Constants

Sunday, January 13, 2008
I have spent the last two months in Larkana, my hometown. Larkana is a wonder, truly it is. It offers some of the most wondrous delights Pakistan has to offer. Dilip Sweets, in the heart of the city, makes a coconut mithai you would die for. Hand on heart, it's that good. In Resham Gali, the fabric bazaar, you can find lavish ajraks -- block--printed in the most beautiful of colours ranging from the usual maroon red to the rarer khaki green (khaki wasn't always a dirty word, you know). The denizens of Katlai Sera make an aloo bun kabab, pure heaven for us rare Pakistani vegetarians. And in Ali Goharabad, in the middle of the usual garbage and unrefined sewage lines that are all too common, lies a little nursery. A small cage of green plants, tended to with the utmost care -- an oasis of nature in a cement city.

I love this city, but it pains me to see it as it is. If we are to take Larkana as a microcosm for the country, and I believe we can, then the following are some of the most serious problems facing our compatriots.

The utter lack of medical care:

Government hospitals are ill-equipped and under-staffed. Private hospitals are everywhere, of course, but they are absurdly expensive. I spend several weekends monitoring free medical camps set up in the village areas surrounding Larkana City. The doctors, four men who volunteered their Sundays and forsook their day of rest, treated over two thousand patients. The medicine was given free of cost -- as it should be, if you ask me -- as was the care. The patients were men, women, children and infants. Some of them came wearing no shoes on their feet and grasping the hands of their children, each who had ailments that if treated would not have caused them unnecessary pain and discomfort, but naturally they hadn't been attended to.

Most of the children had scabies and had sores all over their bodies. Zameer, who was two years old and wore a black shalwar-kameez that didn't fit him right, had scabs covering his earlobes, cheeks, and forehead. He cried throughout his consultation with the doctor. Sapna brought her two infant siblings. She described their cough and fever with precise detail to the doctor, but when I asked her how old she was she couldn't answer -- she didn't know. Sapna must have been ten years old; she wouldn't have had to count back very far.

Most of the women who received their medicines came back to the doctor and stood patiently in line for him to explain how to take their doses --they couldn't read the instructions on the boxes. The doctor had to mark their medicine with suns and moons indicating time and scratch marks for the dosage. When Saima, clothed in bright yellow, showed the doctor the cuts on her feet from her school shoes I could have cried. Saima was one of the few we met that day who could read the instructions on her ointment.

We went to two villages and two Union Councils and we saw over two thousand people. That's two thousand people who have no access to medical care. Some men even came carrying prescriptions from private clinics; they spent their money on the consultations and then they couldn't afford to buy the medicine prescribed. They came to us hoping we would give it to them for free. The United Kingdom, France, Cuba, Venezuela -- these countries treat healthcare as an inalienable right. We in Pakistan treat it as a luxury.

Agency:

No one -- and I am not exaggerating here -- has ID cards. No one. Especially not the women. When we go to visit people, there is always an obligatory chai break. This is followed by an interminable wait for the tea to be cooked over a wood fire. We cut time by breaking pardah and going over the women's section where we sit with them while they brew our refreshments.

Social security means that while the state is aware of its citizens it owns up to its responsibility by giving every man and woman the right to stand up and be counted. It means it bestows its citizens with what is rightfully theirs -- agency. Agency to vote, to decide, and to lawfully complete legal, political and financial business.

Are you aware of the sheer volume of transactions that require a shinakhti card? You need a valid ID card to buy a SIM card, rent a phone line, open a bank account, take out a loan, register for a passport, and so on and so on. You also need one to vote, coincidentally. And here's the kicker -- many, many people are on the Election Commission's voters' list but they do not possess the ID cards required to cast a ballot. Do you smell rigging? I do.

No refuge from the cold:

Fiendishly corrupt MNAs and MPAs routinely divert funds from the coffers towards personal fulfilment and comfortably deny their citizens access to electricity, gas, and decent housing. Without electricity you cannot use a heater during these long winter months. Without gas -- well, you can't do much without gas. Without housing you cannot take refuge from the cold -- or the heat, for that matter.

Winter in Larkana is cold. It's not Peshawar cold, but it's harsh. The poor cannot afford any of the above; they are not given any of the above. But even so, romals -- the thinnest and smallest kind of shawls -- cost at least Rs50, less than a dollar, in the marketplace and large families (the only kind we make) cannot afford to outfit themselves in any kind of warm clothing at that cost.

Elections have once more been postponed. The country is in a state of flux; we don't know where we are and where we're going. But these factors are constants. These issues don't go away with the postponement of elections -- so what are we to do? How much longer can we as a nation afford to deprive our citizens of their most basic rights while we lucky few enjoy all that we desire?

The poor of this country have no access to healthcare, to warmth, and now to food. South Asia, according to the BBC, has been hit by food shortages. Hardest hit? Pakistan, of course. In certain parts of the country the prices of roti, or bread, skyrocketed from Rs2 to Rs18. That's a 900% increase. Global prices of wheat, our staple food, are at record highs. The government, price fixers and hoarders at best, have been unable in recent weeks to ensure the distribution of wheat and flour. Let's not even get into sugar prices. Exactly how are people meant to survive without food? If the government has an answer to this one, I for one would be very interested in hearing it.

Source: Daily News