A short interview about the daily life of this ordinary man. Gulam Nabi sells bubble-water at Seaview.
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Lets step aside for a moment and take a look at our city Karachi.

I think of sharing my views with you guys, actually I have just been on a trip to Islamabad and Muree, although I went there primarily for some personal business and not on a vacation to enjoy. I did try take that opportunity and visited the well-known tourist points in Islamabad and Muree. Undoubtedly the places in Muree such as Neelam Point, Bhurband - Pearl Continental, Kashmir Point, the chair lifts and cable cars in Patriata are superbly beautiful. The cleanliness and strict laws of Islamabad and a few worth visiting places are simply awesome. Most importantly the road-trip from Islamabad to Muree is the most enjoyable because of the stunning natural beauty and the curvy dangerous narrow two-way roads cut between the green mountains. Multiple routes connecting Islamabad and Muree are simply unexplainable. Some of you might have been there, but for those who haven’t, let me tell you - I enjoyed the places in the off season, you can imagine what it would be like in the “on” seasons. You have got to be there, take a break from our busy and fast lives and give yourself some good time.

You can see the photos here. I tried to write about the trip while I was there and I did make some posts on my blog, but I lost track in all the traveling and stuff. I was seriously thinking of extending my visit and and spending some more time in Muree, but I had to cut short my tour and get back, my leave was expiring and I didn’t have much cash in hand.

The point in making this post is not to just share my trip details with you, but to actually share what I learned / realized from the trip besides everything. It was a four-day trip from Wednesday till Sunday, on Saturday night I was in the hotel room in Islamabad, I was on the flight to Karachi the next morning.

On Saturday night something came up and I thought I should go out and buy what I need. My hotel was near Aabpara Market (its a busy market). Its 10:30 in the night and what I see amazed me. Every shop was closed, there were just a few people on the street, SATURDAY NIGHT and no cars! I found only a bakery, a medical store and few other shops left open. It was like a day of strike in Karachi! Anyway, I kept walking until I reached the medical store, I just had my dinner so I thought of trying out a meetha pan of Islamabad, and guess what! They don’t have khokas! On the whole road, I walked about 20 minutes, there was no sign of a khoka or any shop from where I could find a pan. May be there was such a shop but got closed as it was “too late”. I don’t mean to portray Islamabad as the “city that always sleeps”, but for me (being a karachitte) it was unusual.

As for the food, the well-known food-street (a.k.a food-court) in Islamabad, for crying out loud! I can’t find a single place where I could get Chicken Biryani. I ate every thing from Pulao to stuff like yellow rice with boiled chicken in the name of my dear Chicken Biryani! The spicy chicken ginger! oh so sweet! and the mini buns by the names zinger burger. I couldn’t find KFC, McDonals, Pizza Huts so common as they are in Karachi, in fact, I never saw one in my whole trip! I realized it when I reached Karachi Airport and saw a big yellow ‘M’ just in front of it along the parking area! :)

All night I was just thinking and comparing the three cities. Besides the natural beauty in Muree and it being an official tourist place, I was just left comparing Islamabad with Karachi.

I came to realize that Islamabad is as good as nothing in terms of Implementation of Law and cleanliness in Pakistan, the underpasses seems to be just a regular natural inclining and declining road due to the mountainous area -unlike Karachi’s underpasses when you bounce off 3 feet in the air while entering one and the drainage cover moves and sounds like its broken into 5 pieces and you just made the 5 pieces 8 with your car, they sometimes also fills up with water too :) .

There is no signal violation, no car on or ahead the zebra crossing on the signal, even the police or government cars being fined for breaking the signal or any road law. There are no coaches or mini buses, “khaan-taiyaara” or “sarko ki malka” -type vehicles on the roads, only 14-seater vans for public transportation. Very few bikes, very very wide roads, proper road signs, minimum chaos on the roads. In short everything is so damn perfect as compared to Karachi and its core and most talked-about problems.

I took my expensive phone with me and I was literally roaming around and showing off :) in the streets in ISB and muree taking pictures and messaging never fearing that a 125 bike will be coming from behind and I’ll be greeted with a shining metal of a gun as a reward to my showoff. Its a lot better in terms of street crimes.

But there is nothing like the life in Karachi! I always thought of myself as a boring person, but I realized that I’m much more fun being in Karachi than anywhere around the country (as far as I have been). You can never have a life that you have in Karachi anywhere else.

