FINDING HOPE AMID DESPAIR: THE VANDALS WENT LOOTING AND PILLAGING
By Sheema Zain

[This article first appeared in Business Recorder on January 09 2010.]

It's hard to even think straight as one enters the once fire-afflicted area of Boulton Market at M.A. Jinnah Road, formerly known as Bunder Road. Its hard enough to collect your thoughts in the chaos, let alone try and engage someone in an interview/conversation. In the face of the demolition, the acrid smell of burning still in the air, the roar of the still-falling mortar and construction material and the too obvious signs of devastation, asking questions of people of their losses seems a difficult task. The most one can do is to take in the entire unbelievable scenario. Be prepared to walk sleep-walker-like, in a daze, gazing at the burnt out, collapsing structures for at least half an hour, before one can recover one's composure.

The bedlam of the traffic, the trucks, the cranes pulling things down, people watching, carting away debris, goods, material being removed/moved, people going about their business or just watching, working carting out rubble, women sifting through rubble. Everyone seems too preoccupied, too busy to care. A steady stream of people walk on, zigzagging their way through the rubble, the construction work, collapsed structures, yet hearteningly no one seems to have given into despair. Life resurgent seemed to have claimed its right over the dead and the once-devastated area was abuzz like never before.

More vibrant, through the soot, with construction-workers, police officials overseeing the sight, shopowners overseeing their shops construction or themselves clearing the debris of their own shops, the sidewalks littered with various food vendors, tea stalls, juice vendors providing refreshment to the workers. A gathering of traders clustered around collecting some official-looking forms from some officials. The past is forgotten and life moves on. There is no time to stop in these doubly congested crazy footpaths, already crowded by traders / shopkeepers whose shops are still intact. For there is barely space to walk and the pace of the pedestrians churning through these too narrow confines is too feverish to stop.

"Look later, move on, don't stop, don't stop," urges the Pashtun trader behind me, "My hands are full." And he surges past, carrying his wares transferring them. We ask one of the shopkeepers selling coins on the foot path if his shop was burnt. He says Allah was kind and his shop was safe. Seems a bit incongruous in that frenzy to think of stopping and buying something. We move on. Here are many second-hand clothes traders who have spread their wares, clothes over cars or plying them on carts. We wonder how many of them have had their shops burnt. Some Pushtoon plying Kabuli almonds in mounds on the footpaths announce "arson-afflicted stocks on sale." We could ask but it seems like reopening old wounds. Anyhow one has to first find a spot in some nook of an alley to stop so that one is not in people's way.

Unbelievable are the various ethnic communities, milling through the streets, helping each other out, so that like in the Hajj, differences of race seemed to fade out. Men from all walks of life - Bohra, Memon, Pathan, Urdu-speaking, Baloch and Sindhi - were all evident as traders, police, rangers, carters, tea-servers providing the labourers on the streets with endless tiny cups of tea. Towards the end of where the area curves right next to I.I Chundrigar road, the road is lost in an array of camps belonging to different welfare organisations, from those of afflicted traders to Saylani, the City govt., Rangers, police: a profusion of shamiyanas opposite the Plastic market. More reconstruction work and rubble, the tide of Pathan-looking men, rangers makes one think one's entered a war zone or Kabul. "That area wasn't burnt" another trader tells us "the fire was in the medicine market on the other side." Which looks too congested to really venture into.

There does not seem to be much anger, show of tempers, people seem to have resigned to their fate and moved on with dogged determination and are more concerned about getting back into business at the earliest possible. So the reconstruction work does seem to be a unified concerted effort under a central authority but each owner trader seems to be pulling down or putting up his own terrain... One watch-seller whose shop was opposite a badly damaged building said that the haphazard way of arson revealed the haste of the vandals, "they put fire wherever they could in a hurry, Allah saved us" he said sadly. Behind the watch sellers' buildings now burnt down or collapsed are other charred structures, which look like houses. But another Bohri trader corrects me and informs me that they were mostly shops with godowns and offices above, not houses.

The construction work was aided by the government, evident from the trucks, and other aids. "The traders hope that their shops would be ready to function within a week." The watch-seller with the intact shop said as sadly ask for, and there seemed no point in going back over the past of who did what. Despite the mayhem, despite the destruction and rebuilding, the area still maintains a brisk business-like pace. People were as courteous and well-mannered on the crowded footpaths where one often had to wait for a clearing to walk or as one had to pick one's way though the maze-like traffic. There was no shoving, pushing, or even jams or confusion, just an automatic reaction. As we reached the end of the afflicted area, we asked a trader with an intact shop about the fire. He in turn, complained of police inaction, in a dispassionately resigned way. Their shop is next to a chemical godown they pointed out, mercifully God was kind. "There is not much we can do to prevent a similar incident the next time," they answered unemotionally, "it's the police's job to protect public property."

It is said that a person's worth is tested in times of crisis it is then they reveal their mettle. Probably one of the main reason to be proud of our city is that it has always risen up with determination and generosity in times of crisis, which was so evident. [Courtesy Business Recorder]

Regards