Stalking Sadequain

Covered in dust and sweating in my all-black, full-sleeved shalwar kameez, having already spent a busy morning in the wholesale market that no Karachiite in her right mind visits at mid-day, Cuz and I approached the State Bank of Pakistan-it was on the way home, it'd only take a minute- to see Sadequain's (famous Pakistani artist, remember?) really big mural, Treasures of Time, that I'd read about.

Stop 1: Back gate
Cuz: Bhai, can we see the mural in the bank museum?
Security Guard: Not possible.
Cuz: Bhai, this is my sister from America, she's writing a book and wants to see the Sadequain mural inside. [Phi smiles winningly from passenger seat].
Guard: Go to the next gate.

Stop 2: Second back gate
Cuz, wiping guard's spit from his eye (he was a sprayer, not just sayer), approaches next gate.
Cuz: sister, book, America.
Guard: Not possible.
Phi [smile] and in bad Urdu: please sir...book...America...
Guard: fine, but you can't park in here.

Stop 3: Elbow Room Restaurant
We ended up parking at a restaurant across the street where, when the doorman opened the door, Cuz, without hesitation, marched right in.
Smoth as butter, he said, "Sir, this is my sister from America and she's writing a book. Can she see your fine establishment?"
Eyes lit up and we were given free rein, I made some token notes on God knows what, and we shared a Sprite for good measure. Four waiters bid us goodbye as we left.


Stop 4: Security checkpoint inside main campus
Cuz: This is my sister, etc.
Guard: Not possible.
Cuz: She's writing a book, etc.
Phi: Please sir, book, came from far...
Guard: Go to the next gate.

Stop 5: Security checkpoint between bank and museum
Cuz: This is my sister, etc.
Guard: Not possible.
Cuz: She's writing a book, etc.
Phi: Please, sir...America...book...research...
Guard: Follow me.

Stop 6: Official looking man's desk.
Cousin: This is my sister...
Desk Man: Not possible.
Cousin: Book...
Phi: Sir, please, America, book...
Desk Man: Take her in.

Guard from Stop 4 marched us over to the beautiful sandstone building in a Roman Pantheon-esque style. Cuz and I flashed each other secret smiles. I recalled all I'd read about over the years and my heart raced in anticipation.

Stop 7:
Guard: It's the guard's lunch time. No one's there.
Phi and Cuz: speechless.

Standing in the hot hot sun, drenched with sweat, tummies growling, we stared at the large lock on the double doors. Not wanting to wait for 1.5 hours, we left, still in shock to have been so close yet...

This morning at 9, we were back. Authorotatively giving Guard 4's name, we breezed through the previous day's stops and marched up the [open] museum steps. We were duly rewarded, though Cuz may consider it punishment, with not one but four murals. The official guard showed me the info panels, the paintings, the plans for the future. And then the very enthusiastic helper man, a calligrapher himself, opened up another room with more facts about the artist and more prints and paintings by him.

Cuz was made to take pics of the info pannels while I looked and asked questions.

Now I've been to the Loeuvre, the Met, the Gugenheim, the VAG, Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, Academia... But standing before the 60 foot mural of a fellow Pakistani, I was never more moved by a work of art. All the murals were larger than life, painted in a style so unique, with subject matters so purely Pakistani, that if I hadn't been surrounded by Cuz, Helpful Calligraphy Man, Guard 4 and Official Guide Man, I would have totally shed a tear.

Stalking Sadequain

Covered in dust and sweating in my all-black, full-sleeved shalwar kameez, having already spent a busy morning in the wholesale market that no Karachiite in her right mind visits at mid-day, Cuz and I approached the State Bank of Pakistan-it was on the way home, it'd only take a minute- to see Sadequain's (famous Pakistani artist, remember?) really big mural, Treasures of Time, that I'd read about.

Stop 1: Back gate
Cuz: Bhai, can we see the mural in the bank museum?
Security Guard: Not possible.
Cuz: Bhai, this is my sister from America, she's writing a book and wants to see the Sadequain mural inside. [Phi smiles winningly from passenger seat].
Guard: Go to the next gate.

Stop 2: Next gate
Cuz, wiping guard's spit from his eye (he was a sprayer, not just sayer), approaches next gate.
Cuz: sister, book, America.
Guard: Not possible.
Phi [smile] and in bad Urdu: please sir...book...America...
Guard: fine, but you can't park in here.

