My personal comments are at the end of this article. Link will not be directly accessible from below; you have to register first with the FT [Friday Times].
Perhaps parties are the answer after all, Mao Chapman, Friday Times
The venue was visible a mile away. Powerful searchlights turned skywards and roaming the clouds in irregular arcs cast long fingers of light into the night’s haze like luminescent waves for attention. Closer, a heavy and directionless beat from the bass speakers inside seemed part of the air as vehicles disgorged small groups, chattering and sleekly dressed, who thronged towards the doors. Searchlights danced overhead, the bass beat got louder near the entrance, became a swirling world of sound as we crossed the threshold to merge effortlessly with a pulsing, heaving, partying sea. Hundreds of people flooded the darkened room, and what space wasn’t filled by a person was filled with the layered synthetic drumbeats of house music. High on a balcony overlooking the crowd was a strange figure in headphones: the DJ, mixing the music from behind a bank of equipment. Lights and colour played over the walls and crowd and when a flickering strobe took over, the rhythmic movement of limbs, hips and chests became a stilted staccato, incongruously reminiscent of silent 30s Hollywood.
Pick a large city in Europe or the US, or any major city in the world. London? Hamburg, Buenos Aires or Istanbul, perhaps? How about Tokyo or Cleveland? The chances are this kind of scene wouldn’t raise any eyebrows in any of those cities. Big clubs, dance parties and raves have been a part of the social landscape in much of the West and beyond for years now, more popular in some places than others, but very much a staple of youth culture. Even those who don’t go are familiar with the idea. In the UK, despite a brigade of knitted sock-wearing traditionalists mounting a flustered resistance, clubs and large-scale social parties are an accepted part of growing up. But the scene I just described wasn’t in Cleveland, Tokyo or Hamburg. To my surprise, I found it in the sprawling city of Karachi.
After several months in Lahore instilling a rather conservative estimate of the limit of acceptable social behaviour in Pakistan, I felt like I’d stepped into a desi cyberpunk version of the Moulin Rouge. This was something that didn’t fit, that came from abroad, that had got in under the radar somehow. What was it doing in Pakistan? The first impression wasn’t just skin-deep either – the next few hours were as youthfully debauched as any mainstream venue in the UK. Surely this doesn’t really belong in Pakistan, I thought, does it?
Through the eyes of this gora, part of the richness of Pakistan exists in the way everyone, and I mean everyone, has a wonderful enthusiasm for picking out in excruciating detail exactly what problems and people are plaguing the Land of the Pure that day. Whether whispered conspiracy theories, outlandish social reform proposals, or detailed strategic analysis, each man and woman has their own version of “Ah yaar, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this country…” Every new statement, appointment or hint from Pakistan’s leadership lets loose a torrent of support and criticism, with every development decried in one quarter as much as it is welcomed in another.
A young Punjab landowner recently demonstrated a novel version of this attitude. “It’s all about alcohol,” he said, “once everyone can get alcohol, once everybody’s chill with it, then they’ll socialise, mix, move on. Extremism will be over. Look at Dubai; sorted. They’ll never have the same problems there.” Whether or not one subscribes to his view of the social powers of booze, he made an interesting point. He saw the lack of anywhere for large-scale public socialising as the main barrier to a more tolerant and accepting society. Once that was achieved (in his eyes by legalising plonk and opening bars) then the power of casual, relaxed social interaction would gradually assert itself and the beast of religious extremism would not only be slain, but its ghost exorcised. Standing in that party in Karachi seemed to suggest the idea was at least possible. After all, here was a scene that wouldn’t have been out of place anywhere in the West, where this kind of socialising is ubiquitous. If it exists in Karachi, then why not elsewhere? Is there a reason such things can or should only be enjoyed by the higher reaches of society?
Although the number of people enjoying it seemed to suggest otherwise, perhaps this kind of mass socialising is just alien to Pakistan’s culture, an invasion of Western values which would not be welcomed by Pakistanis. But that seems a silly idea. For a start, the kind of public socialising we’re talking about needn’t be dancing away the small hours to a synthetic soundtrack; there are many people in Western countries who avoid all that and meet friends and strangers in different environments. It needn’t be partying in the music-and-dance sense, but an open public forum for entertainment and interaction could allow a cosmopolitan social mixing that might ease sectarian tension, so the thinking goes.
A public entertainment space has existed in all cultures except where it has been repressed. It is not an evil Western idea to want to gather, Pakistanis seem to want to do it as much as anyone. I have heard few Pakistanis praising Zulfiqar Bhutto or Ziaul Haq for cracking down on those short kurtas and bars and discotheques and fun. Memories of this time still provoke wicked smiles and sparkling eyes from those who enjoyed them. It is true that the modern parties in Karachi might look like events in Manchester or Manhattan, that’s the model they work on. But the transfer of cultures is not a one-way invasion, but an exchange. The massive rise in popularity of fusing subcontinental bhangra rhythms with modern dance music in the UK even says that despite being unable to do so at home, Pakistanis are teaching the rest of the world how to party.
“Karachi is five years ahead of the rest of Pakistan,” someone remarked to me recently. If that is true, then change is in the air. Five or so years ago the children of wealthy families used to wish and plead for family members returning from Dubai to bring McDonald’s burgers with them as a rare treat. Today, great numbers in Pakistan’s cities can gobble Big Macs like there’s no tomorrow. Today, parties like Western clubs make Karachi buzz. In a few short years that may be standard practice. Will that justify predictions of a stable society nurtured in revelry? Probably not on its own, but if accepted as something inherently Pakistani that doesn’t need resisting on cultural grounds, and if encouraged so that people can recreate to the hilt of their inclinations, then maybe a badly-needed and fascinating intra-social dialogue might result.
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My personal comments: A good Guppy friend passed this along to me. i’m hoping for a somewhat constructive discussion. From what i understand in my present position, i doubt very much that this is even a semi-normal aspect to Karachi; i am sure this goes on in very defined circles, not at all something that is common by any means. Is this something though that is becoming, gradually, more of a trend in Karachi? Does anyone have any constructive thoughts regarding the author’s last statement in particular - i can find a few aspects i disagree very strongly about, especially his sweeping generalizations (IMHO) re: this type of interaction with a “stable society”. i am not certain where he gets that from. If the analogy with Dubai was feasible in reality, then Dubai would have more political stability as an offshoot… and that’s not going to happen for as long as Sheikh Zayed and his 14 sons are around to keep the monarchy going.
Anyways, hoping for some constructive personal thoughts regarding this especially perhaps from those who are currently living in Karachi or have lived there for a long period of time.
