Reality Check - Published in Sensation Magazine Oct2008 issue

On 20th September, I had to visit my elder sister since she’s moving to KSA with her family so I had to go and transport some of her belongings which she wanted to keep at our place. I dressed as per occasion (old jeans and a worn out shirt). Since I was unable to get any help because of it being a hot Ramadan Day, I decided to go by bus and get the Suzuki Pickup on the way back.

After reaching her place and getting the estimate of the things to be moved, I went to get the Suzuki from Al-Asif Square. The Suzuki driver started off with Rs.800/- for the trip (from Gulshan to Defence) and I being the known bargainer went in for the deal. After a lot of “negotiations” we ended up at Rs.700/- for the trip and I also managed to get an additional labor guy in the same price.

Since it was a long journey to my home so I started socializing with Bahudar Khan, my “chauffer” for the Suzuki Pickup and that’s when he started opening up and I started getting shocked. Bahudar Khan came from Bannu about 21 years back as a boy with his parents. He says he’s never seen school nor has any education on him except for some embroidery work that he learned.

Bahudar started working in a factory at Korangi on the salary of Rs.8,000/- per month. 3 years back, due to the economic situation of Pakistan the factory owner gave the factory to another contractor and left the business. The new contractor had his own staff so he fired all the labor working there at that time. Bahudar Khan tried to look for another embroidery job at different places but couldn’t find any so he started driving the Suzuki Pickup.

Bahudar doesn’t own the Suzuki but he drives it for a “Seath” on Rs.150/- per day. Right now his family consists of he himself, his wife, both his parents and his three children and he’s the sole earner of the whole family of 7 people. He said normal people fast during the daytime only but they sometimes fast at nights as well. That Rs.150/- a day is the only money coming in to feed the whole family.

Bahudar said that he’s still thankful to Allah because some people he knows don’t even get to eat 1 time when he’s at least able to feed himself and family once in a day. He further told me that he knew some “Javed Sahib” who owned an ice factory and he was a God fearing man. Javed used to financially help Bahudar a lot even the place where he lives was also bought by Javed. A couple of months back Javed also immigrated to UK and now Bahudar is again trying to manage with this world in with his limited resources.

After meeting Bahudar, I kept thinking over the last couple of days. He’s managing with a family of 7 on Rs.150/ day which means Rs.4,500/ month. I kept thinking that exactly how shallow are we? We want to drive in a better car, we want to own the best cell phone out in the market, we can spend Rs.2000/- on 1 dinner at café flo and we’re still not happy when there’re some people living in the same society who can’t meet with the basic necessities of life. There are people who call it a luxury if they get proper food for 1 day and for the rest of us luxury has a totally different meaning, who is to be blamed? Is our duty over after blaming everything on the Government? Or is that just an easy escape that we find. We as a Nation like to blame things on someone else and go ahead with life. There are so many Bahadur Khans all around us and so many like us. Can we only think for 1 day about what we have, what more we want and exactly what we need? If each one of us starts cutting down very little on our “luxuries” and start taking care of 1 Bahudar Khan each and providing him with his “luxury”. We might be able to make a change then.