Stop 3: Elbow Room Restaurant
We ended up parking at a restaurant across the street where, when the doorman opened the door, Cuz, without hesitation, marched right in.
Smoth as butter, he said, "Sir, this is my sister from America and she's writing a book. Can she see your fine establishment?"
Eyes lit up and we were given free rein, I made some token notes on God knows what, and we shared a Sprite for good measure. Four waiters bid us goodbye as we left.


Stop 4: Security checkpoint inside main campus
Cuz: This is my sister, etc.
Guard: Not possible.
Cuz: She's writing a book, etc.
Phi: Please sir, book, came from far...
Guard: Go to the next gate.

Stop 5: Security checkpoint between bank and museum
Cuz: This is my sister, etc.
Guard: Not possible.
Cuz: She's writing a book, etc.
Phi: Please, sir...America...book...research...
Guard: Follow me.

Stop 6: Official looking man's desk.
Cousin: This is my sister...
Desk Man: Not possible.
Cousin: Book...
Phi: Sir, please, America, book...
Desk Man: Take her in.

Guard from Stop 4 marched us over to the beautiful sandstone building in a Roman Pantheon-esque style. Cuz and I flashed each other secret smiles. I recalled all I'd read about over the years and my heart raced in anticipation.

Stop 7:
Guard: It's the guard's lunch time. No one's there.
Phi and Cuz: speechless.

Standing in the hot hot sun, drenched with sweat, tummies growling, we stared at the large lock on the double doors. Not wanting to wait for 1.5 hours, we left, still in shock to have been so close yet...

This morning at 9, we were back. Authorotatively giving Guard 4's name, we breezed through the previous day's stops and marched up the [open] museum steps. We were duly rewarded, though Cuz may consider it punishment, with not one but four murals. The official guard showed me the info panels, the paintings, the plans for the future. And then the very enthusiastic helper man, a calligrapher himself, opened up another room with more facts about the artist and more prints and paintings by him.

Cuz was made to take pics of the info pannels while I looked and asked questions.

Now I've been to the Loeuvre, the Met, the Gugenheim, the VAG, Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, Academia... But standing before the 60 foot mural of a fellow Pakistani, I was never more moved by a work of art. All the murals were larger than life, painted in a style so unique, with subject matters so purely Pakistani, that if I hadn't been surrounded by Cuz, Helpful Calligraphy Man, Guard 4 and Official Guide Man, I would have totally shed a tear.

I'd like to thank...

You know how when you open the first few pages of a novel, the author has dedicated it neatly and tidily to one person, maybe two? Well, my list of dedicatees is fast growing, almost into its own novel.

I used to joke that I'd dedicate the book to myself for all my hard work. But my sisters and a couple of close girlfriends read my (shitty) first draft and loved it, alluding to scenes and characters over the years, which was so encouraging. So they were on the list. Then my husband went and acted supportive when I said I was quitting my job and writing for a year, never complaining about the loss of his dining room, which got plastered with my notes, outlines, and pictures, nor about having to eat Subway or Chipotle's for dinner, even though technically I'd been home all day. So he made it onto the list too. Since I arrived in Karachi for my reserach, half of Pakistan is involved in the effort.

An elderly man who is convinced I'm writing a history of the Parsis (I'm not, but who isn't confused about what I'm doing?), emailed me an article that was gave me great background info. My seventeen year old, very distant cousin was forced to explain the dating rituals of his generation to me, blushing like mad, since:
a) as I was later told, I'm an "auntie" in his eyes
b) his mum and aunt were in the kitchen putting away the lunch stuff
c) his two great-aunts were dozing on the sofa beside him.

Last weekend we went to the beach for a picnic, and when someone noticed I was writing down the very colourful language that was being emitted, everyone jumped in and helped me fill a whole page full of profanity so strong I was too embarrassed to write down the English translations.

But here's the best example of how this really is a collaborative effort, a group novel: back in September, my uncle came to Vancouver thinking he was visiting his parents and sisters. I, too, was visiting from California and when I found a real live Pakistani at my disposal, I consistently kidnapped him and took him to Starbucks, begging him to explain all things Karachi to me because back then I hadn't planned on visiting myself. He had been helping me over email for months, keeping careful track of the commission I would soon owe him, and he was familiar with the gist of the novel. It was at the Starbucks on 3rd and Lonsdale that he suggested I base my character's family business in Bolton Market.

When I arrived in Karachi, BM was on the top of my list of places to see, since my main character goes to work there everyday. But when I arrived, what to do, Uncle worked all day at another end of town. One weekend at a wedding, my uncle approached me, with a familiar face in tow (said familiar face will, upon special request, be called Pesi). Phi, said Uncle, I'd like you to meet Pesi, his father's is the office at Bolton Market I'd mentioned to you. I'd met Pesi the weekend before, at one of my cousin's parties, and we had instantly bonded over our mutual Canadian-ness and our mutual tendancy towards BS-ing. Just like that, poor Pesi was now trapped, lured into my web of using-people-for-my-own-selfish-gains.

