#post-Karachi

[localrants]

دِل کراچی تو نہیں جسکو بَسا دے ہِجرت

دِل وہ دِلّی ہے جو ہر بار اُجڑ جاتا ہے 💔

Dil karachi tw nahi, jisko basaa de hijrat

Dil wo delhi hai jo har baar ujarr jata hai 💔

[maihonhassan]

Tum jab aaogi tou khoya hua paogi mujhe

"When you come, you will make me feel lost."

— Jãun Eliya

[evie-doesnt-write]

I do think the US-centrism of Tumblr makes it SO boring…

[khaperai]

A night view of Victoria Road Karachi, c.1960's

[rawalism]

Office | Chiniot General Hospital | Korangi, Karachi | Rawalism

[funnyranger525]

Commissioner Karachi to turn Flagstaff House into Jinnah Library

https://hollywoodcinema6.blogspot.com/2023/03/commissioner-karachi-to-turn-flagstaff.html

[katrafiy]

I think about this image a lot. This is an image from the Aurat March (Women's March) in Karachi, Pakistan, on International Women's Day 2018. The women in the picture are Pakistani trans women, aka khwaja siras or hijras; one is a friend of a close friend of mine.

In the eyes of the Pakistani government and anthropologists, they're a "third gender." They're denied access to many resources that are available to cis women. Trans women in Pakistan didn't decide to be third-gendered; cis people force it on them whether they like it or not.

Western anthropologists are keen on seeing non-Western trans women as culturally constructed third genders, "neither male nor female," and often contrast them (a "legitimate" third gender accepted in its culture) with Western trans women (horrific parodies of female stereotypes).

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors and jargon used to obscure the fact that while each culture's trans women are treated as a single culturally constructed identity separate from all other trans women, cis women are treated as a universal category that can just be called "women."

Even though Pakistani aurat and German Frauen and Guatemalan mujer will generally lead extraordinarily different lives due to the differences in culture, they are universally recognized as women.

The transmisogynist will say, "Yes, but we can't ignore the way gender is culturally constructed, and hijras aren't trans women, they're a third gender. Now let's worry less about trans people and more about the rights of women in Burkina Faso."

In other words, to the transmisogynist, all cis women are women, and all trans women are something else.

"But Kat, you're not Indian or Pakistani. You're not a hijra or khwaja sira, why is this so important to you?"

Have you ever heard of the Neapolitan third gender "femminiello"? It's the term my moniker "The Femme in Yellow" is derived from, and yes, I'm Neapolitan. Shut up.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about the femminielli, and I want you to see if any of this sounds familiar. Femminielli are a third gender in Neapolitan culture of people assigned male at birth who have a feminine gender expression.

They are lauded and respected in the local culture, considered to be good omens and bringers of good luck. At festivals you'd bring a femminiello with you to go gambling, and often they would be brought in to give blessings to newborns. Noticing anything familiar yet?

Oh and also they were largely relegated to begging and sex work and were not allowed to be educated and many were homeless and lived in the back alleys of Naples, but you know we don't really like to mention that part because it sounds a lot less romantic and mystical.

And if you're sitting there, asking yourself why a an accurate description of femminiello sounds almost note for note like the same way hijras get described and talked about, then you can start to understand why that picture at the start of this post has so much meaning for me.

And you can also start to understand why I get so frustrated when I see other queer people buy into this fool notion that for some reason the transes from different cultures must never mix.

That friend I mentioned earlier is a white American trans woman. She spent years living in India, and as I recal the story the family she was staying with saw her as a white, foreign hijra and she was asked to use her magic hijra powers to bless the house she was staying in.

So when it comes to various cultural trans identities there are two ways we can look at this. We can look at things from a standpoint of expressed identity, in which case we have to preferentially choose to translate one word for the local word, or to leave it untranslated.

If we translate it, people will say we're artificially imposing an outside category (so long as it's not cis people, that's fine). If we don't, what we're implying, is that this concept doesn't exist in the target language, which suggests that it's fundamentally a different thing

A concrete example is that Serena Nanda in her 1990 and 2000 books, bent over backwards to say that Hijras are categorically NOT trans women. Lots of them are!

