A month of homoeopathy

Published in DAWN Magazine on August 9, 1998

You’ve had sinusitis since you were a child. Someone tells you to try homeopathy. You go to an aged homeopath, one whom a neighbour recommends highly, and you are struck by the way he listens courteously, not at all like the allopathic doctors you know (whose only concern is to earn millions every year). He gives you some pills and powders and immediately you feel better. 

A month later, you realize that you aren’t your normal self. You feel, in fact, like you did when you were sixteen. So, on your next visit, you ask him if there’s anything else in the stuff he gives you which makes you feel so young. He beams. “It’s working, “ he says, “You’ll be a real man in a couple of weeks.” You almost faint. You remind him that you’ve paid him a small fortune to clear your nose, not to turn you into a raging maniac. He explodes. “You’re a funny man, “ he says, “Why don’t you like it?”

A horrible thought strikes you as you listen to the drooling nut. If he can make you a youthful 16-year-old, what’s to prevent him turning you into an 80-year-old doddering wreck? You decide, quite wisely, never to go to him again.

The 'saint' of the donkeys

Published in DAWN Magazine on May 3, 1998

Embed from Getty Images

YOU HAVE lost everything you had, even your wife has left you and creditors are hounding you to death. So you go to the one who has been your mentor, the man who looks after the shrine where you have worshipped since you were a boy.

"Guru," you say to him with tears in your eyes, "I've lost all hope. If you don't help me, I shall surely die".

He is deeply moved, and  asks you if you will do whatever he says. Of course, you reply.

So he says, "take this donkey and look after it day and night. No matter what happens, take care of it, and soon you shall be a rich man".

You're incredulous, but you do as he says. In a few days, the donkey dies, for you don't have enough to feed him and yourself. But you've promised to look after him whatever happens, so you bury him in a spot by a busy road. You keep the grave covered with flowers, and you build a hut there as well. Pretty soon, people passing by stop at the grave for prayers. They leave a little something with you when they leave, and in a few months you have saved enough to build a monument. The site soon becomes a place of pilgrimage and you become famous as a spiritual leader. 

In a couple of years you marry again, buy a Pajero and pay a visit to your benefactor, the man who told you to stick to the dead donkey. Oh wise man, you ask him, how did you ever guess that looking after the donkey would make me so wealthy? Simple, my son, he says. I made my millions after I buried your donkey's grandpa here.

Shakir Lakhani

The Disillusioned Scientist

Published in The DAWN Magazine on February 28, 1999

 

HE SITS on the park bench, and he tells his story without bitterness or rancour.

“I’ve worked in a government corporation for 35 years, and for 20 of them I did nothing except what they told me to do. A government job really turns a man into a coward, he is afraid to take risks, he is unable to look at things in a different way, and when the time comes for him to retire, he’s a vegetable, good for nothing. I was lucky, after my twentieth year I got a government scholarship and went to Europe for higher studies. And during those years, I discovered a method to make certain products at a tenth of the price we were paying the Swiss suppliers.

“At first my superiors were sceptical. However, they were convinced when I started making the chemicals in the laboratory. Being government servants, at first they were scared to use the products, but I managed to persuade them, and before long we had cut our imports by a third. I felt proud that not even the Japanese had been able to do what I had done! We sent samples to other countries, and soon we began to get letters asking us if we could supply them with the chemicals.

“But then, the Swiss suppliers got into the act. They saw that my invention posed a threat to their virtual monopoly, not only in Pakistan but in other countries as well. I should have seen it coming, but I was too overconfident, I didn’t know how easily people can be bought. They bribed the top brass and got them to sign an agreement making the Swiss company the sole suppliers of the chemicals to the corporation! I protested that there was no need, that we were producing the stuff here at a tenth of what they were charging us, and with a little more investment we could manufacture it in huge quantities for export to Europe itself. Nothing doing, they said, your technology is crude. It’s neither dependable nor time tested. Beside’s who’s ever heard of a Pakistani product being better than a European one?