Last night, while I dined (a business dinner, I like to call it, since I was furiously making notes the whole while), I texted my cousin to arrange a visit to BM wtih Pesi. Which he promptly did as I chowed down on mutton zafrani and gulabjamun (all in the name of research).

This morning, my poor cousin, who had been on the phone till 10:30 the night before on my behalf, drove me at 9 am to one of the most congested parts of Karach, an area he himself had never been, nor had most Karachiites who weren't traders or wholsalers of some sort. After some initial Parsi-pana (my father had visited this very office long ago, and our grandmothers, Pesi's and mine, had been great friends) Pesi and his dad were gracious, going about their business in their tiny office as I made notes and took pictures of things like the tiling on the floor and the old leather bound record books high up on the shelves and the arrangement of their desks. Pesi had told me in the office about the surrounding areas and when my eyes lit up, he accompanied us on an impromptu walk: we explored Bottle (pronounced Bot-uhl) Gully and Paper Gully, where I juggled note taking with stepping over pools of freshly spat paan and ogling empty bottles of Marmite, Absolut Vodka, perfume, and, my favourite sight of all, bottles filled with bottle caps

Finally, my poor cousin took me to Frere Hall, my favourite building in all of Karachi, where I'd been trying all of the week before to see the Sadequain (famous Pakistani painter) mural that was on the ceiling of its main hall. Now my cousin is not the arty type, but he took me nonetheless. He even got into it, saying, wow Phi, I didn't know this was here. He lasted a whole four minutes before pulling out his Blackberry. On the ground floor, we visited the Frere Hall library, which wasn't exactly open to the public, but I got us in with my stellar Urdu...or maybe because they wanted me to stop speaking Urdu. My cuz made a video for me of the history of the hall, which was hand written on three pieces of chart paper (it took all my willpower not to pull out my red pen and correct the horrific grammar), while I looked around at the musty old books wondering if this room would make it into my novel.

Back at home, my aunt had lunch waiting for me, which was great, because we all know writers are too lost in their own world to bother with such plebeian things like cooking.

Since this is my blog and not the sophisticated novel-to-be, I can say: I love you all, you wonderful Karachiites.

Quick catch up for those of you whose ears I haven't chewed off about this: for the past 4.5 years, I've been writing a novel set in Karachi, where I myself grew up. This month, I'm visiting the city of my childhood to do research for said novel, which has been completed in a very rudimentary draft. My reesarch entails two things: 1. Going around the city armed with a notepad and camera, looking at the places my characters have visited and 2. Interviewing people about life in Karachi to get insight into the Parsi/Pakistani culture.
Amid working my way through my checklist of venues used in the novel, eating my way through the city, and general party-sharty-ing, my research is getting done in the most unexpected ways. It happens in snatched conversations on the Boat Club balcony, it happens over family meals, it happens as I am driven around this chaotic city, passing barber shops built into walls, child hawkers, and groups of hijrahs (eunuchs). All that I've imagined in my mind's eye over the last 4.5 years is here, all around me.

I'll end (I feel I must end since blogs are supposed to be short) with some highlights from week one:

1. An old man, his white beard hanging down to his chest, seated primly with one leg crossed over the other, one arm folded over the other, atop a donkey cart as the animal cut leisurely across six lanes of oncoming traffic from opposite directions.


2.Huddling in a small chaat shop in Bohri Bazaar, its blue walls plastered with large Urdu writing, the shop itself big enough for only two other pairs of patrons: two shalwar-kameezed girlfriends out for lunch, and an adorable couple, she in complete burqua, only her eyes visible, he in modern shodern jeans and a t-shirt, collar up, Elvis style. Only their ankles touched under the table.

At this point, the foreigner within, the one I've been trying to clamp down on desperately since I arrived, emerged with a vengeance. I really wanted a picture of the puris that were stacked outside the shop. The chaat maker, who sat high up on a pedestal, a stage really, surrounded by the puris and mounds of potatoes, with little boxes of pastes and sauces, who I had been trying not to include in my picture thanks to my North American sense of privacy, insisted on being in my picture. So I took one. He asked to see it, found it too dark, his face too much in the shadows, and asked me to take it from the other side, in the sun. This, too, he asked to see and finally approved with a nod. I returned to my aunt and cousin who was trying hard to pretend not to know me because apparently locals don't take pictures of chaatwalas.