Abro

  Mobile Precarity, Masculinity, and Urban Survival   Entering the City from the Back Seat To understand Karachi, one must first understand its noise. It is not a singular sound, but a geological layering of sonic strata: the deep bellow of the Bedford bus, the high-pitched whine of the Honda CD-70, and, bridging them both, the rhythmic, coughing staccato of the autorickshaw. If you climb into a green-and-yellow autorickshaw, you are most likely to read: "Maa ki dua, Jannat ki hawa". "Kidhar jana hai, sahib?" the driver asks, not just to know the destination, but to calculate the moral, economic, and physical cost of the ride. Karachi is often read through maps, flyovers, gated societies, and development plans. But another map exists — drawn not by planners but by rickshaw drivers. It is a living cartography of shortcuts, dangers, police points, rich neighborhoods, flooded streets, and invisible borders. The autorickshaw is not merely a vehicle; it is a mo...

  Hello, everyone. I want you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine a landscape. We are in the plains of the Punjab or perhaps the dusty stretches of Sindh, three centuries ago. You see a grand festival approaching. There are lights, music, and a sea of people. Now, let me ask you: Who do you think is celebrating? If you looked at the modern map, you might expect a clear answer—a Muslim festival, a Hindu rite, or a Sikh gathering. But if we stepped into that pre-colonial world, that question wouldn't just be hard to answer; it would almost be meaningless. You would see a Muslim merchant lighting lamps for Diwali, a Hindu peasant beating his breast in a Muharram procession, and a Sikh devotee seeking a blessing at the tomb of a Sufi saint. Today, we are going to explore a lost world—an "entire civilization of co-existence," as the historian Mushirul Hasan called it. We will trace how the fluid, porous boundaries of the past were systematically hardened into the...