Re: Middle-class lifestyle
Ha! True that.
Being middle class in Pakistan (and everywhere else these days) usually means fighting for what’s left of your sanity, relegating books to a luxury past-time for most. On a recent trip to Karachi my mother was doing the rounds in Liberty Books/Urdu Bazar armed with the usual book-list I always hand anyone heading East. She asked for a few titles, mainly politics, Murata’s ‘The Tao of Islam,’ Said’s ‘Orientalism’ among others. After being told only 2 out of 10 titles were available she turns to the clerk in exasperation, “Log kitaabein nahin phartey kya?” With a twinkle in his eye he replies, “Baji, dange-fasad phelane se fursut ho, tab na.”