Of Ostriches and Women

I recently found out that, at least in Pakistan, an ostrich is not a bird. This has compounded my confusion about what is what in this country especially after the whole apple and banana fiasco last year.

But seriously - ok semi seriously - I can understand why the ostrich was classified as an animal.  Pakistan is exporting large quantities of the bird's meat and many more projects for its agriculture are in the pipeline. Before the aforementioned amendment, ostriches were classified as exotic birds and it required all kinds of licenses and permits to raise them. Changing a bill in the provincial assembly is apparently much simpler to do in Pakistan than getting said permits and licenses.

Yet, none of it explains why women, especially burqa-clad women, cross the busy main roads of Karachi the way they do. You must have heard of the way that ostriches behave when they are in danger; they place their heads flat on the ground, thinking that if they can't see the danger, the danger won't be able to see them. Perhaps you might even have heard of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, "a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you."* But these burqa-fied women crossing the roads are somewhat a new breed, one I've termed as The Mind-Boggingly Stupid Ostrich Women. They appear out of nowhere in front of you - especially when you are cruising on a very busy street (e.g. Shahra-e-Faisal) - and proceed to quickly cross the road without giving as much as a cursory glance towards oncoming traffic. They deliberately avert their gaze - with a complete disregard, I might add, to all the screeching, honking, and cursing around them - hoping that if they don't see the approaching cars, motorcycles, bicycles, rickshaws, buses, trucks, tankers, vans, eighteen-wheelers, twenty-two-wheelers, donkey carts and cows, the cows, donkey carts, twenty-two-wheelers, eighteen-wheelers, vans, tankers, trucks, buses, rickshaws, bicycles, motorcycles, and cars won't run them over.

This much is pretty clear. What I'm completely unsure of is whether they believe that they will be saved because the traffic can't see them either or because they believe that if they don't look at the traffic, the traffic won't exist anymore.




* Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. New York: Random House, 1979: pg. 21