Coloring is Fun
Karachi Scribbles V I love the locations of our schools*. We enter a labyrinth of narrow, dirt roads, over open sewers and past little kids grinning cheekily from street corners, poking at our dabba -van as it rattles within inches of them. Houses and shops crowd close, built almost into each other, side by side, sharing boundary walls and cups of tea over neighborhood gossip. The shops are numerous and tiny, almost identical, and I see them at every other turning, with their plastic jars of biscuits and candy and bored keepers, their customers usually under the age of 10, making well-balanced, slow decisions about spending a rupee or two. Sleepy dogs and small children looking after even smaller children scatter the unpaved lanes, every now and then there is a long trail of garbage, plastic bags of blue, black and pink, peels of potatoes and squashed tetra packs. It’s in these neighborhoods that I realize where the actual population of Karachi lies. If you think “ Aa...