It has been home to refugees passing through Karachi on their way to somewhere else, and it is home to refugees who made it into a city-one of such extreme absurdities that stories of crocodiles escaping from someone’s house or a fake immigration agency office doubling as a torture cell aren’t worth more than a few days in the news cycle. It is defined by raw, unplanned development, chaos, and infrastructure that has teetered on the edge of total collapse for years, but also vibrant subcultures of music and style. (Or 20 million if you don’t.) It is the most populous and the most ethnically diverse city in Pakistan. It is home to-if you believe the census-14 million people. Karachi is, perhaps, one of the greatest cities in the world. While Karachi was once marked by seemingly unending urban conflict, the issues it now faces-gentrification, development, and control of land-threaten the lives of its residents and the city’s future. They’re on the side of the road, an easy target for harassment, being pushed out from the only place they’ve ever worked, where their fathers worked, and where their children won’t end up, because Karachi’s rulers turn against the very people that make it a city.
Or that these women aren’t sitting on a pavement, protected and secure in their work. The image would rack up a lot of Instagram likes, if it weren’t for the devastating landscape-mounds of sand, steamrolled expanses, clouds of dust, debris, and the stark sight of a building smack in the middle.
A group of women in faded patterned saris sits by the side of a road, some shaded by umbrellas, with bags of dried nuts in front of them-almonds, pistachios, cashews.
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