I have mixed emotions about Karachi being the cheap dollar scribe’s Anna Nicole Smith. My mixed emotions, however, span the wide spectrum of amusement – they swing from regular to acute amusement. She is the mistress that cannot be harnessed; the poster girl who leaves precious little to the imagination; a willful child-woman, the self-destructive news maker – all rolled into one. But what they cannot peddle is Karachi as the heart of a promise. She is the promise of survival. Once again, Karachi makes news as the theme park of exotic violence, crime, poverty and as a ticking time-bomb. And our elite liberals, the target audience of Time magazine, lap it up as some kind of acknowledgement of their city; as a medal. So like Anna Nicole Smith, Karachi has her game right – maximum exposure for optimum attention. But where is this Karachi that guarantees foreign journalists a few days in the sun? Having reported crime and punishment extensively and traversed its gilded cages and the darkest of alleys, I seem to have missed the sheer hopelessness that is clearly the city’s unique selling proposition on the world stage. From Christina Lamb to Tim McGirk, all seem to cash in on this aspect each time there is a lull in their newsrooms. Is Karachi their favourite backwater because one of their most valued local minders famously said, “The more this city slides into chaos, the more money I make.”? And what of their own playgrounds? They hailed the spirit and resilience of London when it stood ravaged by looters. Clearly, the preservation of their Disneyland requires underplaying the reality that such plunder could not be given either a context or a justification. Greater London had simply stripped itself bare right in the centre. It could only be covered up with the shroud of guts and glory. Second, it isn’t often that we see a city such as Delhi make the cover for reasons other than its Mughal smugness. Despite a female chief minister, Sheila Dixit, it is the single most unsafe city for women after 10pm. The police and populace look on with apathy as they witness a woman in distress – that is the criminal extent of political patronage to both police and to an unbridled underworld. Then we have the myths of Mumbai – the same journo-tourists maintain that it is safe due to sheer numbers on the streets at any time of night and day as the city is an insomniac. For what reason is it difficult to acknowledge the stark truth that the metropolis’s underbelly calls the shots, (no puns should go unnoticed). But global spreadsheets only sell icy Aishwarya and Incredible India. Perhaps Karachi fascinates because its DNA is far too complex to be categorised. Over the years, it has acquired layers of realities that begin with the varied civilisations that were washed ashore by its birth as a port. In another life, it morphed into the citadel of liberalism with night clubs, bars, and theatres. Then Ziaul Haq’s Islamisation, followed by MQM’s battle with the state doused it in largely the poor man’s blood and silence. Today, it is a proud embodiment of resistance. So it can only be amusing when it gets attention for all the elements it negates – such as the view that its secular forces are failing. This city has the strongest civilian and political secular forces that have actively defied the slings and arrows of extremism. Beginning with the fact that it is the stronghold of the nation’s only secular party, the MQM, to fierce movements launched by NGOs and its citizenry each time there has been an incident of terrorism, police excesses, flouting of human rights or injustice caused by discriminatory laws. Also, turf wars are not alien to any metropolis. If London has Brixton, Karachi has Lyari. Not surprisingly, it is seems destined to be an unsung humanitarian – these woeful pieces of acclaimed journalism never take note of the absence of Mumbai-esque and Calcatian scales of demeaning destitution. Karachi’s children are not born on its footpaths as spectacles of helplessness; its poor are not scouring for scraps to cover their bodies or to fill their stomachs. For a change, hail the seductress that is Karachi. Its art shows, an upcoming literature festival, fashion weeks, and nightlife cannot be confined to interpretations such as efforts to resist hardliners. They can only be celebrated as its ongoing, obstinate reality. In the end, Karachi is a poster girl for the right reasons - it will reinvent itself with every attempt to define it.