Ghazan Khan, the wise old man of Shireen Jinnah Colony

“Imran Khan wants to jump straight onto the roof,” says Ghazan Khan as he goes about repairing an old radio not worth very much and quite pre-historic in the modern scheme of things. But a reassuring sight, nonetheless, that there are still people in the world who treasure their old things and intent on getting them fixed and working. “But to climb to the roof requires a ladder and a one step at a time approach.”

As a social scientist I have often frequented the Shireen Jinnah Colony. It presents a fascinating mosaic of Pakistan’s frontier spirit, and has gained a fair bit of notoriety in the guns and drugs bazaar, though unjustly I feel. This is hub of the mighty tanker-trawlers that ply the nation’s highways, carting all manner of liquid goods, inflammable and otherwise, from the massive tanker storages that dot the Kemari landscape. These behemoths of the road are ridden by seasoned riders accustomed to seasoning their endurance capacities with a little bit of herbal flavor only recently legalized in the United States of America.

Friends of the truckers are inadvertent beneficiaries, and life carries on in the midst of garbage filth and pothole riddled road, the Shireen Jinnah High Street as it were. The callousness demonstrated by the road building and public works departments, as also the department responsible for public hygiene, is extracting a heavy price that has never been calculated in terms of vehicular wear and tear, and the health of the residents. The local government and the traffic police department are conspicuous by their absence.

One of the friends I have made is Kamran who runs a mirror and framing shop that his father used to run before him. A young man in his late twenties and of Pathan-Baloch origins, Kamran himself has been an outstanding boxer, but the pressures of earning a livelihood for himself and his family have kept his nose to the grind, and boxing is but a fond memory.

On my occasional trips to see how he is doing, I have been quite fascinated by an elderly man sitting on his haunches on a raised platform in one corner of Kamran’s shop, fixing quite antiquated radios. On one occasion I even gave him a ride to Bilawal Chowk, but had never exchanged more than a few words of greeting. He is a friend and professional colleague of Kamran’s father, and Kamran is helping Ghazan stay busy in his old age.

On this visit I decided to get chatty and asked him his opinion of Imran Khan, considering Ghazan is from Peshawar. Ghazan’s analysis of the Great Khan was spot on. His advice to the Khan-e-Khanan? Get a ladder!