The noise on the streets, the smoke from the rickshaws, the smell of burning incense from a pile of garbage strewn across the side of the road, the busy markets, the lights still on at three in the night.

That is how I remember my city, my ‘Karachi’. The city that never sleeps. The city that is always laughing or screaming or crying, but never sober, never quiet. The city of lights.

Although not so much now. Most of the areas face chronic power outages, load-shedding, that drowns the city in darkness. But only for a few minutes, then it wakes up again with the roar of generators blaring out noise like heavy metal music almost in every house now. The noise pollution is preferable to spending hours without electricity, sweating like crazy!

Yes, this is Karachi, the real Karachi. God’s creatures are as plentiful as grains here. Literally, the city is brimming with people from all walks of life. There is no place to sustain the millions of people.

But I guess this is part of the charm of this city. Some people choose to see the ugliness in this city, the disarray. I choose to see the beauty. You won’t see it if you do not observe. It’s hidden. It’s hidden inside the people, the buildings, the malls, the rickshaws and the trucks.

The people are the most beautiful aspect of the city.

You know what? The people of Karachi never stop talking. Everyone has their own problems, their own cornerstones. Housewives who have to cook dinner before their husbands come home from the offices, men working part-time jobs to buy Eid clothes for their children, the workload of homework weighing down on the school-going children, the young boys trying to find a ball to play cricket, the teenage girls trying to keep up with the fashion trends, the elite upper class busy in trying to throw the best party in town. So many people are trying to manage their social life and ensuring that they get more than 1000 likes on their Facebook and Instagram posts, posting stories about everything and anything they see.

There is a whole set of problems for the working class. They get out of the house early to avoid being stuck in traffic and public buses are so scarce that many have to sit on top of the bus to hitch a ride. Pollution is everywhere, as are potholes on the roads. Strikes and demonstrations against some injustice or for the availability of gas, water and electricity, pause life in some part of the city every day. Demonstrations have become the main source of communication between the people and the government.

When I was young and travelling around the city to school or to visit someone, I used to observe the people on the streets and used to wonder about their life stories. I remember being amazed by the number of people living in a city with so much going on. I have to say it is not a small world. It is a very big world.

I made up stories about the people I saw on the streets and I found interesting. But then they were gone, taking the stories with them and new people would come along and helped me spend time in the traffic jam.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 6th, 2018