And Don Kulick bent over backwards in his 1998 book to say that travesti are categorically NOT trans women, even though some of the ones he cited were then and are now trans women.

The other option, is to look at practice, and talk about a community of practice of people who are AMAB, who wear women's clothing, take women's names, fulfill women's social roles, use women's language and mannerisms, etc WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT.

This community of practice, whatever we want to call it - trans woman, hijra, transfeminine, femminiello, fairy, queen, to name just a few - can then be seen to CLEARLY be trans-national and trans-cultural in a way that is not clearly evident in the other way of looking at things.

And this is important, in my mind, because it is this axis of similarity that is serving as the basis for a growing transnational transgender rights movement, particularly in South Asia. It's why you see pictures like this one taken at the 2018 Aurat March in Karachi, Pakistan.

And it also groups rather than splits, pointing out not only points of continuity in the practices of western trans women and fa'afafines, but also between trans women in South Asia outside the hijra community, and members of the hijra community both trans women and not.

To be blunt, I'm not all that interested in the word trans woman, or the word hijra. I'm not interested in the word femminiello or the word fa'afafine.

I'm interested in the fact that when I visit India, and I meet hijras (or trans women, self-expressed) and I say I'm a trans woman, we suddenly sit together, talk about life, they ask to see American hormones and compare them to Indian hormones.

There is a shared community of practice that creates a bond between us that cis people don't have. That's not to say that we all have the exact same internal sense of self, but for the most part, we belong to the same community of practice based on life histories and behavior.

I think that's something cis people have absolutely missed - largely in an effort to artificially isolate trans women. This practice of arguing about whether a particular "third gender" label = trans women or not, also tends to artificially homogenize trans women as a group.

You see this in Kulick and Nanda, where if you read them, you could be forgiven for thinking all American trans women are white, middle class, middle-aged, and college-educated, who all follow rigid codes of behavior and surgical schedules prescribed by male physicians.

There are trans women who think of themselves as separate from cis women, as literally another kind of thing, there are trans women who think of themselves as coterminous with cis women, there are trans women who think of themselves as anything under the sun you want to imagine.

The problem is that historically, cis people have gone to tremendous lengths to destroy points of continuity in the transgender community (see everything I've cited and more), and particularly this has been an exercise in transmisogyny of grotesque levels.

The question is do you want to talk about culturally different ways of being trans, or do you want to try to create as many neatly-boxed third genders as you can to prop up transphobic theoretical frameworks? To date, people have done the latter. I'm interested in the former.

I guess what I'm really trying to say with all of this is that we're all family y'all.

[wammypilled]

Sssooooo, there's this abomination I've been trying to write since last spring, that I really wanted to post for Mello’s birthday but honestly I think it needs some more time to marinate, just a wee bit, so I thought I'd at least post a little snippet today...

It's Wammy’s era and kinda wholesome, kinda fcked up, very silly and chaotic— so much so that I had a really hard time picking an ~excerpt. In the end I just chose this one bc I felt like it summarized the (insufferable) vibe at least somewhat decently.

Had to wait and wait and wait until I got so tired I wouldn't gaf anymore, bc this is my first time posting writing (or trying to really "write" at all) and it's so ☆nerve wracking☆ and I'm still trying so hard not to self-deprecate but honest to go— ahem, here it goes!

The city was a tragedy in three acts. Opening with the first victim: that poor van, dying on them some twenty times minimum. Second, enter the blondes’ paranoia about there being cops everywhere. And the grand finale: parking. So hard, apparently, that after two bumps, a glaze and countless reverses, Mello just made a brusque left, stopped by a tree in the middle of the bloody parking lot, pulled the handbrake and twisted the key out.

Linda relaxed so much she practically collapsed, “It’s over…”

“For you, yeah, it is…” He got out.

Without having to think about what Mello meant, Matt followed suit and hopped off. 

The asphalt was so still under his soles… solid… he almost bent down to touch it with his hand…

“Holy hell, it’s sunny!” Mello stretched, then closed the door in Near and Linda’s faces, “See you never, wankers!”

