You take your family out to dinner and have a little au pair sitting along side to take care of your children. You order large meals for everyone, while passing breadsticks and water to the au pair… are you serious? Would you like someone to do that to your child?
Let’s turn the table… your boss takes you out to lunch with some of your co-workers. He orders lavish lunches for each of them, while telling you that there will be so much food, you can get some from everyone. How would you feel? Does small and insignificant even come close to describing the feeling? Why would you do that to someone else?
Hey, here’s an idea… how about you take care of your own children? Why don’t you take responsibility for the little lives that you have brought into the world, rather than passing them off on hired hands? You know why kids in the rest of the world are better behaved and more intelligent? Because their parents raise them, not the driver, maid and nanny.
And since we are on the topic… are you stupid? Do you even know what compassion means? Why do you take the servant with you when you go shopping for your kids clothes and toys? Do you relish the pain that you cause them knowing that they can never, and I do mean never, afford anything in that store?
We are a people that flaunt wealth in front of the poor. Why else would we feel it necessary to not pay the government property and income tax, have billions in loans written off and all the while buy ourselves Mercedes Benz and multi-million rupee homes. Did you know that a small home for a newly married family in Karachi costs a minimum of Rs. 20,000,000? That’s US$ 330,000 for your first home. And that gets you… no clean water, no clear sewer lines, no security and no protection. What a deal!!! Or you could go for the apartment which will cost you slightly less with all the same perks… what does the common man do?
And while I am on the topic, to all of you shop keepers, what makes you think that it is right to raise, no sorry… double your prices, during Ramadan. Do you think that just because it is a holy month you can gouge people and make the month of fasting harder for them, while it becomes easier for you? They have a word for that in Islam… Haram…
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6 Comments
“costs a minimum of Rs. 2,000,000? That’s US$ 330,000 for your first home”
It’s actually approx. $33,000.
Hi Ahsan,
I should correct that because everyone in Pakistan knows that is impossible to buy ANY respectable home for Rs. 2,000,000. The amount should have read Rs. 20,000,000. I’ll correct it in the post.
Hey, this sounds just like Jordan. It’s one of my favorite rants over here–especially the not letting maids raise your children bit! It amazes me how so many people are happy to bring these people into their homes, knowing nothing at all about them, and then hand over their small children to them to basically do everything for them. They bathe them, change them, feed them and interract with them almost exclusively in some cases. Horrifying when you think about it. I have made a family rule that my daughters are happy to comply with: young children are never, ever left alone in the care of maids. If more people observed such a rule, the standards in our societies (Pakistan and Jordan, which seem to share a lot of characteristics) would raise steadily.
Having said that, I also agree wholeheartedly with not flaunting what we have in front of hired help, who in most cases come from situations of abject poverty such as we cannot even imagine. And for heaven’s sake: who can sit and eat when they’re not sharing with everyone around them? This is agains Islam you know. It is part of Islamic LAW that if you have a servant you feed them and clothe them from the same standards that you expect for yourselves. Whenever we have something special to eat, I make sure the maid gets her share first, before my kids even touch it (unless we’re having guests of course) to make sure she gets some–everyone knows how selfish and thoughtless teenage boys can be.
Great topics: keep them coming.
I dont have any idea about the Karachi Market, but 20 Million seems a lot of money for a small house. Maybe, you are talking about posh localities in Karachi. Otherwise, you should be able to get something for less.
What I know is, that a friend tried to buy a house in Lahore in a OK Society (think upper middle class) and was quoted a figure of 6.5 Million Rs. That is equivalent to 35 YEARS of his salary. We told him to buy the house and not eat, drink or wear any clothes for the period.
Also met a very Senior Employee (think C Level) of a leading IT Company (think hundreds of millions in revenue) on a flight. His comment, “I earn a very DECENT” salary, but I CANNOT afford to buy a house in DHA”. If someone like him cannot buy a house, then God help the rest of all.
A 500 yard plot in DHA or Clifton will be anywhere from Rs. 20 to 30 million. This is the price of land. If a home already exists on the land, the condition of the house is irrelevant.
My husband and I were thinking of buying, since we were sick of dealing with landlords and rented homes, and we were considering apartments, not houses. As we want to start a family, we wanted a 2-bedroom place, at least. The cheapest apartments, covering no more than 1800 sq ft., are anywhere from Rs. 3 million onwards. These were flats that were facing slum areas, or were so far out of the city that we would be paying a small fortune in petrol for a daily commute (think middle class). These were also apartments with massive water and maintenance issues. Even that is beyond our reach. An apartment block in Clifton, going for a “cheap” Rs. 7 million had a monthly maintenance charge of Rs. 5000, no parking for residents (forget visitors), and if we wanted underground parking, we were told that would cost us an additional Rs. 300,000 for ONE parking space.
With all these new buildings going up, I want to know who can afford to buy anymore? Other than saddling oneself with massive loans, I suppose we could always turn to a life of crime. Its worked so well for so many Pakistanis!
Sabahat has hit the nail on the head – debt! If we lived debt free and only bought what we could afford and no one ever went into debt to the slavers running the banks, things would change dramatically.