“I was shattered. I suspected, ofcourse, that much money had been paid to those in control. If I’d had any doubts, they were removed when the chairman suddenly began living lavishly, his two sons were sent to prestigious U.S. universities, and his wife started driving a latest-model car. What really hurts is that the foreign products are not only very expensive, their quality is also not as good as the ones we were producing.

“But I do have faith that one day, some honest God-fearing man will take the corrupt to task. Perhaps the lavish lifestyles of those who have betrayed the country will attract the attention of those at the top. Or maybe one of them will be struck by the fear of the Hereafter and tell the foreigners to get out and save the country billions in foreign exchange. I only pray that the day will come soon.”

You can’t beat the system

Published in the Dawn Magazine on January 4, 1998

Your tax lawyer is horrified when you tell him that henceforth you will not cheat. You are convinced that the only way you can sleep well is to declare your true income and wealth, and pay taxes accordingly. You know very well that you will have to pay ten times more to the government than you did last year, but at least you’ll be able to sleep soundly and without taking sleeping pills.

So, when your tax lawyer says that he no longer wants to be your tax lawyer, you go to the department yourself. They welcome you with outstretched arms (you have, after all, been sharing a part of your income with them). When you tell them that now they can forget the past, you will not pay them anything under the table, they try to plead with you. You don’t budge. There are dark faces all around. Suddenly you are very unpopular. You ask to see their boss. You tell him of your new-found love for your country. He listens patiently, then rings a bell. Bring this man’s record over the past five years, he orders. He studies this file, then gives you a shock. He tells you that if you do what you want to do, he will have no option but to issue a notice asking you to explain why you should not be fined and jailed for having cheated the government over the past five years. He also tells you that once you declare your true income, you’ll have to declare more the next year, and even more the year after next, and if you don’t, you’ll be in worse trouble.

It’s obvious that you can’t beat the system. So you decide, quite wisely, to stick to things as they are. The smile on his face has to be seen to be believed. A cup of tea is offered to you. They all surround you, congratulating you on having recovered your sanity.

In the land of wife-beaters

Published in Dawn Magazine on November 23, 1997

The guide stops. This is the grave of the man who wouldn’t beat his wife, he says. He spent a year in one of those places near the sea, where the men are scared of their wives, and he said only barbarians beat their women. What nonsense!

You ask him if everyone in his tribe beat their wives. Of course, he exclaims. What good are women for, if you can’t beat them? It makes a man feel so good, he beams.

Then why didn’t this man do it, you ask. The guide shrugs. Perhaps the girl had cast a spell over him, or maybe he’d caught one of those dreadful diseases that are common in that city by the sea. He did tell a couple of people that a strange feeling came over him whenever he was told to beat her, although he had seen women being soundly thrashed all his life.

How did he die? Well, he says, everyone began to taunt him. Some called him his wife’s slave; others told him he wasn’t a man. Nothing seemed to move him. But he was heart-broken when his wife herself gave him a stick to beat her with. She couldn’t bear her husband being jeered at and called all those names. So he simply decided life wasn’t worth living, and he walked up to that mountain over there and jumped into the swirling river below.

And the woman? Oh, she died during childbirth a few days later, and a good thing too, says the guide, for no one would’ve married her.

Shakir Lakhani

Why I love Pakistan

Published in Dawn Magazine on December 5, 1999

Sometime I meet people who say that the only way they can be happy is to get out of this country. To such people I'd like to give my own reasons for being in love with Pakistan. I'm a memon, born three years after partition, and I thank God that my parents abandoned India after partition.

The migration of 1947 was, of course, not the first one for Memons. About three centuries ago, my ancestors were forced to migrate from Sindh to other parts of India for reasons that have never been recorded. Perhaps, it was a plague or they were expelled for waging wars.

My late father often told us how Muslims were treated like pariahs in the pre-partition India. Geography tells us that the climate of Sindh, West Punjab and East Bengal wasn't conductive for setting up of industries, although both cotton and jute were grown in these areas. Cotton mills were therefore established in Ahmedabad and jute mills in Calcutta. Another reason for not setting up industries in these regions would have been bias against the Muslims.