“What? Let us out! Matt, let us out!”

He also closed the door, making sure to talk loud enough for them to hear as he reasoned with his best friend, “It’s Folkestone and then on to Calais, no?”

“Ferry from Portsmouth. ‘S quicker.” Mello corrected, locking the van and then taking two fags and the zippo out of his coat pocket.

Like a moth to the light, Matt circled around the muzzle to light them on the same flame, while Linda yelped from the cabin.

“What the fuck else do you think I stole a bloody van for?” Mello’s upper lip twisted in question of her logic (as if there was anything sound about his), and Matt had to bite on the cardboard of the filter not to laugh.

“It’s nice and cosy in there, isn’t it? You’ve your snacks… Stay put.”

With the sweet, sweet buzz of bitter nicotine starting to wash over him, he found it in himself to gaze sympathetically at his girlfriend, “they’ll find you…” he assured, “eventually…”

She stared between the two of them (trying to see through the smoke?) while Near, unused to their modus operandi, twirled a white curl, gleefully interested in further developments, even though he’d very much be involved in them.

“Sorry guys, but you didn’t really think we’d tell you where we were headed, did you?”

“Matt, I swear to God!”

He quirked an eyebrow, “Babe, we’re both agnostic…”

Near actually chuckled. He was so weird, jeez…

Mello, in the meanwhile, had finally had it and turned his back on them.

Without another word, they made their merry way to the nearest entrance, their louche fairytale having them leave ashes in their wake…

For some reason he’d imagined the shopping centre would be a lot bigger, the architecture more geometric and satisfying, but now he realised that that had been a memory of a mall in Karachi, the one auntie used to take him to… which gave him a pretty clear idea of how Mello knew about that place, and also hurt to think about too hard— so, anyway, this mall here looked like a mess, straight lines and curves clashing instead of harmonising with each other. The sight didn’t make him feel cheery in the least, if anything it kind of looked like a gigantic pirate hat.

“Really, though, we could go anywhere we want, the world’s our oyster...”

“Mhm… with the lemons life gave us? Slurp!”

He could feel his fucking gums shrinking… “What is it with you and lemons today?”

“What? I love lemons!” He smirked, giving him a half-lidded, x-ray once over, “All kinds of lemons…” 

The images of Wammy x Ruvie old man smut that flooded his mind had Matt shuddering so hard he had to turn away and his ears filled with static—

“Aw, he’s just so sensitive!” Mello gave him a shove, which was promptly returned. 

A grin reflected off of Matt, easy, automatic, whole, and all the time he’d been deprived of those moments, of the pranks, their telepathy, his best friend’s touch, it hadn’t been at all.

Sunshine had never looked so pretty: squinty-eyed and toothy, the top layers of his bob flitting in the sea breeze like gold threads.

Matt inevitably felt his face warm, but didn’t look away. Mello did, slowing his pace. He’d change the subject now, Matt knew, no matter how he pleaded and yearned.

“What do we do with those cunts?”

Oh, right. 

“Linda’s probably breaking the window as we speak…”

Mello took one long last drag, and the time to smirk scornfully at his enjoyably-paced cigarette, and blew out the smoke to one side, “You shouldn’t have said that.”

Neither dared look back, but Matt tilted his head, smiling helplessly at his best friend until he rolled his eyes and pivoted on his tippy toes. 

He wondered how Mello felt, consciously falling for such a basic form of manipulation, but not for long, because that walk drove Matt fucking crazy; the moment that twat put some shoes on, one foot fell in front of the other just like a model's. Impossible not to see why he wanted to go shopping. He hoped he got to buy something cool to strut in…

[nerdyhistoryenjoyer]

This letter from Lawrence to Hogarth of 1927 begins with musings on whether Hogarth should accept the post of President of Magdalen College, which Lawrence is dubious about because of the requirement to attend Chapel services. It goes on to reveal in a postscript that Lawrence had confided in his trusted mentor about his family origins and had told his younger brother Arnold, but stipulates that his older brother Bob not be told - [source]

15th of September 1927

It will be comic if you take Magdalen. Very good for M. hard on you. I sympathize about the chapel, having just had a row here, to get off church attendance. But isn't there some sort of arrangement in the college to retire Presidents at 70? That would give you at least a happy turn at your labours. It would look bleak as a life job.

