One place where they can't afford to diet... or eat

By Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI: Each year the prices of food start climbing after Eidul Azha and peak towards Muharram. This year was no different. In fact, several poor people told Daily Times that while they gave up meat and fish a long time ago, now even being a vegetarian was difficult.

The price hikes come at a time when the sugar crisis has bubbled over into the national assembly. In the course of one week, the price of the commodity shot up from Rs 23 to Rs 42 per kg.

This week the prices of pulses have gone up by one to two rupees. "It has become hard to buy even vegetables as their prices rise towards Ashura," lamented Mehtab Ali, a labourer in Saddar. "Our family seldom enjoys meat or fish, but now it is also becoming difficult to eat pulses and vegetables and enjoy tea."

In Muharram, degs or cauldrons full of haleem, biryani and rice and lentils are cooked in a steady stream during the first ten days. This food is widely distributed among neighbourhoods and in homes wild spinach or cholai ka saag is also cooked in great amounts.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that the ingredients for these massive cookouts are more in demand and hence more expensive.

Three months ago, green gram and white chickpeas were sold at 38 rupees per kilogram each but are now costing Rs 50 and Rs 60 per kg, according to Ibrahim Bhutto, general secretary, Ration Merchants Association Sindh.

Brown chickpeas are now available at 32 rupees per kg, eight rupees more expensive than three months ago.

A similar hike has registered in the prices of vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes and onions especially, which are key ingredients for the dishes that are cooked on a big scale.

The increase in the price of sugar has also been hard to bear. Sherbets are prepared in large quantities for those who take part in the religious processions on the eighth, ninth and tenth of the holy month. "Whenever a holy festival such as Eid comes along, we the common people are forced to pay really high prices, but we have not even been spared this Ashura," complained vendor Ghulam Ali.

The government has doubled its supply of sugar (22,000 tons per month) to its utility stores where it is available on Rs 27 per kg, but even this is too expensive; Rs 27 equals a poor person's wage for one day.

Long queues have started to form outside the 56 utility stores in Karachi where people wait for hours for just five kilogrammes of sugar. Many return empty handed. "This is my third day outside this store," said Mohammad Zaman, who was waiting in line outside the store near the Sindh Secretariat barracks.

A majority of workers in Karachi have no fixed monthly salaries and earn their living as daily wage earners. For example, Mohammad Ali, a roadside plumber who waits to be hired with his colleagues at Burns Road finds it too difficult to survive when prices refuse to stay stable. "I am a father of four and we can't even afford lentils," he said. Ali lives at a rented place in Lyari and high transport prices have added to his miseries. "Earlier on, I would normally be able to afford a minibus to reach work but now I go back on foot," he says.

Ali's two sons and two daughters were enrolled with a government school. Now his elder son who is 10 years old has been forced to give up school and join a local mechanic's workshop. "My wife also shares some of the burden and works as a domestic servant," Ali explains.

Even low-ranking government servants say they are eking out an existence.

"I earn a little over Rs 3,000. I have two children. What should I do? How can I survive and make sure they are educated?" said Abdur Rahim, a peon at a provincial government department. "Even the level of bribes have declined. Those who have money have no need for us and the poor are not able to pay the bribes," he said.

Even the police face a similar existence. "I live in a filthy quarter and my salary does not allow me to send my kids to a better school. Now I can't even feed them properly," said Akhtar, a police constable.

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