All buildings along the main thoroughfares of Karachi seemed to be covered in a film of dust and neglect. Broken window panes, peeling paint, cracked plaster and a mess of cables were ubiquitous sights. It looked like anything that had ever broken down or stopped functioning had been left to rot in that state. The greenery cover was very low, parks were few and far apart and garbage easy to spot. On and off one would see tacky attempts to put a cosmetic veneer over the state of dilapidation. I noticed a sign at a public square, saying “Karachi - the city of lights”. Karachiites were unfazed by the irony. From a corner, a statue of Benzair Bhutto waved from behind a fence. It’s arm looked disproportionately long compared to the body.
I had made several short trips to Karachi on my way in and out of the country, but never had the chance to go into its deeper arteries. On one such visit, I was relieved of my cellphone and wallet by robbers near Seaview. But my Karachiite friends insisted that the only reason I hadn’t fallen in love with their city yet was that I hadn’t seen its soul.
Earlier when I reached the immigration counter at Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport, I found the staff behind the counter sitting idle. They must have finished processing all the passengers from the previous flight, I thought, indicating that the traffic flow here was rather thin. I was coming to Karachi after two years, this time after a visit to South East Asia. Most of my trips to Pakistan are routed through airports in the north, being closer to my hometown. The immigration officer, who affixed the entry stamp on my passport, was friendly and polite. I was out of the airport in no time, but I wondered why the main passenger terminal of Pakistan’s biggest commercial hub lacked the bustle that one sees in airports around the world, even in cities twenty times smaller in size.
Sarfraz Musawir - 'Empress Market Karachi'
Once outside, I called a cab through a ride-hailing app. The car that came to pick me up barely looked road-worthy. The driver - a young man from a village near Peshawar, who had moved to Karachi three years ago - switched to Pashto after introductions. He struggled with the car’s transmission and looked rather nervous on the road. The car lurched and jerked from time to time as the traffic around us got thicker.
“Is my driving okay, sir?”, he asked.
“I don’t know if it’s you or the car, but the drive could be smoother.”
“But it can’t be that bad, considering it’s only my second day driving a car,” he declared, grinning.
I looked at him in shock and sat stiffer in my seat. The remaining twenty minutes of that journey started to seem very long. To calm my nerves, I told myself that an inexperienced poor man was able to practice his driving on the chaotic roads of Karachi, at least. So what if some innocent passengers were being taken for a bumpy ride. I asked him how he managed to procure his licenses.
“Oh sir, this friend of mine knows someone in the traffic police department. I just paid him a couple of thousand rupees and he brought the license to my home.”
It was obvious that companies running the car hailing apps do not concern themselves too much with passenger and road safety. Welcome to Karachi!
The next day I took an organised tour around the city in a traditional heavily decorated Bedford bus, in the hope of coming face to face with Karachi’s soul. I had the pleasure of being in the company of one big family, its members ranging in age from 5 to 75. The entourage included local residents, their relatives visiting from Canada and a newly wed couple.
More interesting than the sights of Karachi was observing the dynamics of this family. The mint groom couldn’t help the big grin on his face while the heavily-hennaed bride held out her hand to be helped in climbing the slightest rise in the surface of the ground. The local sister-in-law competed with our tour guide to prove she knew more about Karachi, chiming in with additional information about every landmark we passed by. The septuagenarian uncle reminisced about the days of his youth when “dance floors of discotheques and nightclubs throbbed with socialites”. Now the same city has become a stage for the dance of destruction, I thought.
We arrived at Empress Market. It stood tall in its faded glory - magnificent in posture but battered in condition. Despite the recent attempts by the government to remove encroachments and gentrify the place, it still had an unkempt look. Sellers of spices, nuts, meats and fruits kept themselves busy, attending to a steady flow of customers. An unsightly boundary wall was being erected around the market that had always been open to shoppers and traders. Reportedly many small businesses that had existed there for decades had been forced to shut shop.
The next stop was Quaid-e-Azam House Museum, where a guard demanded to see our identity cards. Our guide made half an attempt to talk him out of that unnecessary formality. The response from the guard came in the form of a lecture on how he must do his job. Once finished, he looked around, seeming to elicit support for his argument. His eyes contacted mine and I assumed a look reflecting empathy. The compromise we reached was that he would check a random sample of identity cards. As some members from our tour group volunteered to present their cards, I was glad to see the guard enjoying a sense of purpose and authority.
At a stone’s throw from the museum stands another example of the grand architecture of the Raj era, Frere Hall, whose most impressive feature is the enormous mural on its ceiling by the inimitable Sadequain. After remaining awe-struck by it for a while, I called a cab to go to my next destination, Urdu Bagh. The driver was a born local. So my surprise was reasonable when he asked me about the purpose and contents of Frere Hall. I asked him why he had never been inside the Hall. He replied in a resigned voice:
“These places are only for the elite, bhai. I am sure they would never allow me to enter.”
I told him that wasn’t the case and insisted that he should visit some day to see for himself the grand masterpiece of Sadequain. But he appeared reluctant and said,
“How is it possible that a fancy place like this is open and free for everyone? Bhai, you must be mistaken.”
Spending a few days in Karachi makes one see and feel the isolated circles in which separate classes of the stratified population operate. Not something unique to Karachi, but noticeable on occasions like these nonetheless. The fine-dining restaurants, where the upper class comes to dine, do not even have their name signs displayed outside. Privacy, security and segregation of classes are thus assured. Their clients know where these establishments are. Those who do not know are perhaps not welcome. You see the same or similar faces in all fancy eateries. They scream with joy upon seeing each other, and hug and kiss as if meeting after ages. Once in a while, a class outsider can be spotted at such establishments. What follows is an exchange of judgmental looks between the oldtimers and newcomers.
(to be continued)
Shueyb Gandapur is a freelance contributor based in London. He travels the world and shares his impressions about the people and places he comes across on his Instagram handle: @shueyb1