I'm very sorry about Bell. He has been a sick man for very many years.

Yes, I saw A. T's scream. If the ass had kept his temper it would have been more effective. We can afford to laugh last, any way. I've begged R. G. not to stand up for me again. As if my personality interests anyone but Cape + Doran now (soon, perhaps, to be Doran only!)

Pike is very difficult. A porcupine of a man, yet quite smooth to the hand if firmly stroked the right way.

Karachi is as you characterize it. In the spring of 1930 I shall very willingly face another month in a troopship. Till then I hope the remainder of the complete Seven Pillars will rest in your safe: probably their value will slump sharply meanwhile. I can however always auction some of the Doran ten-for-sale versions, privately. . . and so make up a motor-bike and it's kup for two years. Will I have two years? I begin to notice a sharp decline in my fatness and power. This may be partly climate and imprisonment in camp.

Yours T. E. S.

I don't think my elder brother knows anything of that story of our origins which I sent you. I told A. a little of it, three years ago, when I had an opportunity.

[paandaan]

Donation For Demolition Victims In Karachi

Karachi did not have then means to house all migrants coming in post partition. Eventually, they housed themselves. The government provided them with electricity, gas, water lines, etc. Much of Karachi has been built this way. Mujahid Colony is one of these neighborhoods. People who live here have lived here since the creation of Pakistan. They populated this vacant area and brought commerce, housing, life here. Multigenerational homes, multiethnic mohallas. Now this land is valuable for luxury developers and greedy builders. They distort and exploit the corrupt nexus of land and governance stakeholders and have used police to raid these homes in the middle of the night and fire bullets on children, drag women without purdah from their homes, use tear gas and bulldozers to clear the way. Hospitals were told not to record the injuries or take in the injured. Many died from heart attacks and extreme stress as well. Suddenly homeless with all property destroyed, they had nowhere to go. Daily wage earners asked to pay lakhs in security deposits. They lost everything.

• Mujahid and Wahid Colony faced demolitions last year

• The rubble is still lying there

• The affectees have been living in the area since the Partition

• They built the neighborhood from scratch, and the government wants to displace them to Taiser Town, where no gas, electricity, and water lines exist

• They want to stay in their own neighborhood

• Affectees have legal documents of property ownership and paid bill records of decades

Please donate to StopEvictionKHI as follows:

Here is the link to the GoFundMe:

[taraross-1787]

This Day in History: Elsie Ott, Flight Nurse

On this day in 1943, Second Lieutenant Elsie Ott departs on a grueling trip—the first intercontinental air evacuation flight. Ott was the flight nurse that day, and she would become the first woman to receive the U.S. Air Medal as a result of her service.

Believe it or not, she’d never even flown in a plane before. Where would this country be without brave ladies such as these?

Ott joined the Army Nurse Corps in September 1941, a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. After a few brief assignments in the States, she was dispatched to Karachi, India.

Little did she know it, but she was about to make history.

The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-elsie-ott

[girlactionfigure]

🛟 SHABBAT & HOLY DAY — SAFETY BRIEF — for those in ISRAEL 

via ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime

EREV SHABBAT

✡️ Erev Shabbat - Parshat Karachi - Numbers 16:1 - Korach incites a mutiny,

▪️DEAL SITUATION ANALYSIS.. (“The Land of Jihad”) What is the connection between the Israeli delegation to Qatar and the threats of an all-out war in the north?  If we examine for a moment the set of levers that Israel has over Hamas, we will find that there are not many of them. The strip is already destroyed (and the Hamas leadership doesn’t care), the IDF has already operated in every sector and the elimination of the senior officials is not in sight (as they stay deep in tunnels or within masses of civilians).

If there are no levers of pressure on Hamas, then we will look for a lever of pressure on the patron - that is, the Iranians. And there is one such, their name is Hezbollah.