Keeping aside the crimes, traffic problems, political uncertainty and every small and major issue, I can bet that once you get a break from Karachi you will realize that we curse the city way too much and how much we are dependent on the life of Karachi. Its not like “aankh aujhal Pahar Aujghal” its like once you get on a “pahar” you will have a much better, clear and true realization of what you have been into and what you have been missing all the way.

I hope that every Karachitte feels and realize what the city Karachi really is and how we are connected to it in every aspect of our lives. Being bloggers, writers readers or any one from Karachi who thinks about Karachi, needs to get a different perspective every once in a while to change our thoughts and views, and probably alter our attitude towards our City.

Its us that is Karachi and its Karachi that is us, a codependent association that needs a little tough outside the box.

Over the years this massive park right behind Tariq Roads main commercial area had deteriorated into a hideout and residence of various junkies, drug peddlers and other nefarious elements. The last government took it upon themselves to clean up this park and restore its original luster. Although it is still a work in progress it looks lovely, with pagodas and an arched entrance of columns from Tariq Road with steps leading down to the pathways lined with long palm trees.

Hats off to Farrukh Ahmed of KMB for this idea!

KMB has been showing lot of photographs of our dreaded, failed transport system showing our typical buses being over-loaded, stuffed like a fat photo, over-flowing with people. Sometimes, off course, the consequences are just too bad to relate to. Broken or cut off legs, damaged nerves, blood ozing out. Our buses have come to be known as killer buses and the drivers are usually known as pilots, for these buses don’t run, they fly.

For all its dreaded atmosphere, I have come to love them for various reasons. One being its roof-top, airy compartment, suitable for sleeping as well as seeing around the city with no side effects. These roof-tops are good for photographers like myself, who wish to see his city in a various shades.

Have you ever enjoyed such a ride. If so, let us know here at KMB.

No, i have never seen the famous Taj in all its actual glory, but i did see a vision of it recently on Sands Pit Beach here in Karachi. I could not bear leaving this behind for the waves so i tried to preserve it through my camera. Hats off to the unknown creator, whoever they are. I do not think even the actul Taj Mehal has this lovely a backdrop!!

“Nazre takhleeq se dekh tu ye ret bhi Taj ban jati hay”

I came across a forwarded mail a few days back containing some recent Pictures of Karachi.

Since then I was wondering that it doesn’t matter how much broken roads we still have, so many ‘kachi abadiyan’ and a number of failed and seized construction projects, we still have made it to the point when we look at our City it looks good, in fact it looks awesome!

Its better to take some time out from our fast lives, all the criticizing and a typical “Karachi daytime life” and spend some time to focus what we have that is really good and worth appreciating. Its good to put yourself in place of a bird and try to see the city as the birds might see it, not being a part of the hectic parts of life just enjoying the scenery. It might seem a little fanatic to be saying something like this “be a bird” or something like that. Its metaphorical, get the essence and spend some time of our lives into something memorable.

Take a look at a couple of pictures of sights in Karachi…

The e-mail containing the pictures did not mention any credits to the photographer, so for me all the credit goes to the sender of that e-mail :P

(Note: comments were not allowed “mistakenly” earlier)

A good number of Karachiites live abroad. The aim is to appreciate/highlight Karachiites living abroad. Danial brings you Karachi Bazar Toronto.

I guess its “Asian grocery” & “Video” under KB but whats written at the door (right side)?

It seems that the KESC has lost its capacity to provide electricity after WAPDA cut off power supply to KESC. It is reported that all feeders and grid stations in Karachi tripped sequentially after the WAPDA supply was cut. WAPDA was supplying about 225-250MW of power despite an agreed 300MW. This amount is roughly 20% of the city’s needs.

At present, KESC owes over 35 billion to WAPDA. The outstanding debt is pre-privatization, and from from the looks of it, the government sold KESC and expected it to just cough up a massive amount of money and settle the dues.

The power supply was cut with the approval of the Federal Government.

Last time I checked, Karachi was the economical capital of the country and home to over 10% of the country’s population.

Also in related power reports, the Private Power Infrastructure Board has disallowed KESC from purchasing power directly from wind farms that are being planned along the coastal belt.

What is going on here?? Would the real government please stand up??

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Update at 11.20: Power has started returning in some areas…..hopefully things will be back to normal soon…

[Credit: Fayyaz Ahmed]

[Image: Mudsi]