Nearly every household in Karachi has heard this person making the rounds, especially if you are living in apartment blocks situated in middle class neighbourhoods. Listening to him, you wonder if this person pushing a dirty, old and rusty pushcart is a street vendor or an engineering graduate from Harvard.

You better believe it when he claims anything and every utensil that has broken down in your house he can fix. It is a long list which includes electric irons, gas stoves, pressure cookers, washing machines and everything else that you were about to discard, but this magic fixer can fix in the twinkling of an eye. Sometimes I wonder if he also had a hand in helping us become a nuclear power.

I have been wondering how anyone can become a street vendor of this kind and especially in the category of fixing utensils that if not repaired properly can cause serious damage as happened recently when the compressor of a refrigerator burst and engulfed an entire family.

I wonder if this refrigerator was fixed by some amateur roaming the streets posing as an expert. It seems that in Pakistan, there are........

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