The worsening of the rhetoric in recent days against Hezbollah and the threats that after the operation in Rafah the eyes will be on the North, has a dual purpose: one, to deter Hezbollah. But the second goal is more interesting.

When the Iranians realize that Israel is serious and is probably going to make a move that means tremendous damage to Hezbollah, then the Iranians themselves will pressure (Hamas leader) Sinwar to finish the deal.

The Iranians will fight to the last drop of Sunni Arab blood. For them, all Gazans will die on the way to the liberation of Jerusalem. But the Shiite Hezbollah, meat from Iran, is another story. The Iranian interest is to preserve it.

▪️YEMEN ON BEING IN LEBANON.. "We ask the Yemeni brothers living in Lebanon not to leave the country and bear arms together with the people of Lebanon and participate in fighting if necessary, against Israel.  We need to provide protection for Arab honor and our precious lands."  (( Honor, more important than life in their society. ))

▪️LEADER OF THE NEW MAJORITY PARTY IN FRANCE.. Marine Le Pen pledged:  ”Those who identify with Islamic ideology should be excluded and expelled.  French people who adopt the "ideology of the enemy" must be punished.  Radical mosques will be closed.  The Muslim Brotherhood will be disbanded.”

▪️HAMAS CAPTURES PEOPLE TRYING TO TAKE AID, BEATS AND LEAVES THEM TIED IN THE SUN TO DIE..  we are frequently asked for these videos.  Very violent, viewer discretion advised: https://t.me/arabworld301/82876.    And here they are left to die - https://t.me/arabworld301/82877

▪️ON JULY 4TH..  Pro-Palestinian protesters marched on American Independence Day in the streets of New York with Palestinian flags and shout death to America?  

▪️HEZBOLLAH SAYS.. Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah: We will stop attacking Israel only after a complete ceasefire in Gaza.

▪️DEAL POLITICS - NATIONAL UNITY MK BENNY GANTZ.. his party will support ANY responsible outline that will lead to the return of the hostages. (Meaning he is guaranteeing to provide votes from outside the coalition if Netanyahu can’t get votes from the coalition right wing parties.)

🛟 SHABBAT & HOLY DAY — SAFETY BRIEF — for those in ISRAEL 

via ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime

Chief Rabbinute instructions with Risk Adjustments and sensible advise

✡️ Note Israel Realtime DOES NOT POST updates on Shabbat or Holy-days (Israel time) UNLESS life threatening / saving. 

❗️The NORTH, draw a line from  Haifa to Afula and Tiberius, as well as near-Gaza towns..

❗️These are all HIGH risk of rocket and drone attacks.  Shabbat & Holy Day precautions REQUIRED.  Elsewhere, keep them in mind.

➡️ Prepare your safe space before Shabbat/Holy day: unlocked, MAMAD LIGHTS ON, A/C on.

➡️ SAFE TO GO TO SYNAGOGUE?  Prepare for alerts on the way, and in synagogue - know the space safe!

➡️ CHILDREN, ELDERLY, DISABLED?  In higher risk areas it may not be safe to go to synagogue.

➡️ CARRY YOUR WEAPON, even without an eruv.  Pepper spray, legal size knife, legal gun.

➡️ CALL POLICE, DO NOT HESITATE !! - If anything suspicious, CALL POLICE immediately!  Dial 100

➡️ (Silent) MONITOR FOR ALERTS :

.. SILENT TV -  Channel 14 - stream https://www.now14.co.il/live/ (doesn’t work with adblocker)

.. SILENT RADIO - 

• Kol Chai radio - on radio 92.8, 93 and 102.5. - stream https://www.93fm.co.il/radio/players/%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%93%d7%95%d7%a8-%d7%97%d7%99/

• Kol Barama Radio - on radio 92.1, 104.3, 105.7 and 107.6. - stream https://kol-barama.co.il/live/

• Galei Israel - on radio 89.3, 94 and 106.5. - https://www.rlive.co.il/station/galey-israel

.. ON COMPUTER - leave a computer open to https://www.oref.org.il/en (only in Israel) - alerts will display and sound on the screen. Turn OFF screen saver, sleep and hibernate.

