I love Karachi for introducing me to pain and grief
ISLAMABAD: The mismanagement in Karachi has made it a cesspit to live in. I have inhaled enough toxins not to be surprised if my offspring turned out to be a mutant. I have lost some very close loved ones to the bloodbath on the streets. I have seen men, young and old, trying to piece together the splinters of their dreams that were broken because of the ruthlessness of the city. Some manage to tolerate and survive through the curveballs the city throws at them, while many run away. Yet, despite the losses trauma I have faced and despite everything this city has robbed me of, I have loved it for being a home — a messy one, but a home nonetheless.
I love Karachi for introducing me to pain and grief, and for teaching me that everyone has a right to heal and everyone has the responsibility to offer it. For teaching me the joy of indifference; the colour, taste, love and patience it brings to the streets which can withstand years of fear and bloodbath. I love it for being jagged and imperfect because it taught me that I can be loved despite all my flaws, because you fall in love with a person as a whole — including their flaws.
This city has taught me that the powerful will always have their fortresses, but the powerless can always rely on having one another. Watching this city crumble in the wake of development and decay is a heartbreak I never thought I would experience. To imagine that this chaos of a city could ‘progress’ by excluding the very people who make it what it is, is being an accomplice to the unjust disowning of those who fought for it. This development is a farce, and if we are to continue walking this road, we are on a journey to lose this mad city to the same demons we always end up losing everything to. So all I can do is sit here and pray that when they are done with their mission to ‘develop’ us, I would be left with a city that taught me love and pain and a city that was home to the jagged, sharp, flawed me.
Naveed Abbas Maitlo
Published in The Express Tribune, June 15th, 2019.
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