The recently held 7th edition of I am Karachi Talks brought together a set of speakers who shared their insights into the city’s constantly changing dynamics.
The seventh edition of I Am Karachi (IAK) Talks took place in Karachi last week, with four key speakers including renowned playwright Anwar Maqsood, transgender model and activist Kami Sid, one of the founding members of Karachi Literature Festival Dr Asif Farrukhi and popular TV host Iqrar ul Hasan in attendance. They weighed in on the subject in question - ‘Karachi is changing’ - amidst an engaging audience.
For Anwar Maqsood, Karachi is a cosmopolitan city that welcomes everyone with open arms, gives them opportunities to educate themselves and spaces to live but the one thing that the city lacks is a sense of ownership.
The television host and playwright said that he appreciates IAK for working towards restoring a sense of ownership in the city’s young and old alike. The brains behind thought-provoking theatre plays such as Pawney 14 August, Sawa 14 August, Siachen and the most recent Kyun Nikala had the audience hooked while discussing the census controversy.
He claimed that the findings of last year’s census gathering exercise showed that in Karachi, they only counted the population of men – as the exercise was called ‘mardamshumari’.
IAK Talks is a series of inspirational discussions between citizens who are champions in their own league, who dare to dream and strive towards achieving those dreams with determination, who are role models of patience, perseverance and persistence. The purpose of these talks is to create a platform that motivates people to work together for the betterment of Karachi, according to a press release.
The speakers who were present at this year’s conference were given 20 minutes each to share their insights into the city’s constantly changing dynamics – from inclusivity to violence to resilience to tolerance.
One of the founding members of the Karachi Literature Festival (KLF), Dr Asif Farrukhi, took the audience on a tour of old Karachi with his tales, reflecting that he often hears people complain about how everything used to be better back then.
“They say the mangoes were sweeter, the watermelons were sweeter, even the pumpkins were greener…but the haalaat were not so bad either,” he noted.Also an author and a recipient of the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz awards, Farrukhi said that the changes in Karachi should not always be seen as something negative.
Iqrar-ul-Hasan took the stage next amidst a roaring crowd and spoke about how his show had steadily gathered a healthy following that led him to start a movement.
The movement was simple. He got people to sign up as volunteers and then worked with them to improve their neighborhoods and cities. In Karachi, for example, he said that hundreds of people joined him last December to clean up the city’s walls.
To date, he added, more than 1.2 million people across the country have joined him as volunteers.
Host of the evening, comedian Shehzad Ghias did a good job in keeping the audience entertained by poking fun at himself and the city which has given its people a lot of joy, good food but also left many without a cell phone. Towards the end, Ghias invited president IAK, Amin Hashwani to say a few words.
“Karachi badal raha hai, Karachi is changing…we know that… it has been changing for the last 70 years. The question is how is it changing; is it negative or positive?” he questioned. “There is a quote by Confucius which says: ‘to put the world in order we must put the nation in order; to put the nation in order we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order we must first cultivate our personal life’. We must first set our hearts right.”
He went on to explain that this needs to begin from those who are in position of influence, privilege and power as well as belong to the educated class. “Eventually, these are the people who will bring about a change. When you read history, it is always the elite and intellectuals who lead a revolution and the masses follow,” he concluded.
