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The stories of five residents illuminate different aspects of the Pakistani city where terrorism and ethnic conflict have been rife
When the British journalist Samira Shackle moved to Karachi, she was advised not to ask questions. The city was in flux: riots and gang battles sometimes shut down entire streets. Bombs went off on buses and in crowded spaces. Newspapers carried daily updates of the number of casualties. Wealthier homes and cafes were protected by security guards with metal detectors and AK-47s. Shackle stayed with her aunt in a safer – more affluent – neighbourhood. She grew used, as she writes, “to experiencing Karachi from the windows of a car”.
Things were once different. In the 1960s and 70s, the city was a stopover on the hippie trail to India and Nepal. Tourists sunned themselves on its spotless beaches and partied in its casinos and nightclubs. A swelling population of partition-era refugees and Pashtun migrants ensured cheap labour that fuelled a period of economic growth. “Hashish was easily available,” the Pakistani journalist Nadeem F Paracha once wrote about those years, “but people still didn’t know what heroin or a Kalashnikov was”. Continue reading...