"Letter from Karachi" in The Hindu (original) (raw)

Somehow I thought that if I ever went to Pakistan, I would perhaps cross the Wagah border and make my way to Lahore and then Gujranwala, where my four grandparents came from. It was an idealist vision, fuelled partly by another generation's nostalgia, and my years of teaching colonialism, Partition, and all the rest. Instead, as it turned out, I landed at Jinnah International Airport in Karachi on an Emirates flight from Dubai. I went there to give a keynote address on Delhi at a conference on megacities organised by my university in the U.S. and the University of Karachi.