Karachi

I went today to the Arabian sea, where it all began. Out of its red, raucous rage rises, roaring reckless, Karachi, home. Though I was born in New York, a city of similar temperament, Karachi is where I am from.

While Raf and Nadia, slippers in hand, pant legs rolled, sauntered along the sea, I stood on the sand in my suit and saw the red sun submerge into the warm, wistful water. Couples, hand in hand, sand squeezing between their toes, sighed, while Makrani
mares raced, manes flapping in the sea breeze, down Clifton Beach. On the horizon, a fisherman’s boat bobbed.

It was an incongruously serene moment in a city that has been called a ‘hotbed of international terrorism’ (Time Magazine), ‘crime capital of Pakistan’ (Seattle Post), ‘political ground zero’ (Dawn). On May 9, thirty people were killed in clashes between the MQM, the country’s largest ethnic political party, and supporters of the recently deposed Chief Justice. Last Friday, 5 kilograms of explosives were found at The Point, an up-market shopping mall; the same night, a speeding motor bike hit my own uncle, destroying his right leg and fracturing his skull. It is the city where Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearle was kidnapped and brutally murder, where one of the 9/11 masterminds was captured, where eleven French construction workers were killed in front of the country’s largest 5-star hotels. Indeed, Karachi lives up to the headlines.

But that’s not the whole story.

Karachi is too vast, too complex to be pigeon holed by sensationalist journalists. Of course there’s going to be terrorism, it is the largest city in Pakistan, a country that has been the eye of War on Terror storm; of course there there’s going to be crime, 14 million people in a third world metropolis are bound to bump up again each other; of course there’s going to be political unrest, it is the largest melting pot of cultures in the sub-continent. But all this is certainly not what defines the city, which, despite the tumult, has surged ahead unfazed, swallowing up its maladies, and taking the rest of the country along with it.

I intern on I.I. Chundrigarh road, Karachi’s Wall Street, for a multinational investment bank that has seen an explosion in its IPO and M&A businesses. From my office window on the 8th floor of UniTower, I can see Karachi Ports to the West, burgeoning with trade and commerce from across the globe, and the Hills of Nazimabad to the east, where a new and prosperous middle class is reaping the benefits of Pakistan booming economy. Below me, downtown Karachi thrives with activity as bankers and brokers rub shoulders with paan wallas and rickshaw drivers, where traders flirt with secretaries and Mercedes’ jostle with Suzukis. The city pulsates with energy.

Over the weekend, I danced, inebriated, to Europe’s hottest club tracks at downtown night club, watched a stand-up comedy act Purple Haze, saw an Indian movie at the four-screen Cineplex, and attended an open-air rock concert. A few days ago, I was whisked away by a friend to appear on one of Pakistan's seventy three private television channels, all of which have aired in the last five years, for a panel discussion on students studying abroad. Yesterday, I went to the Mohatta Palace for a Jamil Naqsh exhibit, followed by a visit to the gallery/house of Amin Gulgee, a charismatic gay sculptor, just in time to catch him before his exhibition tour to Malaysia. This weekend, there’s a Qawali somewhere in Kharadar, then a late night beach rave in Hawks Bay. Saturday is race night. 'Party to the city where heat is on.'

Dear readers, come to Karachi, come to my home. This page is not enough for me to describe its complexity, its beauty, but rest assured that this is one of the most cultural, complex, energetic, exciting cities in the world. It certainly has its problems, but then again, so does New York.