You awake to the sounds of morning traffic. The rising sun stings your eyes as you sit up, coughing as a plume of dense, black smoke from truck smokestacks mixes with the dust from the dug up roads and chokes your lungs.
It is morning in this little nomadic settlement on Murree Road. Under the shade of the Chandani Chowk and Sixth Road flyovers, entire households are abuzz with activity.
In one corner, women gossip amongst themselves as they attend to the day’s chores; sewing, cooking or tending to the children. Around them, the little ones sleep restlessly, being rudely awakened by a particularly offensive bus horn or a silencer-less motorbike.
The men are mostly daily-wage labourers, who work on construction projects, such as the ongoing work on the Metro Bus corridor. This entire tribe, in fact, is tied to the employment the male heads of the family are able to acquire. They go wherever work takes them, women and children in tow.
“We’re not beggars, we’re labourers. Our tribe came here from Lahore in search of work. We heard there are a lot of new construction projects in Rawalpindi and Islamabad that offered an opportunity to earn more money,” Mohammad Aslam, the head of the family of nomads that squats under the Chandani Chowk Flyover, told Dawn.
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Exhausted by the day’s labour, children sleep through the din of Murree Road. |
Aslam is not a man of means; he says that the need to care for his sprawling family compels him to work all day, despite the sizzling heat of Rawalpindi.
My family has nowhere to live and I can’t leave them on their own. For now, we spend our days and nights under this bridge,” he said.
Shahzada Ahmed, another member of this nomadic tribe who also lives on Murree Road’s green belts, says their family usually spend the summer in Rawalpindi and go back to Lahore for the winter. The area where they have taken refuge, he says, does not flood in the monsoons like certain parts of Lahore.
The women work doubly hard, making a meagre living during the daytime selling everything from balloons to quilts and cooking for the entire family in the evenings.
The children earn their keep by begging for alms, selling whatever story pops into their heads to unsuspecting passers by.
Many of the abler women work alongside the men at construction sites, mixing cement with sand and concrete, hauling bricks and other construction material. But while the men relax in the evenings, there is no rest for the weary women, who have to manage their household 24 hours a day.
“I have been working for the last seven years. I have four children and the men of the house cannot do the work alone. We travel with them so we can help them where they work,” said Shahnaz Bibi.
Shahnaz works with at an under-construction plaza with her husband in the daytime and by night, sells hair clips, bangles and other costume jewellery from her stall in a nearby bazaar.
Her friend Nasreen, who also lives under the Chandani Chowk and Sixth Road flyovers, said they chose this area because it was close to the man bazaars of the city and made it easier for them to find work. “We can’t afford to built houses anywhere so we just spend our days here, she said, gesturing to the massive concrete roof over her head, which protects her and her family from the vagaries of Mother Nature.
But for Rawalpindi residents, these families under the bridge are an anomaly.
“It breaks my heart to see these people sitting sleeping and eating on the roads. Why can’t they settle somewhere permanently so they can lift themselves out of poverty and educate their children properly,” asks Mrs Samina Nadeem, who frequents this area of Murree Road often.
When Dawn posed this question to Mohammad Aslam, he had no logical answer.
“This is our tradition, our forefathers lived this way and we’ve never had any money to send our children to school or improve our lives in any way,” he said.
When asked why he didn’t enrol his children in a government school, which they could attend for free, he said this was not possible.
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Punjab Vice President and former Rawalpindi District Nazim Raja Tariq Mehboob Kiani told Dawn the local administration and police were responsible for stopping such people from squatting on the main roads because it posed a security risk for the residents of the area.
Kiani said that in 2004, he had opened a school that doubled as a mosque near Marrir Chowk to teach street children basic science and religious teachings. The school targeted the children on the nomads settled near the Railway Bridge, but the project was shelved in 2008 when the new government took over.
He stressed the need to impart useful skills to male workers by enrolling them in technical training institutes, while the women could be taught how to make homemade products, which they can then sell and earn more money.
“The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government made tall claims that they would provide facilities to the poor, but no such thing has materialised so far,” he said.
PML-N leader and provincial coordinator for the PM’s Youth Loan Scheme, Malik Shakil Awan told Dawn the government would help such people establish small businesses.
He said that for nomadic labourers and other underprivileged individuals, both the federal and Punjab governments had introduced several schemes. “There is a dire need to educate them about how to improve their condition,” he said.
“The government will help those who want to change their living standards. If they can’t be trusted, who will guarantee that they will pay back a bank loan,” Awan said.
A senior City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) official told Dawn that the areas under the two flyovers were designated green belts and it was incumbent upon the police to remove these squatters. But, he said, the police are only inspired to take action if the chief minister is expected to come through the area.
Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2014