An uncle of mine says that in most eating houses in Gujrat (then Kathiawar), Muslims were not allowed entry. Back in 1975 I was dealing in fuel oil supplies to vessels calling at Karachi Port. I would often come across Muslims serving in ships from Yogoslavia, Greece and Germany, but I never saw a Muslim working in an Indian Vessel. The ships would have Parsis, Christians, Sikhs and, of course, Hindus on board, but no Muslims.

To those who wonder if Mr. Jinnah did the right thing in creating this country, all I can say is that the creation of Pakistan gave Muslims of the sub-continent a new identity and saved them from virtual extinction.

Millionaire beggar

Published in Dawn Magazine on July 14, 1998

He’d been there for many years, standing on one leg from morning till night, apparently blind and deaf, bowl outstretched, with a peaceful expression on his face. Whenever you passed by, you put a two-rupee note in the bowl and you felt very happy.

And then your peace was shattered when someone told you that the beggar was from your home-town in India, and for all you knew, he might well be a distant relative of yours. You were stunned.

You thought of all the good things in life that God has given you, and you resolved to do something for the poor man. You spoke to your relatives and friends, and those who were in the Association of families from your home-town. In a couple of days you had collected a few hundred rupees for him. You found out where he lived, and went to the place.

At first, you thought you had the wrong address. It didn’t look like a locality one would’ve expected a beggar to live in. But the people there knew him well. You climbed up a couple of flights, and knocked on the door. He opened the door, and you felt uneasy, for he appeared to be neither blind nor deaf.

You followed him in, and again you were surprised. Instead of the poverty one would’ve expected, the flat was carpeted and well-furnished with a TV, a refrigerator, a VCR, and all the other things that could be in a millionaire’s house.

You told him that you had been so much moved by his plight that you had decided to collect some money for him every month, and you handed him the amount you’d brought. He counted the notes, laughed heartily and gave them back to you. ‘You can keep the money; uncle,’ he said, ‘in fact, I’ll donate a couple thousand every month to your Association.’

After a few minutes of conversation, you found that he was richer than you and many men you knew. You walked out in a daze, wondering if you’d chosen the right profession. 

Chinese belief

Published in Dawn Magazine on July 26, 1998

Your hostess, the thirty-year-old marketing manager in a prestigious Taipei firm, points to a small gold statue in a glass cage.

"See him?" she says. "He's the one we pray for our children. He is neither a man nor a woman."

"Wait a second," you say. "This chap is neither man nor woman, so he can't have children himself. How can he give children to you?"

She shrugs and says, "We Chinese believe it."

"Strange people", you can't help saying to yourself.

She continues, "It's because of him that there are more Chinese than any other people on earth!"

You are stumped. What can you say in the face of such irrefutable logic?

Shakir Lakhani

So you want to set up a factory?

Published in the Dawn Magazine on July 5, 1998

You've been importing aluminium gizmos for a couple of years. Suddenly a Customs Appraiser decides that the price of each gizmo is three rupees, not one rupee (which is the actual import value).

You either pay me a rupee for every gizmo that you import, or you pay customs duty of three rupees on every gizmo, take your choice. So you think it's better to make the gizmos here instead of helping to make the Customs Appraiser a billionaire.

You get in touch with foreign manufacturers, and in a couple of years you have your own factory. Since the things are made in Pakistan, people don't buy them unless their price is at least half that of the imported ones, but you're only too happy to oblige. You're willing to run the factory without making any profit, since you're saving valuable foreign exchange and contributing to the national exchequer.

After a couple of months you find that the market has been flooded by imported gizmos which are available at half the price of your gizmos. You investigate and find out that some importers are cheating the government by declaring the value of each gizmo as half a rupee. Evidently the Customs staff is hand-in-glove with the unscrupulous importers. But the few honest Customs Officers call in the appraisers and warn them to be careful in future. So the unscrupulous ones stop importing gizmos and you're a happy man for a few days.

But then, the ingenuity of your countrymen is stupendous. This time they cheat the government again by declaring the value in rupees per box (not rupees per piece, which is the standard trade practice). You have to shut down your factory for three months. You again approach the few honest men you know and the appraisers are again warned.

