Karachi, oh Karachi

I've returned to one of the cities of my ancestors - Karachi. Karachi is a sprawling third world metropolis, the trading capital and major port city of Pakistan. I'm only here for a few days visiting my mum and sister so I've been trying to keep myself out of mischief.

I've visited Pakistan several times throughout my life, so it isn't a land of much mystery to me. Despite that, it never seizes to amaze me just how intense the place is. Life is difficult here, and nothing is simple. You have to be 'switched on' all the time - be it while dodging the traffic (there aren't many footpaths to speak of, so pedestrians share the road with vehicles) or dodging family friends with single daughters.

Life here is a spicy mix of constant challenges and it makes mere existence, just getting through your day in one piece, something of an achievement. For example the power cuts out for a few hours every third or so day. If you're stuck in the lift when this happens, tough... unless the building you're in happens to have a generator. Water doesn't flow out of the taps for most of the day. Toilet humour takes on frightening new dimensions. And don't even get me started on the personal hygene front. In fact for the last few days my alarm clock has been the sound of water gushing out of the tap around 6am after the water tank has had its daily refill. In this environment basic daily rituals become elaborate and draining.

For me Pakistan engenders a love/hate response. I've always admired the every day resilience of the people on the street. The taxi driver who stands at attention all day on the street corner, waiting for his sole customer to finish her latest shopping spree. My mother, and her unwillingness to surrender to the law-of-the-jungle driver chaos on the road.

And then there is the other side. The fact that no one ever quite means what they say. The family politics you have to be ever so careful of. The poverty, the heart breaking, soul destroying, imagination-stretching poverty that is impossible to ignore no matter how remote or opulent a lifestyle you choose to lead.

Karachi is an odyssey in itself I must explore more thoroughly some time in the future.