Karachi You Are Killing Me

Karachi You Are Killing Me by Saba Imtiaz

Fiction! And it’s about Karachi! My own loving city, Karachi – City of Lights, I have to read it.

Yes, when I came across Karachi You are Killing Me while browsing, I instantly ordered a copy from the local bookshop. I spent a good time to only scanning its title and back title. A  contrast of light blue, red and black catches one’s attention instantly. Where lipstick depicts the feminism, the gun symbolises the chaos of the city, Karachi. The next thing which pulled me was the female protagonist, living a lonely life and occupied with her career (*sigh* my story!).

Ayesha, the 20 something girl, underpaid and not appreciated by her boss (my life!) has a very severe problem of not having a BOY in her life. As the story unfolds, we come across her other problems. Through her eyes, we witness the fakeness of KLF; how it caters to a certain class; we  get the glimpses of the aftermath of a bomb blast, we realize how difficult it is to find a ‘such’ a good story first hand; what happens when a worker of the religious fundo party takes keen interest in befriending a girl in jeans.

While I read the harsh realities of Ayesha’s life, it also became evident that somehow every reader can find his/her image in any of the characters. It happens to each of us (though once in a lifetime or sometimes frequently) that our two best friends come closer and make a company and we (the victims, innocent ones, left alone) become a crowd. Some of us might have experienced the same dreadful situation when our day and night hard work becomes someone else’s efforts. Someone from us wanted shoulder of a parent to cry on and share his/her sorrows but has to cry even harder to find that the parent cares about his pet cat more.

Hey, pause here, and come back. It’s not a book that makes you nostalgic. Saba Imtiaz is not at all a pessimistic soul. Good News! The end is happy. Where the book surfaces with some serious dilemma of the karachiities in sugar coated pills, it also gives its readers small doses of laughter periodically. I am not going to ruin the story for you, by telling every part. If you want to know how the horrible and awful life of Ayesha changed into a ‘dream come true’ story, Read the Book!

Things exaggerated: the booze, night life and killing thing. Girls like me who love their jobs (though underpaid and not acknowledged for their skills) are not necessarily involved in drugs and booze. Sex, in our part of the world is not discussed as openly as Ayesha and Saad talk about or enjoy. As to myself neither I have friends who share the nightlife of Ayesha or Saad nor I know anybody who blames the killings of Karachi as the root of all the mishaps of their lives.

Inspite of all this, I like it and recommend it to all the Karachiities.