The imported gizmos are sold out, and you resume production. You think your problems are over, but your rivals are clever. They set up companies in a border town of a neighbouring country, import millions of gizmos and remove them from the trucks that are passing through this country on their way to the border.

You go to the government and tell them that there is no gizmo consuming industry in the neighbouring country, but no one listens. Sadly, you realize that you should never have set up an industry in a country dominated by feudals. You know when you're beaten, you sell your factory and decide to call it a day.

Shakir Lakhani

In the wild north

Published in Dawn Magazine on August 23, 1998

You are walking with your seven-year-old daughter when you seen a man being taken away by his peers. There is blood on his clothes, and he still holds the knife with which he stabbed his wife. You quickly lead your little girl away, fearing that the sight may have frightened her.

Back in the village hotel, you ask the waiters what had happened. They say he had attacked his wife because she had ventured outside her house when he wasn't home, and a neighbour had reported this to him. That was enough. Her husband went berserk, for according to the code of his tribe, a woman who went out alone was immoral and deserved to die.

Your daughter is furious. "Do you know what I'd do if I ever became prime minister of this country? I'd lock up all such men permanently in their houses so they'll know how it feels to be enslaved!"

You smile. Your little girl has a lot to learn.

By Shakir Lakhani

My own little list of People who'll never be missed

Published in Dawn Magazine on January 10, 1999

1. The zillionaire who was born a pauper, but still maintains that Pakistan is the worst country on earth.

2. The 50-year-old fanatic, who until last month indulged in all the pleasures that are available, but now goes around telling people that watching TV or listening to music is a heinous sin.

3. The custom appraisers who take advantage of their positions to extort huge sums from law-abiding importers.

4. The traffic cops who stop you to check your papers, and return them only after you've parted whatever is in your wallet.

5. The bungalow owners who steal electricity via kundaconnections

6. The T & T personnel who don't care a damn if all the telephones in the country are dead, as long as they get their salaries.

7. The 75-year-old doddering wreck who marries a 16-year-old and locks her up.

8. The luxury apartment owner who has two cars but refuses to pay his dues to the building association on the grounds that he doesn't earn enough to support himself and his family.

9. The KBCA officials who allowed multi-storey buildings to be built near Quaid-e-Azam's mazaar.

10. The KESC personnel who deliberately send inflated bills so that you have to pay them under the table to get the bills corrected.

11. The fun-loving feudal who goes to Bangkok every month for what he terms "business".

12. The illiterate lout who worries that his friends will think he's not a real man if he doesn't have more than 11 children.

13. The estate agent who dupes people into buying worthless property after promising to buy it at twice its present value after six months.

14. The bigot who advocates that Pakistan can be saved only if all men have knee-length beards.

15. And Finally (according to most of the people listed above), myself!

At an exam centre

Published in Dawn Magazine on April 11, 1999

You're driving through a sleepy little town in the rural heartland of the country when you see a crowd of people writing frantically on pieces of paper.

What's going on? you ask.

They're solving questions for students taking the math exam inside the hall, someone tells you.

But that's cheating! you exclaim.

As long as they don't get caught, it's O.K. says your informer with a shrug.

You turn to your foreign guest and say, I'm deeply worried about this country.

No, he corrects you, today at least you have some literate people. The time to worry will be ten years from now, when the illiteracy rate will be so high there won't be any people around to solve the paper for those inside the hall.

By Shakir Lakhani

Honesty is the worst policy

Published in Dawn Magazine on November 15, 1998

For as long as anyone could remember, there had been no such thing as an honest civil servant in the country. The first thing a person did, on getting a government job, was to try to become a billionaire in the first year (and most succeeded).

It got so bad that nothing could be done if you didn't pay any money "under the table" (a phrase no one knew the meaning of, since all bribes and commissions were received openly).

Even retired civil servants had to pay to get their pensions and provident funds, but no one complained, as each man had earned so much that he didn't know what do do with it.

