their kids. Then you have people selling things like popcorn on a string to cotton candy, toy snakes, flutes, newspapers, you name it. The shops were the most interesting. The vast majority of the stores were shoe stores and women’s garment stores. It would be heaven (astughfirullah) for girls from America. Thank god there were no American girls with us. Back to the hustlers… You would find stores within stores. People had makeshift storefronts which would really be merchandise stacked on top of each other. There were many little kids running these operations. Some people even would pull their cars up the shopping strip, lay out a cloth over their car and then stack up their merchandise on top of it. I saw this person make a sale of this women’s shoe, he tossed it to his friend and he ran to another store to get the shoe in the right size. There were so many people running so many types of scams/gimmicks. I couldn’t help but think that the beggars here have No excuse. If a little kid can setup shop, why cant they? And these kids were making money! Even if they were selling cheap stuff. Because everyone needs something (supply/demand). It was sad to see so many youth smoking. And you could tell who the drug abusers were. Over here kids all hang out on their block s late at night. They sit outside because it’s just so hot (inside) and they just chat till late night. At the stores during closing time heavily armed policemen would be all over the place. Especially since people would take money out and head home. It’s really dangerous here for anyone who transports cash. They need some armored truck services. I have heard so many stories of people getting stuck up for their families jewelry and cash. When you drive around you see people staring at you, people here have a staring problem. But you have to wonder who is sizing you up to be their next victim. These guys will go fully armed into people’s homes. The police is said to be easily bought off over here. In fact they are known for that. In Lahore I saw a lot of army personnel, those guys are no joke.

Finally I must say I noticed something really strange about the women here. In Lahore I barely saw Hijabis there. In Karachi I saw both hijabis and what I call Burqabis (niqab included). But the strangest thing I saw was drop top Burqabis… sisters wearing burqa without hijab! This was very perplexing for me. Where are the priorities! You wear one long dark black cloth which is something extra to what’s fard because you think it’s the best way to cover okay fine… but how can you neglect what’s mandatory and do what’s not even mandatory and what’s not even recommended or prescribed but is just something which has culturally been adopted! Women wearing burqa and niqab in the context of the Pakistani market place is totally understandable. All of the shop keepers and street hustlers are men, young men who don’t marry till a very late age. And they call every sister who comes to shop “Baji” or “Appa” which means big sister. My sister really hates it because they harass you, trying to get you to buy stuff. In this context, especially if a woman is alone, Burqa and niqab makes sense. But this is where America and a place like Pakistan seem to be parts of two different worlds. In places like malls or department stores more women are the workers, and men are actually barely present. It’s kind of strange how sex based segregation helps to create this environment. Women are essentially banned from having any sales positions. I have seen some women driving… but have yet to see one riding a motorcycle… Judging by how women sit on motorcycles I guess it’s considered improper for women to sit in the position that men would sit in. Another funny thing happened. When we were leaving Tariq Road we got on this bus. I had to jump on to this moving bus. First I was getting on from the front and the driver started yelling at me. The reason was that only women sat in the front and there was a physical barrier between the sweaty crowded men’s section. As you can see a lot has happened in the last day or so. Till next time Peace.

Pictures from this segment of the trip:

[img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/07.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/08.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/09.jpg width=100 height=100] [img=http://www.azeemkhan.info/images/pakistan/10.jpg width=100 height=100]

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Filed under: Pakistan Journal