As I step onto the roof, my eyes catch something. Red. White. Blue. Yellow. Green. The pulsing neon lights of the billboards in the distance flash a message. It is in a language I am still learning to read, and I am eager to know what it means. I move closer to the edge of the roof, the edge of the line between myself and the city of Karachi below.
I am an American-born Muslim youth returning to my roots in Karachi, Pakistan after 9/11. Since my family moved to Karachi, I have stood out in school with my American accent, Western pop culture references, and limited (but improving) Urdu skills. Eager to belong as I could not in the US, I think about how Karachi has welcomed me through its people, scents, sights and sounds.
Earlier in the day, I had visited the famous Khadda market a few blocks away from my house. Khadda means “pothole” in Urdu, and indeed, this market did nothing but pull me down, down, down into its magical mayhem. The streets are narrow and poorly built; the stores, restaurants, and street vendors are all climbing on top of one another; it’s noisy and littered with remnants of animal and human waste. In my eyes, the market’s charm lies in exactly these things – and the myriad of Pakistani delicacies that can be made to order here.
One of the first delicacies I tried at the market was chaat, a spicy salad of chickpeas, pomegranate seeds, diced onions, tomatoes, coriander, chutney and of course, papri, which is crunchy fried dough. Another was chicken tikka – chargrilled chicken marinated in a wonderful milieu of spices and yogurt. A final was kheer, which beat any rice pudding I ever had in the US, hands down. Kheer is a creamy concoction of the same simple ingredients, but what made it special was that it was sold to me in a handcrafted clay pot and garnished with edible silver.
While these foods are a common staple in Pakistani cuisine, their magic comes from the hands of their preparers and vendors, traveling many kilometers to the market each day and working tirelessly until their bones become one with the chickens they cook, all just to make a few Rupees. The dishes they prepare never betray a word of their survival struggles. As a wealthy customer, I will never see or know these struggles.
Despite how hardworking its people are, much of Karachi – called “the Paris of Asia” in the 1970s – remains underdeveloped. Following a successful coup d’état in 1977, Pakistan came under a military dictatorship and Islamic fundamentalism characterized many political decisions. Modernization and industrialization were stymied; while the dictatorship has long disintegrated, infrastructure development is typically an undertaking of private contractors funded by a local government or NGO. Wealthy neighborhoods like Clifton and Defense are prioritized. So, while one area of the city may look like a first-world city – the one in which I lived – another area – the one in which these vendors worked – is in shambles.
The Khadda market vendors’ dedication to their trade has taught me one of many of Karachi’s languages; this one is the language of Hope—Persistence.
The sudden honk of a car horn reminds me of another memory – another language learned.
On my route to school every morning is an intersection frequented by panhandlers. While I typically ignore their tap-tap-tapping on my car window every morning, a few weeks earlier, I had decided to pay attention. The person on the other side of the window had skin browned to a crisp by the sun, and their beady eyes revealed desperation. They croaked, Allah ke nam pe ik pesa de do (“For God’s sake, give me a penny”). When I rolled down my window to hand over a Rs. 10 bill, I noticed they were dressed in feminine Pakistani attire – shalwar kameez with a dupatta draped over their head – but their voice was baritone. My mother, who was seated next to me, observed that the panhandler may be a member of Karachi’s impoverished hijra community.
Hijra is a recognized third gender identity that exists outside the gender binary. Once revered by the Muslim Mughal Empire, the hijra community came to be treated as pariahs under British rule. Even today, the hijra community faces tremendous discrimination; many community members practice sex work or beg for survival. As a cisgender private school student driving by, this is another set of struggles I will never know.
But the panhandler’s insistence on receiving assistance has taught me another one of Karachi’s languages; this one is the language of Persistence – Self-Advocacy.
My foot is falling asleep, so I shift my weight. The sudden sensation of concrete beneath my feet reminds me of a final memory – a final language learned.
During a recent school field trip, my class visited the Mohatta Palace in Clifton. As soon we entered the palace gates, I was mesmerized by the palace’s majestic domes, gorgeous terraces and high walls, which were made of local yellow stone from Gizri (the heart of artisanship in Karachi) and pink stone from Jodhpur, India (once part of the Mughal Empire).
Inside, I learned that the palace was built in 1927 as a summer home for a successful Indian trader named Mohatta. The building’s grand architectural style is inspired by Mughal palaces and Hindu temples. In recent years, the palace was converted into a museum that exhibits textiles, paintings, sculptures, and other works of Pakistani artists, including ones my age!
The palace’s sheer existence as a testament to generations of South Asian artistic brilliance has taught me a final Karachiite language; this one is the language of Self-Advocacy – Creative Passion.
A gust of wind blown off the Arabian Sea hits my bare arms and I am brought back to the present. I realize it is past my bedtime. As the receding tide bids me good night, I realize that I do not need to be able to speak Urdu – a rich rekhta (mixture) of Persian, Hindi and Arabic and the lingua franca used by Muslims under British colonial rule – to find meaning and belonging in my city and in my rich Muslim heritage. Karachi throbs with messages that are very fundamentally human – hope, persistence, self-advocacy and creative passion – and they will resonate with me if only I pay attention.
With a newfound sense of belonging, I breathe a sigh of relief–my way of telling the city shukriyah, or “thank you”.
