Are our efforts really worth it!

There was once this small city, bubbling with joy and exuberating, containing the frolic lovers and the carefree lot whose greatest joy used to be walking along the various woods here and there. But as all good things have an end, so did their smiles to. Some of their glee was taken away through rapid development and CDA authorities’ weird beautification rather waste-of-funds projects, while what was left was slowly and gradually taken away with tragic headlines marring the global scene. But the 8th October earthquake was the final nail in the coffin which took away the peace of mind of even those who considered themselves the most fortunate.
The 5 seconds that jolted the Earth at 6.5 on Richer Scale overturned the peaceful life of the serene city, bringing them face to face with the ugly scene of Margalla Towers’ collapse, a criminal negligence of CDA by the way. But the disaster did no end here. It also bit the poor masses of AJK and especially hit residents of Muzaffarabad, Chakoti, Garhi Dopatta, Bagh and moreover our sister city Rawalpindi and the Queen of Hills; Murree as well. However, after the things at Margalla Towers were settled with 17 rescues and recovery of 68 dead bodies while 9 reported missing which were later reported to be out of the area at that time, all hearts went out to the ones at AJK. Thus aid teams were sent out and in fact relief efforts are still ongoing in the affected areas.
Many of the survivors were brought in the Capital city, truly converting the affected areas into graveyards while giving a brand new face to Islamabad altogether. If one looks around, in addition to the relief efforts of individuals and integrated groups and various NGOs that have stemmed up their efforts along the leadership’s operations of the victims’ relief and rehabilitation of course, CDA has set up temporary hospitals at various places like Sports Complex, Comminity Center Aabpara, Community Center G-9 and tent village at H-11 while Ministry of Women Development is keeping survivors at Crisis Center, h-8 and District Administration is also treating many at it’s set up hospital in F-10 Markaz. But the victims are too many and we are at a shortage of space as well as medical practitioners as well as this has in turn created problems for those who are ill otherwise for the existing hospitals, full to the brim, have stopped taking in patients other than the quake victims.
Where on one end, one tends to wonder as to why is the government not shifting the quake survivors to other parts of the country as well like Lahore and Karachi, where they could get better attention, there the issue of changing face of the Capital bites the viewer when visiting various camps. Go to Poly Clinic and there would be a swarm of patients all around, even at the corridors, lying on beds. Go to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences; PIMS and the mad rush would continue to amaze you. And that’s the face of every hospital around here by the way. Now if you go to Sports Complex Camp Hospital or F-10 Markaz one for a while, you’ll be delighted to see kids in utter pain but not complaining, just smiling at the smiling faces around, savouring every soft touch from the caring masses, craving for love, shattering with every spasm of pain yet cherishing each loving smile their way making them oblivious of their miseries that very instant!
Go to H-8 and you’ll get to meet ladies who have never begged their whole life but necessity has shown them a very hard way. They stand beside you, smiling, their eyes wanting something, wondering if their asking you would offend you or not. Few ask for a change of clothes, others go away without saying a word, their eyes not letting you rest, haunting you, following you desperately wherever you go. Take a stroll at H-11 and you’ll find masses resting in neatly packed tents, apparently satisfied and better off than the rest. But don’t go away. Soon an old man would stop before you asking for help to find his lost kids. How your heart cries for the man who is not part of the tent village he is roaming just to find his lost kids!
But the worst you are yet to witness and that is at Community Center; Aabpara. You’ll find women moving out with suspicious women guiding them to an unknown destination. Where at all the rest of the places where relief camps have been set up, the survivors are genuinely glad over a sweet smile or a hand in aid, there few masses at H-11 tent village would get their snap and demand Rs.200-Rs.300, like a professional beggar but at Community Center Aabpara, besides this demand, young girls even ask for cosmetics like lipsticks! At such occasions, one wonders so as to whether the relief efforts are worth it. Here the Capitaliites are losing their sleep and even sanity, subjecting themselves to emotional, mental and psychological turmoil, thinking that is their Eid justified when their brothers and sisters do not even have a roof to sit in, there one encounters such episodes! So are our efforts worth it! I guess they are. We just have to be a bit careful of people who really need it!

—Uzma Zafar