Then one day, the unthinkable happened. They found an honest man in a government deparment. He would never have been discovered, but by mistake they transferred him (instead of someone with a similar name) to a place where the daily income was 100,000 a day.

In no time at all, he got the place rid of drug addicts and other undesirable people in the area. Pretty soon, when those who matter enquired as to why their monthly amount had stopped coming in, and they found that an honest man was responsible, they got him transferred to the border, where he immediately rounded up the smugglers and locked them up. There was a hue and cry, and he found himself in the middle of the desert, where he got a few wells excavated and put the tanker mafia out of business.

Next, they put him in charge of the unbridled illegal construction activity, which stopped when he demolished many tall buildings built near a national monument. So the builder's mafia sent an SOS to the right people, and the poor chap was sent packing to the Northern Areas, where he put a stop to the wholesale destruction of forests.

Eventually they shifted him to to the secretariat in the capital, where (as everyone knows) all government officers have nothing to do but tell their bosses that things are fine all over the country. Here he told everyone that the country was going to the dogs, and they were horrified. They told him to stop telling the truth , no ond did nowadays, but the honest one remained firm. So they did what had to be done.

They got him examined by a psychiatrist, who decared that he was mad as a hatter, and they locked him up in the premier mental institution of the country, where he remains to this day.

By Shakir Lakhani

Managing a multistoreyed building

Published in Dawn Magazine on November 1, 1998

As if you didn't have enough troubles of your own. Your 60 neighbours ask you to manage the affairs of the building where you have your apartment. The building will soon go to the dogs, they say, unless drastic measures are taken.

You know that it'll be tough, but you agree. A committee of four is formed to help you, but they resign within a few days. There are people who refuse to pay what they should pay, on the grounds that they don't earn enough to feed themselves, even though some of them have two cars and some whose wives spend a thousand every day on make-up.

One resident says he will pay only if his relatives are hired as watchmen. Another says he will pay only if you buy water from his brother who is a prominent member of the tanker mafia. A third wants you to hire a plumber who happens to be his nephew, while a fourth wants the contract to operate and maintain the lifts.

You presevere. You borrow money from some residents to pay some of the debts incurred by the previous management, you ask the present lift contractor to allow you to settle his bills in installments, you persuade a plumber to repair the pumps at half the going rates, and pretty soon the building looks like there are civilized people living in it.

But there are many who do not like what you're doing, and among them are those who ran the building before you, the ones who who had embezzled the building funds before you took over.

Someone throws a bucket of filth on you as you emerge from your car. A motorcycle is stolen, and the owner charges you with the theft. Hot words are said, and blows are exchanged freely. You are a guest of the area SHO for a couple of days.

Suddenly you realize that what is happening in the building is the same that's happening in the rest of the country. Some people don't pay taxes, some are thieves, and all want to bleed the country dry.

There appears to be only one way to force the defaulters to pay and that is to sue them in a court. But this requires money, which you don't have. You even think of giving a contract to some cops to recover the dues, but you know that a policeman is sometimes a dacoit in disguise, and could make life hell for you as well.

You decide to give up. You resign, and move out of the building into another neighbourhood. But you can't help thinking, "It was easy to get out of the building, but if the situation gets intolerable, how will I get out of the country?"

Shakir Lakhani

Ways to produce stress

Published in The Magazine, Dawn on September 6, 1998

1. Travel by PIA.

2. Go to a wedding dinner at the time specified on the card.

3. Watch the nine o' clock PTV news.

4. Stand in a queue to pay your utility bills.

5. Ask a maulvi whether you should grow a beard.

6. Try to get a refund from the tax office.

7. Drive through Saddar anytime between noon and sunset.

8. Tell your wife she's spending too much on clothes.

9. Try to convince a traffic cop being the last driver to get through doesn't mean you've gone through a red light.

10. Tell your wife you have to out of town on your wedding anniversary.

Telephone blues

Published in Dawn Magazine on October 5, 1997

You thought you'd seen everything. Until one day, out of the blue, you got a notice from a magistrate to pay Rs. 35,743 for a telephone that had never been installed in your place. The notice warned you that if you did not comply, the little that you owned would be forfeited and you would be jailed.

