A Night in Lahore

The sun set long ago; it is past midnight. Lahore's nightlife is sleepy. The roads are finally peaceful with only the dark sky, big trees and illuminating streetlights. A rare sight. Time to go home in the merchants’ minds. All offices closed; all shops shuttered down. To bed to rise again. This is not the full picture. 

When the shops were closing in Township. A little boy stood in the street, a fruit vendor. There were a few tiny and almost rotten guavas on his cart. You could tell it never had fresh goods on it. He feels he didn't make enough, at an hour past midnight he starts hollering for customers "only fifty rupees!" looping. Uttering silly gibberish as he dusted his fruits. He was only 7 or 8. We asked him where his father was. "It's just me" he replied, nothing more, it could've meant anything. We gave him fifty rupees to have a guava for himself. It moved him to tears. I don’t know what became of him next. 

At Link Road the old man sits on the footpath selling toys while resting his back on the plant pot every single day. He's been there for years. Past midnight he wraps up his toys in a cloth bag and gives them to the guard to safe keep. He then goes to sleep on that very barren footpath. That’s his life. The guard sits for his night shift after working his day job. Tired, he can't help falling asleep on that chair with a Kalashnikov in hand. Maybe he thinks of his family, he can't make enough for them. Just as how it is with the guard of every street. 

Some winter, I went to a post office wearing my leather boots. The old guard outside commented on them and asked how much they were for. I replied with the price. He sighed and looked at his dirty worn-out shoes. They had almost torn apart. I told my father and he said they probably reminded him of his days in the army. It never made sense to me how you can once be serving the nation, risking your life for it and it returns the favour by making you dirt poor.  There are an old man and wife on a road, they stand with a donkey cart in Faisal Town every day. They stand motionless hoping for money. Who are they? Where do they come from? Where do they go when the night falls? 

I saw a man driving his banana-laden donkey cart away. He stopped to give an old beggar some money. He probably doesn’t have much himself but still holds the charitable spirit. I remember someone selling little baskets, sitting quietly on a footpath for a rest. His two toddlers put their little heads on each of his shoulders. Countless women sit on the roadside with little children in arms. Once I witnessed a family of four in that position, parents and two little children clasping their hands for beggary. I never saw them there again.  

All the footpaths, soft or hard, the roundabouts and underpasses become beds for more than they should ever be. And all the tired elderly, children, young men and women slumber to wake under the sun.  The comfortable darkness of night covers these creatures. The ones that don’t go home at night and do not realise the strength they possess. They hide in the back of the picture.