In two months, March and April, I bid farewell to two friends who I will never see again in Karachi. They have settled abroad, one in Washington one in London. For both the death of parents has removed the reason why they used to come to the city frequently, sometimes twice in a year, but atleast annually.
They had come on their last trip to wind up their deceased parents' affairs; sell the house, settle financial matters, give away clothes and books, choose a few keepsakes to take back, such as photographs and heirlooms. They deeply feel the loss of their parents but they have no emotions, either sad or happy to be leaving this city never to return.
One thinks people ought to feel sad on leaving their native home, but neither has experience the trauma of being uprooted. One of them, who is the daughter of a diplomat, said she hardly lived here except for eight years of her life (over sixty she is). The other said she left Karachi soon as she was married. In the early days she felt home sick but it did not last once the children were born. In short, Karachi was the home of their parents, not their home except for the short years of childhood. Without their parents the city means nothing to them.
One might argue their parents are still here albeit in their graves, but for most Karachiites who migrated from India and who left family graves behind, the tradition of visiting graves is more or less washed out. On death anniversaries we offer Fateha and recite the Qura'n and pray for the dead, that is all. The graves do not call us back.
The story of these two friends is not unique. This has become a phenomena nearly every family in Karachi is experiencing. The census will, of course, ignore noting how many empty nesters there are in the city. Parents have been left behind while children have settled abroad. It is only to visit parents that children come, or occasionally for a family wedding. One parents pass away even family weddings are not an inducement to visit Karachi.
Children who settled abroad would like their parents to come and live there too, but most people who were born in the 1920s or 30s feel culturally cut off living abroad. They feel lonely, they feel a loss of identity without their friends, their language, their food. It plunges them into deep depression which even the nearness of children does not assuage.
The parents of one friend did settle in Washington to be near their daughter, once the father retired from Foreign Service, but were unhappy. Despite the fact that they created around themselves a social world as it would be in Karachi, they still felt alien. They ate Pakistani food, organised and participated in mushairas, music recitals and promoted poets and novelists writing in Urdu, they could not shake off the feeling that it was all make-believe. Eventually their children purchased a house in Karachi where the old couple lived the last seven years of their lives. Both passed away last year within six months of each other.
People who left Karachi to settle abroad in their middle age miss Karachi but still do not want to come back. Their reason is the children who were born abroad and are, say, British or American by birth. They too identify with eastern culture. Because of them there is a great demand for Urdu literature in the west. In their social circles they organise mushairas and ghazal programmes, but they feel the market exists as long as their lives only. Their British and American born children neither speak Urdu nor care for Urdu literature. When this eastern culture loving generation passes, another bunch of former Karachi families will have severed their link to the city.
Why am I harping about Karachi? Is this not a phenomenon through the entire country? It is, but not with the intensity as in Karachi. Long before people from other parts of Pakistan began to leave their native homes to settle abroad, or before the Dubai rush began, Karachiites were leaving the city in droves in the 1950s and 60s and 70s. They included many Bengali families who were actually Urdu-speaking. They did not think Bangladesh was home and thus left Karachi to settle in foreign countries.
Many of the early immigrants were professionals, engineers, architects, doctors and scientists. The rest of the country had yet to catch up with Karachi's professional work force. The country was not progressing. Few development projects were launched which could absorb Karachi's large middle-class workforce; so they left. In fact the majority of professionals were in demand and invited by western countries.
I have come to realise, with some regret and a bit of sadness, that the only people who love the city are those who have lived entire lives here. When the Bengali writer Tasnima Nasreen was hounded out of Bangladesh and sought refuge in India, I used to pretend what if I was a Karachi Tasnima Nasreen; where would I go for refuge. The cities I chose were Damascus and Istanbul. When I was asked why these cities, I would say because I could identify with their culture. Their festivals, their traditions were mine too and I would feel at home. But this was just a game. In truth, I could not survive anywhere else, even though it is becoming more and more difficult to actually survive here, (not only in Karachi but Pakistan) what with inflation and less work from which to earn.
The populations of other cities have an ethos predating Independence. Karachi's contemporary ethos is entirely drawn from the people who are called mohajir. One would therefore think people of mohajir origin would have loyalty to the city. The fact is otherwise. They have no roots. Hence too many have tripped off to live elsewhere. They have sentimental attachments to the city, but prefer to stay firmly attached to their second homes in western climes.