Not again, you groaned. It had started two years ago. You had written many times to the telephone men about a bill they were regularly sending you, a bill for a phone which was not then in existence (and which had probably never existed). You had then got a letter from them to pay the bill or face disconnection of all your other phones. In utter frustration, you'd sent a letter to Dawn about the whole thing. It was duly published and, (surprisingly) the telephone chaps had responded. They were sorry about all the trouble they had caused, they said, and they would make sure you were not bothered again.

They might as well have promised you the moon. For the next six months, the Accounts Department regularly threatened you with disconnection if you didn't pay the bill of the non-existent phone. Each time you had to take the newspaper cutting of your letter to Dawn and show it to them. Finally, the notices had ceased, and you had begun to sleep well again. Until you got the notice from the magistrate.

Cursing the day you were born, and wishing your parents had never migrated from that sleepy little down in Kathiawar to this....country, you went to the magistrate's office in the Lines Area (the very name of the place sent shivers down your spine). You showed him the whole file, and the letter to Dawn. He was not convinced, not even when you showed him a letter from the D.E. to the Accounts Department about the mistake. He said the only way to escape fine and punishment was to get the complaint withdrawn. So back you went to the telephone exchange and met the Director. Perhaps it was because you were sick of life itself that you forgot that you were a gentleman and said things you'd never have said when you were normal. Or, perhaps the Director was afraid that Dawn would publish the whole story again and it would be noticed by the men in Islamabad. But this time he dictated a letter to the magistrate immediately and gave you a copy. He even escorted you to the door. You went out, grateful to God for everything. Pakistan? Great country, and if anyone said otherwise, you'd smash his face.

It's a man's world

Published in The Dawn Magazine on June 29, 1997

THE OLD woman was adamant. We want a divorce, she insisted. Horrified, you did your best to explain that her daughter-in-law had not done anything wrong, after all many women had to work nowadays, all the more so since her husband had not sent her a paisa (cent) after he'd gone abroad a year ago. No woman has ever worked in our family before, she said, and when my son calls me next week I'll tell him to send the talak nama (divorce papers). You fervently appealed to her to consider their two children, that the couple had been married for five years now, but she didn't budge.

The son returned a couple of months later for his second marriage (to a divorcee), and when you heard the bride's father saying, "Please, Bhabi, please pray that this time she'll be lucky," you almost wept, you had a tough time controlling yourself, for you knew the family well enough to predict that the marriage wouldn't last. And although you weren't a praying man you went to the mosque early the next morning and implored Him who knows all things, to make it work.

A month later, he visited you and said that after his divorce he had been looking for another bride and had now found her. You thought he'd lost his sanity. You reminded him that you'd attended his second marriage dinner just a month ago in a posh hotel. Oh, that, he said blankly, didn't you hear? I divorced her after a week. She said that she'd only had one child, but it turned out she was the mother of two. You almost threw a vase at him. So what, you screamed, you too, had two children from your first marriage. But that's different, I'm a man, he said. You wanted to tell him that a real man wouldn't have done what he'd done, but you didn't, because you're a spineless human who'll never have the guts to speak out whenever he sees an injustice being done. So spineless, in fact, that when he asked you to be the best man this time, you readily agreed, although you hated yourself for it.

Shakir Lakhani

Helping an accident victim

Published in The Dawn Magazine on July 13, 1997

You are driving to work when some people stop you. A man has been seriously injured, could you please take him to the hospital? And being the fool you are, you agree. After all, your father spent a fortune on your schooling, and you were taught that it's your duty to help your fellow beings. And after you've got the unconscious man admitted, a couple of cops want to arrest you for injuring him.

You try to explain that it wasn't you who did it, someone else ran into the man and drove away, but all they're interested in is your monthly income. Pay now and escape, they urge, or you'll regret it. You remember that the current DIG was your class-fellow in school, but they laugh when you tell this to them. You know that if they take you to the police station they'll make you confess to the murder of the first prime minister of the country. It seems hopeless, and you are about to begin negotiations when you see someone you know. He's a senior doctor at the hospital.

