Aliens in Karachi

A couple of years ago someone sent me an email containing a low resolution and shaky video image of some kind of sea creature lying panting on a charpoy while Quranic verses were recited in the background. The accompanying text of the email explained that fishermen had found this mysterious sea creature a few days out of Karachi at sea and that when the creature died the fishermen recited verses from the Quran to protect themselves from its evil. The video was entitled ‘mutant.’

I spent a couple of weeks fascinated by the video not just because I wondered what kind of sea creature this was but also because I’ve always been curious about aliens in Karachi.

How come there are no UFO sightings here in Pakistan? What if all those aliens in all those Hollywood and now too, a couple of Bollywood films came to Karachi instead of landing within convenient distance of NASA?

Would the alien’s ship be stripped for spare parts by wily scavengers?

Would overzealous hosts overfeeding them inadvertently kill the aliens?

A recent trip to the Baltimore Aquarium settled one puzzle. The ‘mutant’ video from the email had depicted a plain old common stingray. And if the aquarium that my parents often took me to as a child, near the Fun Land in Clifton had been still functional, perhaps the fisherman would not have been so afraid.

In the meantime, returning to Karachi after a hiatus of two years has brought me closer to answering at least some of my hypothetical questions about hypothetical aliens landing in Karachi.

If aliens were to arrive in Karachi on an anthropological fact finding mission of the kind described so often by Ursula Leguin- their initial report to base might look something like this:

At first glance Karachi looks like a complicated network of palaces surrounded by the settlements of the palace menials. In each neighborhood one finds a large and materially superior settlement of houses and established in convenient proximity to these residences of the Lords are the corrugated roof, or D-class semi permanent constructions that house the plumber/electrician/mechanic and cook/driver/cleaning woman that supports and maintains the home of the leader/strongman/village head.

The fancies and the fantasies of these privileged superior abode dwellers cannot be contained within the walls of their A/B class construction, concrete homes and are therefore liberally sprinkled along the streets and byways where the royals dart up and down in superior vehicles. Men, women and children smile down vacantly from large, at times lighted and at other times video signs where the characters are depicted as enjoying mattresses/ magic money cards/ large amounts of food/and cleansing agents, amongst other materials. It is supposed that the privileged are so fond of these items that they like to be reminded of their existence even upon leaving the homes where these items surround their waking hours.

In the meanwhile the workers weave in and out of driving lanes offering their rich rulers the opportunity to pick up whatever necessary items the car owners might need upon their journey, flowers, balloons, combs and coconut slices.

The denizens of Karachi appear to be inordinately fond of food. Various styles of edibles are either pictured on the signs on roadsides, or kept in shelves in glass boxes like objects in a museum. Food stuff is also prepared and displayed on street corners, in gardens, on sidewalks, in 4 story buildings, from the side of vans, off carts wheeled by men, and off plates hanging from wires of the shoulders of men.

Karachi’s fine citizens appear very fond of water and annually collect it in large quantities around their city, preferring to find ways to travel around it rather than release it away from their homes. The annual hot weather, water festival is marked by large gatherings on street corners where tires are burnt, possibly in some archaic harvest ritual that has endured even as the settlement has evolved from an agricultural to urban lifestyle.

Participant observers have recorded that conversation in this season revolves around the water and around the climate control. The water storage ritual appears to have an impact on the power generation capacity of the city and locals for once overcome their apparent regular fondness for food in preference for the water ritual- large quantities of food are taken out of homes and stores and discarded as the weather grows hotter, the water stores increase and the power generation is ceded from communal centers to individual devices.

Our researchers have been unable to ascribe a theory to this pattern of behavior and tend to the view that it is perhaps a vestige of an ancient practice the rationale for which is lost to time.

At this time the researchers aboard this ship cannot recommend considering this vast and scattered settlement for possible habitation by our kind particularly as property prices are legendary in their inconsistence, further, the annual tire burning ritual is harmful to our life forms while the water storage ritual is conducive to the development of harmful bacteria and pathogens which can also in turn pose a threat to the existence of any settlement brave enough to consider Karachi as a possible home. This crew would like to recommend that either a different planet be considered, or at the very least, a different portion of this planet. Karachi’s more educated and affluent citizens seem too to agree with this last statement – a process referred to locally as “the brain drain”.

If the aliens spent more time investigating the habits and fancies of Karachi’s worthy citizens then perhaps they would be able to answer some puzzles for those of us who live in this city and yet feel like aliens:

1- Why do Karachiites enter cinemas and begin to find their seats 30 minutes after the movie has started?

2- Why do Karachiites scream into cell phones?

3- Why do Karachiites going to the gym for a workout and ostensibly to burn calories, then refuse to walk 20 yards to the water fountain for a drink of water, instead calling out to the gym instructor to fetch a glass of ‘mix.’

4- Why is “excuse me” so often used for aggressive discourse and not as an apology in this fine city?

5- Why is it that if you email a Karachiite you will not receive a reply unless you first phone and let the person know that you have emailed him/her.

6- Why do educated people apparently capable of using modern technology such as camera phones and email, circulate blurred images of stingrays under the guise of Karachi mutants instead of google image searching various sea creatures and finding out what the mutant might be?