KARACHI:
Let’s talk about the most awkward negotiation in Karachi that nobody prepares you for: asking baji to kindly, for the love of God, arrive before noon. Somewhere between “she’s basically family” and “she has worked here since before I could walk”, we’ve all developed a very specific superpower — the ability to feel like a villain for enforcing a rule we would enforce on anyone else without blinking.
Here’s the thing: many domestic workers stay with the same household for years, sometimes decades. The relationship becomes genuinely warm. And yet, underneath the warmth sits a real power imbalance that everyone quietly tiptoes around — one person’s livelihood depends on the other, and somehow that turns “please don’t take unannounced leave the day before Eid” into an act requiring the emotional courage of a UN peace summit. Some employers avoid the conversation entirely and just internally combust instead. Others overcorrect into being unnecessarily stiff, as if warmth itself is a liability.
And then there’s the specific, very Pakistani discomfort of watching someone cook and clean a home they’ll never quite have the resources to enjoy themselves — a strange cocktail of guilt, gratitude, and “I should probably say something” that mostly just gets swallowed with the evening chai.
This letter isn’t going to fix a structural inequality baked into how our households run — no op-ed is that powerful. But maybe we can start by admitting the obvious, clear, respectful boundaries aren’t cruelty, and “I feel too guilty to ask for basic things” is not actually a personality trait we should all be proud of. Fair wages, timely pay and honesty do more for the relationship than a lifetime of awkward avoidance ever will.
Laiba Naeem
Karachi