.. VIA APP - leave on phone with red alert app.  Set app to YOUR area so it only alerts for your area.

✡️ It is a mitzvah to take actions to protect and save and preserve life on Shabbat, not a violation.  But ONLY actions which do so.

[i-am-adlocked]

Sherlock Holmes: Detective, Friend, Father

A series of short Adlock one-shots of Sherlock dealing with being a father, Irene dealing with being a mother, and them dealing that they have to be parents. These will be really short chapters. Around less than 500 words, probably. I know, very unusual for me. But these are prompts I have gathered from the members of my Adlock discord server. Just wanna write short fics while I'm still writing the Karachi fic I haven't published yet.

Tags: parenthood, parent!lock, parentlock, sherlock dealing with being a father, irene dealing with being a mother, they both are terrified but they do their best, the reason irene kept nero will be revealed, fluff, well a little bit, the first few chapters will be angst, hurt/comfort, it'll be great in the end though, dw sherlock will love nero so much, the reason irene even got pregnant in the first place will be revealed too

aka

I was asleep when the members of my Adlock Discord Server were discussing about Sherlock as a dad. I read their discussion, and one hour later, I finished writing and was posting the first chapter of this fic. It just came to my head. It's their fault 🤣

I told them I'll probably write the next chapter tomorrow but my boyfriend is busy gaming and I was bored so I accidentally wrote the second chapter.

[aflamethatneverdies]

Hi! So, I am writing this post to ask if anyone has any spare change that they can send today if possible or latest by tomorrow.

Context: I volunteer for a housing justice project in Karachi, Pakistan and have been for over two years, and we've been asking the government to resettle the displaced people from two main localities or give them proper monetary compensations. Neither of which have materialised despite the court orders. So the lawyers filed a contempt notice and now some government officials have been summoned.

The main hearing is tomorrow morning Pakistan time, but we need to get people whose homes have been demolished, there, and protest outside the Supreme Court, and for that we need funds.

Many or most of the people whose homes have been demolished are daily wage labourers who cannot afford to miss a day of work. Protesting and showing up outside the Supreme Court before and during the hearing is important because it puts pressure on the judges to rule favourably and is basically our own chance to get any sort of compensation from the government.

If anyone feels like throwing any spare cash that would be much appreciated. Please DM for bank account details. Reblogs or signal boosts would also be much appreciated. It's urgent and time sensitive, which is why I am even asking.

I have added two photos from our protest today where a lot of working class people whose homes have been demolished showed up to protest.

[ID: a group of people and young children outside the building of a Supreme Court. end ID]

[rawalism]

Good Bye | Cantonment Board Korangi Creek | Rawalism

[hidden-pk]

🌄 Hello Tumblr! Let's Explore Pakistan Together! 🌍

Hey there, Tumblr world! 👋 I'm Usman Ghani, the face behind Hidden PK, a blog dedicated to uncovering the hidden gems of Pakistan. From the stunning peaks of Gilgit-Baltistan to the vibrant street food of Karachi, I’m here to share the unseen, the unexplored, and the totally unexpected sides of Pakistan.

What to Expect? Expect travel tips, cultural deep-dives, delicious food guides, and everything in between. If you love unique cultures, epic landscapes, and fascinating stories, you’re in the right place! I’m excited to take you along on this journey through my blog posts, photos, and stories.

✨ Here's to celebrating the rich culture and stunning landscapes of Pakistan, one post at a time! And don't worry, I'll throw in a good dose of humor, optimism, and maybe a little sarcasm too. After all, travel is an adventure, and adventures are meant to be fun. 😉

Why Tumblr? Why not! I love the community vibes here, the creative spirit, and the way people share what they're passionate about. Whether it's a scenic snapshot of a hidden valley or a deep dive into traditional culture, I'm here to connect, share, and learn.

Stay tuned for more content coming your way, and feel free to ask questions, share your thoughts, or just say hi! 🗺️✈️

Let’s uncover the hidden beauty of Pakistan together! 🌸