The (real) city of lights

Rakhshanda Jalil
visits Pakistan and is compelled to choose between Lahore
and Karachi

Three years ago, I had the occasion to visit Pakistan for the first time. I travelled to Lahore, Sargodha and Faisalabad – to read papers at the local universities. Recently, on my second visit, this time to Karachi, I was invariably asked whether it was my first visit. In response, I would say, no; I had been previously to Lahore, Sargodha and Faisalabad. Bhala bataiye! You have been to Sargodha and even Faisalabad, but not to Karachi! Yaani, hadd ho gayi! Here was incredulity bordering on pity that someone could be so naïve and so unfortunate as to have gone to these three other cities but not to Karachi! Initially, I found this odd, not to say immodest, till it occurred to me that that is precisely how we in Delhi regard those visitors to India who have been to other Indian cities but not to Delhi.

This curious similarity set me thinking. I realised how much I had found in common between Karachi and Delhi – far more than between Lahore and Delhi, the so-called twin cities. I remember going to Lahore – on my first trip across the border – with the usual excess baggage, usual that is for most Indian Muslims who set out for Pakistan carrying their nationalism on their sleeve even as they totter under the weight of an indefinable deja vu. This sense of familiarity with everything in a country one is visiting for the first time had seemed uncanny. Virtually from the moment you step into the PIA aircraft in Delhi – no, even before that, actually, when the PIA security person says ‘Assalam-alekum’ as she does a thorough body search – you find yourself overwhelmed.

Lahore airport could pass off as an airport in any Indian city except for two things – it was a lot cleaner and more modern-looking. But once outside, the weather seemed to be the same as in Delhi, the trees looked familiar and so did the chaotic traffic. Rickshaws, pony carts and autos (gaily decorated contraptions that veered crazily all across the road with the same devil-may-care attitude that makes their Indian cousins such a menace on our roads) jostled for space with the latest state-of-the-art dream machines. Our nifty Maruti Suzuki was equally ubiquitous here – with the one small difference of having dropped the ‘Maruti’ from its derriere. What took some getting used to, however, was that everyone was dressed in salwar suits – even the men!

I spent the next few days making several discoveries about the said garment: (a) in this Land of the Pure, its tailoring has been elevated to an exact science; and (b) it came in a seemingly endless variety of styles and shapes – loose or fitted, billowing or snug, long or cropped, plain or profusely embellished – the variety within the sameness made it mind-boggling. The same, I found, applied to Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s dream of a people united under Islam, living in peace and harmony as part of a pan-Islamic brotherhood was just that – a dream. I remember being struck by the regional, ethnic, linguistic differences and the pride people took in their distinctness – be it of food, dress, language, idiom, custom. The stereotype of monolithic Islam – so often trotted out for Indian Muslims – seemed as untrue for Pakistan as it was for us in India. I met people of various inclinations and denominations – Shia, Sunni, liberal, fanatic, tolerant, intolerant, Wahabi, Hanafi and many permutations and combinations thereof.

I returned from Lahore loaded with salwar suits, but no excess baggage. I found I had shed most of it as I realised that despite the surface similarities, Lahore and Delhi were not soul sisters, and that it is futile to go searching for similarities on the basis of shared religion or a common past.

***

My second visit to Pakistan – this time to Karachi in the last week of December 2010 – began with no excess baggage. Unburdened by the weight of expectations, I was determined to treat this as a purely professional visit. Yet, from the moment I set foot in the City by the Sea, I found myself drawn to its people, who seemed strangely known and familiar. Now this was odd: the salty sea breeze was more redolent of Mumbai than Delhi, the trees were different and so was the weather. There were fewer parks and tree-lined avenues. There were no Mughal relics and the few colonial-era buildings of local yellow stone were vastly different from the gothic structures of Upper India. And yet the connection between Karachi and Delhi persisted.

Partly, it is the UP-walla (walli?) in me that is to blame. For I must confess it was a delight to hear such chaste Urdu, the sort one did in mofussil towns and that has since withered away under the all-pervasive onslaught of ‘Bombayya Hindi’ and atrocious ‘Hinglish’. And then there was the food! Proper salan and not the gigantic portions of karhai chicken I had eaten everywhere on my trip to Lahore, including the fabled Food Street (which I am happy to say was a big disappointment)! Evidently, the kitchens of Karachi have zealously guarded the secrets of grandmothers’ recipes from qasbahs and hamlets back home. The same taste and aroma, the same zaiqa and lazzat!

Then there were the people, the heart and soul of the city. Sharp and sassy, energetic and driven, proud to be Karachites yet cosmopolitan, open to dialogue, keen to engage in public discourse, willing to turn their gaze inwards and examine both state and society. I must confess I was quite taken with them. Like migrants all over the world, they carry bits and pieces of their former selves – not as cankers, but as bedrocks. Writers, journalists, poets, activists, actors, publishers, performers, bankers, bakers – I was fortunate enough to meet an eclectic group. Over-arching their diverse professional and personal interests, what struck me the most was their cohesiveness as members of civil society. Everywhere, it seemed to me, there were people intent upon stepping in to fill the gaps – between government and society, demand and supply, dearth and plenty, suppression and advocacy, acquiescence and activism. I came away from Karachi convinced that a city that can boast a Chhipa and an Edhi, an Adnan Asdar and Zafar Poshni, a Zehra Nigah and Mushtaq Yusufi has no small claim to greatness. And its spaces – be it the uber-cool T2F or the venerable NAPA – that reclaim a liberal, secular ethos call for a toast. Here’s looking at you, Karachi!


(Rakhshanda Jalil visited Karachi at the invitation of Tehreek-e-Niswan to participate in the ‘Tees aur Ek Saal’ conference organized in collaboration with the Oxford University Press)

January 21-27, 2011 - Vol. XXII, No. 49