an itinerant observer

What’s the chance of a bad outcome,lik e death, in Karachi? Based on anecdotes circulated on social media and what you read in the news, you might assume that chances for a series of unfortunate events remain high in this city. This prompted a friend to do some calculations to gauge chance of an unexpected death in Karachi, compared to any major metropolitan city in the U.S. Assuming how the percentages were arrived at was fairly accurate, the bottom line, if true, was intriguing: the likelihood of an untimely, unexpected death was similar in the two places. Delving into death rates in Karachi vs. elsewhere was perhaps meant to be an intellectual discourse following the meaningless death of a colleague’s sister in Karachi. Being gunned down outside a famous restaurant after a meal there is hard to rationalize as an expected outcome of a botched cell phone robbery attempt. But this is Karachi. And such occurrences are unfortunately all too frequently heard and shared. Ev...

[Photo Credit Riaz Khan] It is not surprising that Karachi and Houston, two cities that I have considered home for almost the last four decades, are “sister cities”.   Just last year, I was introduced to the Sister Cities of Houston program. At times I wonder why the program doesn’t refer to the cities as ‘brother’ cities or ‘cousin’ cities? Could it be that sisters are more pleasantly inclined towards each other in comparison to other relatives, and hence the sisterly link even for cities is more enduring?  The questions take away from the real thrust of this essay. What earthly comparison can even exist between the presumably volatile and anarchic city of Karachi, Pakistan, and the oil and gas hunger-driven megapolis of Houston, Texas? At face value not much of an analogous situation exists. Digging deeper into this juxtaposition, however, you might realize that both urban locales are burgeoning in similar fashion! Here are a few similarities:...

  “If you ever had to adopt a baby then whom would you settle for?” This was the question that I posed to myself recently. Not that I had to nor wanted to adopt a child. I have two of my own (biological ones, so my wife tells me), and they are more than a handful. It all started in Karachi one fine morning while I was working in the ER. A young couple had brought a two day old baby girl to me. The ER triage slip simply stated “baby adopted” as the reason for coming to the ER. I had never come across that as a presenting complaint in the ER, so my curiosity was piqued, irrespective of it being early moments of my ER shift without adequate caffeine in the system. It turned out that the baby had been picked up half an hour before, from a major orphanage in Karachi. The baby had been delivered the day before, per the orphanage staff’s speculation, and she had then been left at the doorstep of the orphanage. Although babies being abandoned there might have been a normal occurre...

Today marks week six of relocation from Houston to Karachi. As you are well aware by now, I have been writing the Karachi-Houston diaries. Through these compilations I try to compare and contrast what is in Karachi with what was in Houston. I’m like that. Writing analogically helps me make sense of my present and past life.   Today, my routine muse (in my head and heart) was missing in action. Normally she would assist in helping me focus on something intriguing to write about from both the Karachi and Houston perspectives.   So I asked the child instead. “Today, what should I write about?” I expected either no comment or something noncommittal from the child, since she would seldom take me seriously. But this time the reply came promptly and without hesitation. “Today write about Saffron and Abigail!” Saffron and Abigail are not exotic condiments. Nor are they administrative staff at my workplace in Karachi.    They are two fairy friends of Tinker B...