There are many reasons to love Karachi but the security situation isn’t one of them. Yes, we know, apparently we’re a dangerous city and everyone’s a terrorist (but not really). That’s usually why noone visits Karachi. But apart from the cliches Karachiites usually give, of how the spirit of the city is alive and the colours of the city are so pretty, we want to give you real reasons to love this city.
We want to offer you something no city will. We want to give you stories. To find Karachi stories, we visited all the nooks and crannies of the city to report from. Okay, that is impossible: Karachi is a HUGE city. It’s the third largest city in the entire world. (Currently there are 23 million odd people that populate this crazy little piece of land) Therefore it’s not possible to see all the nooks and crannies. So we narrowed it to the gallis. Yes, the gallis are sometimes very unoriginally named after the businesses which runs on these streets. Kurta Galli sells Kurtas while Fish Galli is made up of stores that sell fish that you can buy as pets for your aquariums. One such galli which we absolutely love is the Botal Galli. Everyone knows about this street: it sells bottles. But every now and then you’ll find a bottle or two that will make you glad that you braved the crazy M.A.Jinnah traffic.
Getting to this street is the hard part, but once you get there, you can just get off at the beginning of the street and walk through it. This street is in the process of getting a new name as the businesses here have started to change to keep up with the trends. Earlier, glass bottles used to dominate everywhere: even Coke used to come in glass bottles. But ever since disposable plastic bottles came into the scene, the shopkeepers started to scratch their heads wondering what their ‘bottle shops’ would sell.
One such guy, Rizwan, sits in his shop, selling used alcohol bottles. The bottles average Rs.200 each ( Skyy bottles are my favourite. They are found in abundance here. You can use them to make cool DIY lamps with fairy lights that can be found in shops that sell party decorations) These bottles are obviously empty. I feel the need to clear this because shop owners have often been heckled by the police for selling alcohol whereas they are only selling empty bottles.
Anyway, everyone’s finding an alternative but the most popular one has been perfume. Most shops have now started to sell perfume and the bottles are now being used to give the perfume away in. Which is why the galli is now also called ‘Perfume Gali’.
Actually, you can find all kinds of products to fill up the bottles with. Here is some ‘Hair Destroyer’. Very affordable, one bottle costs under a 100 bucks.
You can also find some ‘Clean Sing’ and ‘Scurb’ here.
However, there are other gallis that are not named after the things that they sell. Well, the next gali is named after something that money can definitely not buy: love. Yes, there is a street named after love, called Prem Gali. Prem Gali does not sell love (or anything shady or illicit). It is simply one street in Karachi University that is named after the ‘lovers’ who come and meet there. The galli has been burned down once by a radical student body organization called Islami Jamiat-e-Taleba for promoting ‘obscenity,’ but KU students tell me that the bite sized aaloo samosas there are a must. Also, we were unable to photograph the place as I was warned that once some party members broke a student’s camera for ‘glorifying obscenity’.
There is one place that perhaps does sell love. Or at least something close to it.
The Paper Market is quite a beautiful galli to lose yourself in. So many colours and happy, celebratory people running around, buying wrapping papers and decorations for parties which they are about to throw for their loved ones.
The mood is festive and bright and it’s definitely a mood lifter in this otherwise gloomy city. There are a lot of things you can get here to do fun crafty things. For instance you get all kinds of wrapping paper here, and fun cardboard boxes to make your gifts look better. One box will cost you roughly Rs.35 (depending on the size obviously: the bigger the box, the bigger the note.)You can get decorations for a wedding or for birthday parties. Everything is very reasonably priced as well. However if you’re looking to buy in bulk then you might have to haggle a little bit.
The realness of this city comes with knowing its streets. You have to know how to conduct yourself with strangers, how to haggle with shopkeepers, how to catch a rickshaw and where to go once you’ve gotten it. These streets seem uninviting at first, but once you try to get to know them, you’ll find that Karachi ki Galiyaan are quite friendly.
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