Message for migrants in the time of the Covid pandemic


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Small things like 'alif madd aa'

One summer evening in 2025, I sat down for tea outside the Quetta Hotel in Lahore ’s Firdous Market . The place was crowded as usual. Three young  Pashtun  boys joined my table as this was the only table with three empty chairs. I had the fourth. They spoke Pashto among themselves, but one of the boys was on the phone explaining to someone in Urdu about his difficulties in getting his National ID Card from the National Database Regulatory Authority ( NADRA ). Apparently, his father had mistakenly provided the same name for him and his brother at the time of registration. This boy was now trying to sort out the mistake in NADRA records to get his ID card made. “My name is Gul Khan and my brother is Agul Khan. There’s a difference of  alif madd aa  only... we live in Gulberg …,” he went on trying to explain on the phone. They were in their early 20s, perhaps daily wage laborers or house help in the posh loc...
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Karachi by PIA

F lying to Karachi on Monday morning instead of Sunday evening was a bad idea. The morning flight from Islamabad takes off at 8:00. I had hoped to be in PACP office by 10:30 which would mean missing first meeting of day but I had thought that I would be able participate in all important meetings with the health and the planning and development secretaries. The flight PK 365 arrived in Karachi 11:30 instead of 9:55. I hired a radio cab for Sindh AIDS Control Program near Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Center.   Kept searching for the PACP office on Rafiquee Shaheed road but it was nowhere to be found. Eventually, I got out of the taxi in front of the Blood Transfusion Center inside JPMC. Met a guy in the corridor who was wearing his staff ID. He led me to another guy in the lab who was able to described SACP location. It was already 1:30 in the afternoon,  which meant I had missed important meetings of the day. Thank you PIA!  The office of SACP was in a walled comp...
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Khalda brake tey mar!

I'm in a hired car on the GT road from Lahore.  Typical driver, driving rashly as if in great hurry. His phone rings. He lifts it, looks at the screen for a few seconds, answers reluctantly. His wife shouts, 'Have you paid the doodhwalla', milkman? 'Yes!', he says sheepishly. She goes on complaining about how milk was not delivered today and she has guests at home, no tea to offer them, doodhwalla is unreliable, evil, and life is shit, and so on and on... He manages to say 'Khalda brake tey mar!! Mien phone kardan unoo' .  Hangs up. Calls doodhwalla whose excuse is that there was a wedding today. 'Whose wedding, yours or the villagers' ... 'or the cow they milk', I add in my mind. He is upset with the milkman, shares how the family back home is frustrated and gets him to promise to do it this evening, bring milk, wedding or no wedding. Back on phone to Khalda, explains the situation, complains about her being so impatient, not circumspect at ...
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