In my 3.5 years of FASTian life, I’ve never known why the public buses stop at Quaidabad for SO long! It’s not that I’ve never been curious about it, but I’m just too lazy to find out.
From my home to my university, Quaidabad seems like one small alien channel in between. With all the buses lined up one behind the other, waiting for God-knows-what or God-knows-who, one gets ample time to look around. It happens to be a very small, but densely packed marketplace. Has shops of all shapes and sizes, selling goods ranging from food to apparel and hardware.
The people are alien and they pour in from each corner of that narrow road that is already over-loaded with traffic. Men, who look not worse than drug addicts and women, who are even terribly dressed than the rural public, is what you will normally see. The funny part (or maybe the sad part) is that you can not decide whether the people are beggars or actually non-beggars, terrorists or anti-terrorists, junkies or non-junkies… You never know, that tall, long-haired, heavy mustached guy standing across the road could be behind the recent bombings! Once in a blue moon would a decently dressed-up lady mount your bus from Quaidabad, and you would be forced to wonder – “What possible business could SHE have here?!”. The point is, you can not tell apart these people from their appearance.
They all speak a language that is so alien to me. For a second, I wonder if I really am in part of Karachi. Then I remember that this is exactly the beauty of Karachi – it’s a cultural hub, showing you the shades of all cultures on just one canvas.
Soon, the bus starts lurking forward and I thank God that I’m out of this Bermuda Triangle kind of territory…
Nice … most of the Karachi is like this … and nice to see you writing again
Lovely! Took me back to the time when I was studying at FAST!! It is so amazingly astonishing how that Quaidabad hub is still the same. :)