Karachi Was Home, Depending On Who I Was Talking To

London And Karachi Are Like Chalk And Cheese But Have The Power To Shape One’s Identity In Different Ways

Many people leave home to go to university but it was not so simple for me. I felt I’d lived between two cities my whole life. I was born in London and as a child we’d spend school holidays there, a respite from the Karachi heat. Mostly these consisted of my mother taking me to museums and amusement parks but also of beautifully bored long stretches where I’d bring a stack of books from the library and read two a day. It seemed to always be raining. I liked the noise it made against the windows. I liked splashing obnoxiously through the puddles on the pavement. The little circle of the world in my parent’s house, the streets near it that began to grow familiar. This seemed enough at the time, for London to feel like home. On either side of that journey, older relatives and my parents’ friends loved to ask me: what do you like better? Karachi or London? I always said Karachi is home or both, depending on who I was talking to and what I thought they wanted to hear. I felt the same swoop as the plane descended in either direction.

CITIZEN OF SOMEWHERE ELSE