KARACHI: Corporate life is rarely associated with adventure. It is more often imagined as a predictable routine of offices, meetings and transfers. But for Rehana Alam, a corporate career became a path to a life of constant movement — from Karachi to Nigeria, Istanbul and Indonesia etc — which forced her family to repeatedly uproot itself and find a sense of home in unfamiliar places.

This is what one learns when one reads her memoir, My Life as a Corporate Gypsy: A Memoir, which was launched at the Pakistan American Cultural Center here on Wednesday.

The book explores what happens when a family is repeatedly transplanted across countries, languages, cultures and traditions, and how such disruption can fracture identities while also strengthening them.

The keynote speaker of the event was former Senator Javed Jabbar.

Speaking on the occasion, he described the book as representative of what Pakistani women were capable of. He said it was a matter of pride that its author was a Pakistani traveller whose roots remained embedded in this incredible country.

Mr Jabbar also spoke about the history of the word ‘gypsy’ and the misunderstandings associated with its origin as well as about how it denotes a restlessness and unwillingness to settle down.

He also called for a follow-up to the memoir, asking what had happened to the “gypsy” after her return and how she now experienced life in Karachi.

Journalist and writer Ghazi Salahuddin described it as a beautiful book whose “content is heavier than the volume”. He said it is a book about “home” and “family”. The memoir could also be seen as a textbook on wellness — not in the conventional sense but in terms of how to live a good life. Friendship, companionship, family and the tradition of hosting guests were among the elements that gave the book its character, he added.

In conversation with the author, researcher and writer Nusrat Khawaja asked Ms Alam whether knowing the local language had helped her adapt to different countries. Ms Alam said it did, adding that language made a considerable difference in understanding people and settling into unfamiliar surroundings.

The memoir contains numerous anecdotes, including funny incidents from Ms Alam’s experiences in different countries. Her travels took her through places including Italy, Nigeria, Nairobi and Turkiye, exposing her to different forms of art, culture and everyday life.

One of the humorous stories concerns a racist Rottweiler, while others draw on the unexpected and sometimes amusing experiences that come with living in unfamiliar societies.

Yet beneath the anecdotes lies a broader observation about human beings. Ms Alam said her travels had made her realise that people, despite living in very different societies, shared the same basic needs, desires, likes and dislikes. That realisation, she said, also made it easier to form friendships across cultural and geographical boundaries.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2026