FEAST OR FAMINE

The launch of the Pakistan economic scorecard for the fiscal year 2013-2014, organized by the Institute for Policy Reforms, indicated a shrinking middle class. The middle class has never been large in Pakistan. The largest percentage of middle class citizens, at 45%, occurred from 2001-2008. It is now 35% of the population says the Institute for Policy Reforms (The International News, November 21, 2014). Where are people in the middle class going? Not up to the upper class, but downwards. Around three million Pakistanis each year from 2009 moved to the lower class – and towards poverty – although unemployment remained stable at around 10%.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (2009) is a series of eight linked short stories set in Pakistan. Nawabdin, Electrician , the first story, tells of Nawab who works for K.K. Harouni on his farm property at Dunyapur near Multan. K.K. Hourani, aged in his 70s, lives in a mansion in Lahore and only visits the farm once a year, leaving it in the hands of a manager. Nawab and his wife of 16 years has “all daughters … a complete set of twelve girls, ranging from infant to age eleven, and then one odd piece” (a son). One day a robber, with a knife, threatens him. The second story, Saleema , is about a 24 years old woman married to Hassan, a cook. She leaves Hassan for Rafik, a servant working in K.K. Harouni’s Lahore home. Their newborn son is left to beg on the streets after their death. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is about Husna seeking wealth in the Lahore home of K.K. Hourani. She aims to do this by being Hourani’s mistress. When the aged K.K. Harouni dies, his famil...

The book, Clifton Bridge : stories of innocence and experience from Pakistan (2013), is a collection of 10 tales set in contemporary Pakistan. Characters from all walks of life – from beggars to diplomats – are depicted in the stories covering a wide cross-section of places and times. Set in Karachi, two wives make a pact when their husband takes a third and younger wife in the first story, All in the Family. Clifton Bridge, set in Karachi, is about the sale of kidneys to an organ transplant mafia. Diva is an interesting story of Sultana, the dreamer married to Khalid with a son, whose performances drew audiences from around the world. The loneliness of travel takes its toll, and she’d retreat from the world after her tours – once for almost three months. One event was called the greatest musical on earth. Queen’s Garden is my favourite. It tells of the vegetable stall called Queen’s Garden near where Amanullah and Maria would regularly meet. After their separation, Ma...

Between Clay and Dust (2013) commences in 1950 in Pakistan, just after Partition from India. In 1935 Ustad Ramzi won the highest wrestling title in the land. He is now the custodian of an akhara for wrestlers. The akhara (training academy) is where men become men - where “a man made of clay came in contact with his essence.” But the future of the sport is uncertain and training academies are declining. Adjacent to the akhara is a private cemetery where Ustad Ramzi’s unfilled grave lies waiting for him. He has no wife, nor children because he "vowed to remain celibate to achieve perfection in his art.” Gohar Jan was an accomplished singer and incredibly famous. She now has her own kotha (training academy) - once the largest and most famed in the land - where girls receive instruction in the arts of musical entertainment. So serious was the pursuit of the arts that if the trainee girls fell in love, they had to choose whether to leave the academy or to leave th...

Annually, since 2007, around 800 thought-leaders from around the world meet in the United Arab Emirates in November for the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda (the News International, November 19, 2014). Incorporating around 80 Global Agenda Councils on a wide range of topics, the WEF summit is recognized as the world’s largest brainstorming event. Each year the WEF documents trends related to challenges and opportunities for the upcoming year in their report, Outlook on the Global Agenda. This year the report outlined 10 global trends facing the world over the next 12-18 months (compiled and ranked using the Delphi method). The ten global trends included: deepening income inequality persisting jobless growth rising pollution increasing occurrences of extreme weather events increasing water stress emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases weakening of representative democracy (and a disconnect between citizens and the officials...