Lahore has erutped again today. Hand grenades no less. Amena is stuck in her office and is marginally safer than Mariam who is stuck in the eye of the storm- Mall Road, that too in Habib Bank.I thought I had left this mess, this feeling back in Karachi.While most Lahoris find the turn of events surreal, the Karachiites are still walking around normally, laughing, going about stuff without paralysis because we grew up in a near war zone. Specially if you lived on the other side of the bridge, and woke up and slept to gunfire,bullet holes in the wall concrete, getting used to not going to school because it was too far off to risk the travel.I caught myself in that apprehensive-anticipation again yesterday when we were glued to the news- in the hope of a chutti, lol, a day off from work.
Ugly,ugly, brainless, so fucking pissing off that I don't want to think about it.What did Habib Bank or Metropolitan Bank have to do with the cartoons, what did your own people have to do with it, what did the poor men whose bikes, or whose Fx you smashed have to do with this?How does the strike make a statement about anything and do anything that cripple yourself?Mariam's car was chased at hair's breadth by a gang on hooligans waving sticks and bats.School children in Islamabad, in uniforms still, swarming like ants all over the diplomatic enclave.Thank God security is always top notch in Isloo-land of the ferangis who come to Pak-iss-tan.The Lahore police said it wasn't prepared. How can you not be?Did you honestly think something like a peaceful protest cannot be hijacked by a simmering,disgruntled population?Bloody stupid chutyapa. More than willing to jump into the hole dug for them, always the first to axe their own foot.
Telenor offices guarded by rows of armed rangers.I hope Saadi doesn't come back from his work trip anytime soon.Not an environment to go to office in.All banks, KFCs and McDonalds being guarded by armed police after their outlets on the Mall were burnt down yesterday.On our way to work today, Munch and I honked hard at woman in front of us who stopped at the McDonald's turning, laughing-yelling at her that we didn't want our car stuck anywhere near these franchises, stall your car somewhere else.Quiet on the roads, marginally, no public transport except Daewoo.Pindi gone berserk also and nationwide strike on March 3.I think it's coinciding with Bush's visit.Hope the energy dissipates by then.
I didn't move to Lahore because it was like Karachi, but because it was its anti-thesis in everything-from the people, the society, the roads, to the environment.
3 comments:
Well, I hope that you are yours are alright whilst this nonsense continues.
I have to say that, as a ferangi, I always found Lahore to be the most uncomfortable of cities that I visited in Pakistan. More malevloence and more threathening in a way that other pakistani cities are not.
A general response/musing to the comment you left on my blog. For a ferangi perhaps I can understand why Lhr would seem like that. Karachi is a lot more cosmopolitan and so I suppose a lot more welcoming. You may hear of embassies burning and what not but I can't remember any foreigners being attacked in person.Islamabad is typically touted to be a model city in terms of planning and social composition. Contrastingly, Lahore is very uniform, even for someone within Pakistan, specially from another province.
I suppose I'm biased because of the I have more memories of the bad times than the good times in Karachi:P
I responded to this over at my place :)
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