You call out, he comes over and you explain what has happened. He goes with you and the cops to the scene of the accident. There's a panwala (The shop keeper who sells tobacco) there who remembers what happened. A rickshaw had run into the man, he says, and this gentleman (pointing towards you) had kindly agreed to take him to the hospital. The cops look like children who've lost their pocket money. You swear you'll never get involved again.

Bribing an honest officer

Published in The Dawn Magazine on December 7, 1997

ALTHOUGH YOUR file had been with him for three months, he hadn't yet done anything about it. You had desperately wanted to have the case decided as soon as possible, before your file was misplaced. Had it been anyone else, you'd have greased his palm. But this man appeared to be different from the rest. He never failed to mention, everytime you went to see him, that he was a dedicated, professional officer devoted to his job. You told him practically every civil servant in the country demanded payment under the table for even the meanest work, like giving you a copy of your birth certificate. Such people will burn in hell, he said, with a mandman's glint in his eye.

Someone in the department told you that the man was as corrupt as the rest, only you had to bribe him tactfully. So you had hit upon a plan. The next time you visited him, you gave him an envelope filled with notes. Before he could say anything, you told him that the money wasn't meant for him. It was for his juniors, the ones who never let a file move unless they were paid for it. You told him that you could tell everyone you knew that he was the most honest man in the country, a man who should get a prize for dedication to his job. He had glowed with satisfaction. Within minutes, he had decided the case in your favour.

By Shakir Lakhani

A day at the KESC office

Published in The Dawn Magazine on May 4, 1997

You've just turned 50, and your doctor's told you to take things easy. That slightly elevated blood pressure and your 20 extra pounds are not to be ignored. And then, just when you've decided to be calm no matter what happens, the KESC sends you a bill for Rs. 88,000.

You reel and stagger. This must be someone else's bill. But another look confirms your worst fears. But you've always conserved electricity, your bill's never been more than Rs. 4,000 over the past two years. You go back and look at your meter. It isn't running, and has stopped at the reading recorded in the bill. You breathe a bit more easily now, the tight feeling in your chest goes away. What happened is obvious: as your meter approached the end of it's life, it registered a sharp increase. You'll get the matter sorted tomorrow, no problem.

The next day you go to the Billing office. The Assistant Controller is at a meeting(someone tells you that he's never present in his office, he's always in a meeting). They tell you there's only one man who can deal with your problem, and he's very busy, surrounded by people whose bills have mistakes in them. You wait another hour before it's your turn. He listens to you, shakes his head, and asks you to pay the bill at once, or your supply will be disconnected. He can't do anything else, there's nothing wrong with the bill, it looks O.K. If it'll make you happy, he'll send someone over to read the meter again.

You go out a beaten man. But all is not lost yet. You're an engineer yourself, and you've been a visiting lecturer at the premier engineering college in the country. Perhaps there are people in the KESC whom you know, who may be able to help. You look in the telephone directory and find that two chief engineers were in your class at the time of graduation. One of them is out of the country, but the other agrees to meet you the next morning.

He takes one look at your bill and shakes his head. You'll have to pay the bill first, and if it's beyond you, you can pay it in four installations. He doubts if you'll get any relief, even though your bills have never been more than Rs. 4,000 a month for past three years. You tell him about the defective meter and how it could have gone out of control before it finally joined the dead. No, he says, such things do not happen, the KESC buys the best equipment. If you see the Chairman, he suggests, you may get a 10 per cent deduction in the bill, but that's about it all. The Chairman is a very busy man and his PA gives you an appointment to see him after 20 days.

As you leave the building, you come across someone you knew years ago, someone who now works in the KESC. You find out that he knows someone who'll be able to get your bills revised, on payment of a certain amount, usually a quarter of the bill. It breaks your heart, but you have no choice. You go with him to this unique individual and agree to pay him Rs. 22,000 if he gets the job done. He tells you to mention his name to the chaps who will come to disconnect your power supply. It takes a couple of months, but your bill is revised, a new meter installed, and you start getting reasonable bills. All legal and proper.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi