Book Review: Karachi You're Killing Me!

Ah! Thanks to God at last I found a book about my love Karachi and that too it is work of fiction. Allow me to tell you if you are a book-lover and a Karachi-lover then here is treat for you, grab this novel by Saba Imtiaz, a Karachi based journalist who has tried for the first time to write fiction, and she has put everything in her novel including her soul, and for next few days you would be entirely lost in the horrifying scenes about Karachi coming out from Saba's pen.

The book has been published by Vintage Books (Random House India) in 2014, is a story of female journalist Ayesha working at Karachi, one of the deadliest cities in present world, the story is narrated as first person singular starting from new year eve, when Karachi's elite goes out partying, drinking and dancing to welcome a tension free new year in Karachi, but Karachi is not a city to rest, it is always on run and there is always space for something to happen. And this is what Saba pens down about the mega-city of our times through 265 pages of her novel.

  There is drama, bomb blast, rape, murder, politics, drink and dance parties, gang war and a life at Karachi, and Ayesha who is working for young industrialist Kamran has to report all this, living in an apartment with her father who is advertising Ayesha is always busy in performing her journalistic duties so that she has to sacrifice her boyfriends, but there is Saad a playboy settled in Dubai claiming to bedding every woman of the city no matter single, married or even nine months pregnant, is ready to help her out as she is his school friend.

 Saba masterfully switches from one scene to another with total grip over the story and flawlessly takes her reader to the next scene. Mohammed Hanif the author of another splendid novel about Karachi Our Lady of Alice Bhatti writes about Saba's novel: ‘racey, pacey and laugh-out-loud funny. A Murree beer-soaked love letter to Karachi and journalism.'

 Then there are the fellow journalists who never cooperate with others and call it professionalism one being Ali from News 365, he is the tycoon of his field and behaves like that, here is an extract about Ali from the novel:

‘I trudge into the newsroom and see ten sub-editors watching TV. Ali's exclusive with the eyewitness is on.

‘He's such a good reporter,' says Sara, a 24-year-old liberal arts graduate who's under impression that Imran Khan is going to save the country because she and her friends think he looks good in footage from old cricket matches.

‘Seriously. Why can't our reporters be like him? They're all lazy idiots,' says Kamran, who once told me that Ali's refusal to join the paper meant he was horrible human being and that I was so much better by comparison.
So much for that.'

Being a journalist myself Saba reminds me my own sufferings as a journalist, through her novel I have just come to know that journalists throughout Pakistan have the same sufferings and owners especially those of print media behave exactly the same in every part of country. Previously I used to think that it is only Sindh journalism, where we the journalists are treated like slaves and are overloaded with work like donkeys, but good God Saba's novel has changed my thinking, now I feel relaxed that I am not the only one who is paid on 27th day of month for doing investigative reports, feature stories and long columns, and all I get in response from my owner is: ‘Mr… try to be an asset for the publication and not a liability.'

It feels good at the heart that you have the same miseries as Ayesha, the main character of novel has, and you are not the only one to double check your pocket before purchasing a pack of cigarettes, entire journalistic community especially those working in the now off-coloured print journalism. She has rightly pointed the charms and charisma of electronic journalism. Then there is the professional jealousy that how the other incompetent fellow made inroads in a huge media house. Read it in Saba's words and you would have an idea:
‘Instead of ‘hello,' Zara opens with, ‘So you've heard?'

‘Heard what?' I've been at gym, what happened, god, a bomb?
‘No, though you might want to sit down for this. Ali has been hired by NBC.'
A flash of anger courses through my veins. Ali the smarmy, story-stealing reporter---has been hired by NBC? How did this happen?'

  Yes, there is always that question in total despair that how did this happen, and why not you, why are you still in that very same paper doing everything that is considered as nothing for good…. And remember there is a Kamran in every journalist's life, who has a bulletproof vehicle to his children to be dropped and picked from school but not a penny in his pocket to pay salaries of journalists. This is the naked truth of journalism, which Saba has penned down masterfully. I wish this novel to be translated in other languages also, especially the regional languages of Pakistan.   
 
The story comes to an end with Saad and Ayesha going home happily with smiling faces as they've bond for each other. Truly speaking this novel has got everything about Karachi, the heart of Sindh and is one breather; you simply can't put it down waiting for days to read if you are true Karachi lover.