Book Review – KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME!

By Sadia Wali

 

Being an emotional and sensitive lady, I always have great inspiration to read the piece of novel that deeply interprets women issues and problems, romance, culture and traditions. One of the important aspect of choosing Saba Imtiaz novel, KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME to read as it is entirely feminist. It is a story of insider heart, how a young journalist coped up with her career and personal life, how her emotions were crushed and how she avoided stressful thoughts and managed to live a normal life. Passionate by nature, she decided to change the world by being a journalist.

KARACHI, YOU’RE KILLING ME  is a Bridget Jones’s Diary meets the Diary of a Social Butterfly, “a comedy of manners in a city with none,” as Saba describes it. A female voice narrating real life events in form of a diary which follows a sensational beginning which continued till end. Every moment is full of adventure and thrill which kept the readers intact.

The story revolves around a young journalist, Ayesha who works for a newspaper as a reporter, hopping from rickshaws to taxis, covering strange and unique stories. Her life merely moves around work whether it was suicide bombings, visit to literature festival, the Bhutto family tomb in interior Sindh, the-top fashion show or interviewing gangsters in the gang-ridden neighborhood of Lyari. She is always there on the spot with full vigor and passion.

Ayesha’s survival is heavily dependent on her friends Zara and the best friend, Saad who lives in Dubai but returns frequently to meet her.  Ayesha's own career and abysmal personal life often make her feel empty and numbed and she yearned for the company of old friend Saad whose shoulder she cries on whenever she faces mishap in her life. At various moments in the novel, she expressed her deep emotions about Saad.

Once she said, “It is kind of heartwarming to have someone care about you.”

Saad is my oldest friend, someone who I’m going to love unconditionally until the day I die”

“As teenagers, we were far too involved with our own convoluted love lives. I turned off the lights and stagger into my room feeling the giddiness that comes from using the word boyfriend.”

While reading the novel, I felt that one of the Overwhelming aspects of the novel is the characters playing their part in a casual manner whether it is party-hopping through the city's elite Clifton neighborhood, or visiting Mocca Café for coffee or getting liquor, cigarettes and drugs. These scenes switch the tone of the novel from despondency to feeling of joy. In fact,   the inner thoughts and feelings of Ayesha kept the readers occupied of what shall happen next.

As the story slowly reached its peak, every moment and every act turned out to be more spellbinding and captivating. As Ayesha faced two romantic misadventures, she felt dejected and totally broken. 

Her words touched my heart.

“Why can I never have a functional relationship with a non-troll like human?”I’ll be that girl who everyone invites to dinner out of pity because Iam unloved and broken.”

There are more sensational feelings of Ayesha that really moved me as I felt my body shuddering and I unable to control my emotions.

“My heart feels heavy, and my breath keeps catching in my throat. I need to cry and get this out of my system. It feels like I have failed at everything. For years I have focused my energy and time on my career and time on my career because trying to work at relationships with douchebags like Hasan and then Jamie just did not seem to make sense”

At last Ayesha took the most important decision of her life i.e. to leave her fourteen year old job.  - How she felt? “You are a failure. You have done nothing in the past – jeez – ten years. My life lies ahead of me, suddenly feeling like a really, really tediously long time.” 

The last scene Ayesha was informed by Saad’s mother – he is going to the airport. He’s set up a meeting with his boss in Dubai to see if he can move back. The story took a dramatic turn and here I felt a real test of emotions for a woman who yearns for a sincere relationship. Ayesha rushed for the airport in rickshaw. Roaming everywhere on the airport, her eyes searched for Saad. “ I feel like I am standing on the edge of a pit and if I take one wrong step I’m going to fall in.

And then she eventually met Saad who spoke in an indifferent way, “ Clearly you don’t feel the same way, and that’s okay, we ‘ll still be friends. I just need to get you out of my head, which is kind of impossible when you are been in my head since we were fourteen.”

Ayesha wrapped her hands around Saad and as Ayesha said, “ And for the first time in years , I feel pure, unadulterated  happiness.”

Ms. Imtiaz has managed to pull together a novel that you want to read and share with people, especially its characters and events which focused reality and moved hearts deeply.

The writer is a Research Assistant at Teachers' Development Centre