Re: Bahria town
It is not just about prostitution areas of Pakistan but the unfortunate mentality that any female walking alone on street is a prostitute. My parents have a house in another city and have no interest in moving to a different city or even a different house within the same city. If I decide to move, I will have to live on my own and during my 2-3 trips, I learned the local mentality well. It scared me. My mom used to read news out loud to make me listen… News about how females living on their own away from their families were abducted/raped/killed. I used to close my ears to those news until I came to know about the similar cases happening with girls from my own contacts. Then how the secret police start stalking you assuming that you are either a prostitute or a foreign agent maybe because there is no concept of a female working/living alone in Pakistan? Before I moved, I had completely different views about the country. I used to consider ISB the most cosmopolitan & clean city. But growing prostitution should not be confused with modernism. And then due to probably unstable politics and the whole islamic freedom fighters thing, a female walking alone on the street is looked upon quite suspiciously too.
So I decided to return to my nest and not expose myself to assumptions, judgements of local holy people, dirty ogles, filthy men and all those things I got to see in the most cultured city of Pakistan.
Then I decided to explore another city (without naming the names for privacy). A mid aged woman on the flight told me a few incidents that happened with females in that city. Scared me again. She asked me, “Akhbar nahi parhti? News nahi sunti”? These things are quite common in Pakistan. You will be better off living at your parents’. This is Pakistan, girl. Your mother is correct. Go back.
Since then I did not dare explore more cities of the great muslim culture. Made me understand why people opt to move to live in cultures they consider to be morally corrupt. But they take their hypocrisy with them too. Unable to admit the cultures they left behind have nothing islamic about them.