Going for Friday Prayers Print

I spent my formative years as a nomad, bouncing between Africa to Europe and the Middle East until I was twelve and we made one last move. Home was eventually Karachi, Pakistan. Karachi is where I grew up and made friends who remained in touch for more than a year. It’s where I scrounged for coins when I was broke and brought home a shiny red car and driver when I was successful. It’s where I buried my mother and my father, where I married and divorced and cried over an empty womb. It’s where I took refuge and found solace after COVID took away my brother. Karachi is where I returned to after two and a half years in another city when I lost half my family, including a beloved pet. Painting was a way to fill empty hours in an empty house full of memories. Over the years of lockdown and remote working, it’s become a way to observe and document the people, places, and moments that make Karachi what it is; from the ever-present crows to the mobile stores, the motorcycles, the rickshaws, the dirty streets, the street food, the powerlines, the makeshift ingenuity of small businesses, the monsoons, the dust, the ancient trees and architecture, the men, women, and children that seek shelter against a relentless sun and teeming humanity. Karachi is the overcrowded, sprawling, beating heart of Pakistan and I love living here.