Karachi
It was sheer bad timing. I was supposed to be in office on Monday evening, going through the usual grind of supervising The News sports pages, but ended up stuck right in the middle of a monstrous traffic jam as the city plunged into an orgy of violence.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten a few important documents needed to do a story and had to go back home to fetch them. There wasn’t anything abnormal about the traffic on my way home — from I.I Chundrigar Road to Clifton. But on the return journey, news of the murder of senior MQM leader Syed Raza Haider spread like wildfire, and matters suddenly went out of hand on the roads. As panicked commuters tried to make it to the safety of their homes as soon as they could, chaos ensued. By the time I realised that the traffic was too heavy to negotiate my way back to work, it was too late. I got stuck right in front of the CM House and inched my way to near the Sheraton traffic signal, only a few yards away, in almost an hour. By that time, several motorcyclists coming from the opposite direction had told me that all roads were completely clogged and there was no use waiting for the ordeal to end. “Wapas jao bhai, sub jaam hay agay,” shouted a youngster as he zigzagged his bike in the opposite direction.
It was then that I finally decided it was time to turn back.
Initially, it seemed like an impossible task. Stuck between cars, trucks, vans and motor bikes, I had just a few feet available to make a U-turn. And there were no cops around to ask for help.
Thankfully, a bearded old man came out of nowhere and helped me turn back. Had I not managed to do so, I would have spent several hours stuck at that spot.
During my ordeal, I could see pedestrians, including a group of desperate Burqa-clad women, trying to find enough space to walk on the motorcycle-clogged pavements. A large number of people had run out of petrol and, abandoning their cars on the road, were walking in search of fuel.
The return journey was relatively hassle-free but I was unable to take the car into my apartment building in Clifton Block 8 because the traffic had completely clogged the main road as well as the service lane. I had to park my car in a street quite a long way from home, and walk back, cursing the traffic. Once home, however, I learnt I was among the lucky ones. Thousands of commuters were stuck in jams, as traffic gridlocks had paralysed a large part of the city. I was really grateful I was back home safe and sound when I heard that more than 30 people had been killed and many buses, taxis, cars, petrol pumps and shops had been set on fire during the course of the night.
It took a couple of more hours for the traffic jam to thin out in my neighborhood. When I went out to fetch my car after midnight, it seemed as if the authorities had imposed a curfew. There wasn’t a single soul on the pitch-black, eerie road.
My ordeal didn’t end there. On Tuesday afternoon, I went out to fill my fuel tank that was virtually empty but the pumps were all closed. There were no taxis, rickshaws or other public transport available as the roads wore a deserted look. It was dÈj‡ vu; one had witnessed similar scenes following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto back in 2007. Karachi was burning yet again.
It was sheer bad timing. I was supposed to be in office on Monday evening, going through the usual grind of supervising The News sports pages, but ended up stuck right in the middle of a monstrous traffic jam as the city plunged into an orgy of violence.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten a few important documents needed to do a story and had to go back home to fetch them. There wasn’t anything abnormal about the traffic on my way home — from I.I Chundrigar Road to Clifton. But on the return journey, news of the murder of senior MQM leader Syed Raza Haider spread like wildfire, and matters suddenly went out of hand on the roads. As panicked commuters tried to make it to the safety of their homes as soon as they could, chaos ensued. By the time I realised that the traffic was too heavy to negotiate my way back to work, it was too late. I got stuck right in front of the CM House and inched my way to near the Sheraton traffic signal, only a few yards away, in almost an hour. By that time, several motorcyclists coming from the opposite direction had told me that all roads were completely clogged and there was no use waiting for the ordeal to end. “Wapas jao bhai, sub jaam hay agay,” shouted a youngster as he zigzagged his bike in the opposite direction.
It was then that I finally decided it was time to turn back.
Initially, it seemed like an impossible task. Stuck between cars, trucks, vans and motor bikes, I had just a few feet available to make a U-turn. And there were no cops around to ask for help.
Thankfully, a bearded old man came out of nowhere and helped me turn back. Had I not managed to do so, I would have spent several hours stuck at that spot.
During my ordeal, I could see pedestrians, including a group of desperate Burqa-clad women, trying to find enough space to walk on the motorcycle-clogged pavements. A large number of people had run out of petrol and, abandoning their cars on the road, were walking in search of fuel.
The return journey was relatively hassle-free but I was unable to take the car into my apartment building in Clifton Block 8 because the traffic had completely clogged the main road as well as the service lane. I had to park my car in a street quite a long way from home, and walk back, cursing the traffic. Once home, however, I learnt I was among the lucky ones. Thousands of commuters were stuck in jams, as traffic gridlocks had paralysed a large part of the city. I was really grateful I was back home safe and sound when I heard that more than 30 people had been killed and many buses, taxis, cars, petrol pumps and shops had been set on fire during the course of the night.
It took a couple of more hours for the traffic jam to thin out in my neighborhood. When I went out to fetch my car after midnight, it seemed as if the authorities had imposed a curfew. There wasn’t a single soul on the pitch-black, eerie road.
My ordeal didn’t end there. On Tuesday afternoon, I went out to fill my fuel tank that was virtually empty but the pumps were all closed. There were no taxis, rickshaws or other public transport available as the roads wore a deserted look. It was dÈj‡ vu; one had witnessed similar scenes following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto back in 2007. Karachi was burning yet again.