Melting-pot constituencies : ‘Karachiwala : A subcontinent within a city’ by Rumana Husain

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'In the eighteenth century, Karachi was a small walled city with a population of a thousand inhabitants living in an area of 0.12 sq km,' starts the brief preface to this new coffee-table book by Rumana Husain (innovatively designed by the writer's daughter, Asma). From there, Husain takes readers (or viewers, in case one does not feel like reading) into the family lives and homes of some of the diverse inhabitants of Karachi.

Husain, a 'Karachiwali' herself, is a prominent figure in the city's art and activist circles. Her extensive research and interviews about the city's various communities provide valuable anthropological insights and nuggets of information about this once-sleepy little British-built seaport, which has since swallowed up the fishing villages that used to surround it. The area of the city nearly doubled in just the decade following 1961, from 368 to 640 sq km. Today, it sprawls over a vast 3500 sq km, from the sandy seafront to barren hilly outskirts and beyond. Karachi's over 18 million-strong population lives in housing ranging from makeshift tents and shantytowns to cramped high-rise apartments, modest townhouses and palatial bungalows.

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Himal Southasian
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