Waiting in Karachi

Watching the city quiet down has been a very strange - and very familiar — experience in many ways. I think the trauma of the 1990s that has imbued a dog-eat-cat-devour-dog instinct in so many, and that is often dubbed as “resilience.” Perhaps it has made many so weary, and so disbelieving that this could be the very worst. We are used to many things: school closures, strikes, not knowing if the shops are going to be open from one second to the next, but other things too: wariness, fear, an inability to trust anyone, and above all, always being in it for ourselves.

I am a hypochondriac at the best of times, and I should be freaking out right now. Instead, I am mostly fearful and worried: for people who refuse to listen, for older folks, for people who do not have choices. I am happy, every day, that I do not wake up unwell. I suppose this is what it felt like back then? I only remember the endless periods of waiting: waiting for the strike to be over, for school to reopen, for the magazines to arrive, for people to walk in safely through the door. Is this what it’s going to be like?