Karachi Diary

The valley of brutes

On a scorching hot afternoon, I was headed towards work after having lunch with a friend who resides in Bath Island. While I was taking a left as I emerged at the ‘Do Talwar’ roundabout, the signal opened for the cars coming from the direction of Schon Circle’s underpass.

A new Honda Civic screeched and raced forward. The sound made me instinctively turn, and what I witnessed in that milli-second defied logic. The car crashed into a lady who had started crossing the road from in-front of me as she came out of Hilal-e-Ahmer hospital and headed towards Chartered Accountants avenue, but the white Civic did not offer her much opportunity and knocked her out before she could even finish crossing the first half of the road.

On impact, the lady flew straight up around 8-10 feet and landed back on the car’s bonnet. A traffic sergeant was at the location and I, from my position that had become static due to the shock, could see him haranguing the car owner.

I was about to get off to go help the lady, who seemed to be in her late forties, when she got up and walked to the pavement that divides the road into two. Simultaneously, the Civic was allowed to go by the traffic sergeant.

What transpired between the sergeant and the Civic driver would remain a mystery, but my eyes keenly followed the wobbly movement of the lady as she shakily sat down on the pavement to regain her wits. I could not understand how she managed to stand up and walk even such a short distance after the battering her legs must have had felt on impact. Plus, she flew up and then landed on the car’s bonnet. While her landing did not appear awkward, it was still a major fall and she must have broken a few ribs.

Kudos to that woman who got her bearings in order, made sure her chador continued to cover her and walk with dignity to the closest place to offer some respite. I drove off thinking the same when I caught up with the same Civic on the Clifton Bridge.

Indignant as I was, I decided to glare at the callous driver who had driven off after possibly paying off the sergeant. Expecting to see an unruly teenager, I was shocked even further to see a woman in her late-20s driving the car – something in her reminded me of the suburban SUV driving football moms that have emerged of late in US popular culture.

However, I was still appalled by her decision to not stay behind and check with the lady if she had any serious injuries. Despite being of the gentler sex, this woman chose to save herself from the hassle of hospitals, police stations, insurance etc., albeit at cost of another person.

I can only assume that there is something alienating in being type-cast as a ‘driver’ on the roads of Karachi that turns the most kind of creatures into complete brutes.