DOG EAT DOG BUT LIVE

I stopped at a traffic light the other day here in Karachi next to a massive water tanker on the right. On the pavement to my left was a small boy, ragged, dirty but so alert and swift, like quicksilver. The little boy (no more than seven, of the age where we hang on to a child anywhere near a road) had a small jerry can in his hand. He darted through the cars up to the tanker and filled the can from a tap set into the tanker's side. A man in the tanker leant out of the cabin window but did not stop him. The child grinned a cheeky thanks and darted back through the traffic just before the lights turned green once more. He was one of the innumerable urchins that dot the roads near traffic lights. They clean your car windscreen for you with some incredibly dirty soapy water and earn a few paisas for themselves. The whole incident was so illustrative of the symbiotic relationships that thrive in this massive city which is so alive but where nothing would survive if such relationships did not exist.

Long live enterprise and such enterprising children. All they need is a leg up, not someone teaching them to depress their ingenuity.