At 14, Karachi seemed like an oyster I desperately wanted to make mine. I wanted to go to awesome parties and be where the cool kids were at, but they just wouldn't tell me. Damn you cool kids, let a geek catch a break. And also my parents were the kind that enforce curfews and all kinds of other law. There was no way I was ever going to an awesome house party or whatever else people did back then. Hang out at Evolution doing karaoke, I guess. So I spent my time making friends with a man's best friend, which incidentally in my house meant a book and not a dog. Let's just say I despise the Sisters Bronte with a passion that I have not felt since.
What I was allowed to do was hang with my friends and do homework. Back in the day before every other teenage girl was some kind of social media queen with duckface profile pictures, that's exactly what my friends and myself ever did; homework. We also made dance routines to Cream. True story.
At 18, a little older and now allowed to hang out with BOYS! I became some kind of pooper that refused to pay 300 rupees to see the same people I never spoke to at school, for on-campus parties. What would that achieve anyway, I would reason with my friends, each one more socially adept than I was, and most of them in serious long-term relationships with boys and girls they were totally gonna marry someday. That I was kind of skint was one reason, another was that since I was the most single person anyone knew at that point, my friends and their boys would fuss over me too much. 'Are you getting bored?' they would ask as we sat through a Ganda Banda set at the first ever Rockfest at the Hippodrome (remember the Hippodrome? It has gone to the horses! Ha ha). 'Yeah,' I would smile politely. Let me listen to this With or Without You cover, bitches, I would think.
Things got better, of course. As time went on, Karachi's number one answer to lack of a swinging social life emerged: Espresso. You know how all these I heart Karachi types call Karachi the city that never sleeps? It's all the coffee they're guzzling at Espresso (which has the best coffee, by the way. Espresso, please call me to endorse the rest of your menu). I spent more time drinking coffee in my 20s than anything else. Plus it seemed so grown up: just having one of your friends actually drive an actual car to a place 10 minutes from home. I was outta control people!
You may wonder, what does this have to do with the nightlife in Karachi? Shouldn't a single and gainfully employed person be doing more than people watching at Espresso? Yes, friends, she should. And she does. She comes home from work, slips into her PJs and watches Kaun Banga Crorepati with her parents over a late dinner at 8 p.m.; like all daughters of god-fearing, not-billionaire dads do. Then she reads a book like a well-trained paragon of obedience and goes to bed. Please don't feel sorry for me, I have some very cool friends who have dragged me to Fez in the last decade and I have punched out my fair share of people being drunk or obnoxious or both. Like I said before, it's a wonder I've lived a life unscathed.
Every week, we see pictures in GT of all these fabulous people usually dressed in black, laughing into cameras before they presumably set out to join a funeral procession. Or the next page, because that's where you'll see them in about five seconds. They are glittery and holding fancy cocktails, and identical pouts. I would like to know who these people are, where I can find them, and if they will hook me up with frozen blue Margaritas?
Suffice it to say, Karachi is a very misleading place to grow up in for a 14-year-old. They should just send kids to Islamabad in their teens, as practise for what our adult years would be like: Quiet, clean, asleep before midnight, with the Hathora Group camped out in the hills.*
*Islamabad kids, I know you have Kuch Khaas and Bumbu Sauce. Stop whining, you've already won.
What I was allowed to do was hang with my friends and do homework. Back in the day before every other teenage girl was some kind of social media queen with duckface profile pictures, that's exactly what my friends and myself ever did; homework. We also made dance routines to Cream. True story.
At 18, a little older and now allowed to hang out with BOYS! I became some kind of pooper that refused to pay 300 rupees to see the same people I never spoke to at school, for on-campus parties. What would that achieve anyway, I would reason with my friends, each one more socially adept than I was, and most of them in serious long-term relationships with boys and girls they were totally gonna marry someday. That I was kind of skint was one reason, another was that since I was the most single person anyone knew at that point, my friends and their boys would fuss over me too much. 'Are you getting bored?' they would ask as we sat through a Ganda Banda set at the first ever Rockfest at the Hippodrome (remember the Hippodrome? It has gone to the horses! Ha ha). 'Yeah,' I would smile politely. Let me listen to this With or Without You cover, bitches, I would think.
Things got better, of course. As time went on, Karachi's number one answer to lack of a swinging social life emerged: Espresso. You know how all these I heart Karachi types call Karachi the city that never sleeps? It's all the coffee they're guzzling at Espresso (which has the best coffee, by the way. Espresso, please call me to endorse the rest of your menu). I spent more time drinking coffee in my 20s than anything else. Plus it seemed so grown up: just having one of your friends actually drive an actual car to a place 10 minutes from home. I was outta control people!
You may wonder, what does this have to do with the nightlife in Karachi? Shouldn't a single and gainfully employed person be doing more than people watching at Espresso? Yes, friends, she should. And she does. She comes home from work, slips into her PJs and watches Kaun Banga Crorepati with her parents over a late dinner at 8 p.m.; like all daughters of god-fearing, not-billionaire dads do. Then she reads a book like a well-trained paragon of obedience and goes to bed. Please don't feel sorry for me, I have some very cool friends who have dragged me to Fez in the last decade and I have punched out my fair share of people being drunk or obnoxious or both. Like I said before, it's a wonder I've lived a life unscathed.
Every week, we see pictures in GT of all these fabulous people usually dressed in black, laughing into cameras before they presumably set out to join a funeral procession. Or the next page, because that's where you'll see them in about five seconds. They are glittery and holding fancy cocktails, and identical pouts. I would like to know who these people are, where I can find them, and if they will hook me up with frozen blue Margaritas?
Suffice it to say, Karachi is a very misleading place to grow up in for a 14-year-old. They should just send kids to Islamabad in their teens, as practise for what our adult years would be like: Quiet, clean, asleep before midnight, with the Hathora Group camped out in the hills.*
*Islamabad kids, I know you have Kuch Khaas and Bumbu Sauce. Stop whining, you've already won.
Two posts in a week, which hasn't even ended yet. I like where this is going!
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed for increased frequency, gentle reader.
ReplyDelete