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implemented. The roads lay clawed and abandoned like old meat. Once the city awoke, pedestrians would scoop the dirt in their shoes and kick it into the sooty air, to resettle on the next passer-by.
    When he’d lived here, he’d rarely been one of those pedestrians. Karachiites walked out of necessity, not for pleasure. Till now, he’d simply accepted this. Beauty and hygiene were to be locked indoors, adding to their value. No one bothered with public space. As if to illustrate, the little boy, tired of the ching-um wrapper, bounced over the bags on Daanish, unrolled the window and tossed the paper out.He then proceeded to empty his pockets on to the street – more wrappers, a Chili Chips packet, and fistfuls of pencil shavings.
    No one noticed. The family was filling in the absentees about local events. Since the start of the year, more than three thousand kidnappings were reported and now at least as many Rangers prowled the city. ‘They stop anyone,’ said the mother to whom the boy, now bored with littering, had returned. ‘Shireen told me they were blocked by these horrible Ranger men, but her driver very cleverly kept driving. Anything could have happened.’ She shook her head.
    ‘Never stop for them,’ agreed her husband.
    ‘There’s been a curfew in Nazimabad,’ she added.
    Another man piped, ‘Dacoits are now attacking everyone. Not just the rich. Just this month they raided a fishermen’s village. I can’t imagine what they took, there are hardly even any fish left!’
    ‘Oof,’ said a young woman, ‘the price of fish! Don’t even talk about it.’ She promptly gave Khurram’s mother minute details of the quality, size and price of the seafood in the market. The other woman interrupted with her own wisdom.
    Amongst the men, another discussion was rapidly rising in crescendo. Khurram was declaring, ‘This street is the longest in Karachi and that is a
fact.’
Daanish wasn’t sure how they went from Rangers to road lengths, but he was once more struck by Khurram’s newfound confidence. Even his speech was clearer.
    Suddenly, just about every street in Karachi became the longest. ‘No,’ said one man. ‘It is M.A. Jinnah Road.’
    Another shook his head, ‘Abdullah Haroon Road – the longest in all of Pakistan.’
    ‘Nishtar Road,’ said the first, suddenly changing his mind.
    ‘How long?’ challenged Khurram. ‘Give me
facts.’
    ‘Oh what does it matter how long? As long as Karachi!’
    The discussion would take place altogether differently in theStates, thought Daanish. There, first a printed page had to be found. This established objectivity. Then an opponent located another printed page defending
his
position. The result was that debates took place only in writing, while in person, people seldom argued. As the written debate was limited by the availability of material, more original points of view were less likely to be favored. He learned this the hard way, in Wayne’s class.
    Here people frequently argued with each other; usually everyone spoke at the same time, and hardly anyone could sustain interest in the debate for very long. The men had ceased disputing the status of the road’s length. Conversation progressed to its original name – was it Shara-e-Faisal or Nursery Road? Khurram insisted it had always been Airport Road while another swore on Highway Road. Then it changed to the distance from one point to another, the time it took to reach one point from another, the likelihood of traffic between the points, the time of day traffic was heaviest, the importance of the time of day in gauging the traffic, the overall increase in traffic, the necessity of cars, the necessity of two cars, and the overall decrease in time, especially time to spend with your friends and family doing just this: chit-chatting. They laughed heartily, agreeing on basically one thing, that the purpose of the match was not to win or lose but to exchange the maximum number of words, for words