Feature 
 

Urban Life

Why Do We Stay?

The Red Line BRT project, meant to symbolise fast and efficient transport, has instead brought years of hardship to residents along University Road in Karachi — an ordeal that shows no sign of ending

By Mamoona Salahuddin | October 2026

The alarm sounds at 6:15 a.m., and the first noise isn’t from birds or traffic. It’s the metallic click of the kitchen knob, followed by a moment of silence. Is there gas available today? In Karachi, checking for gas takes priority over checking the weather. My mother is already in the kitchen, standing by the stove like a sentinel. The flame ignites for twenty minutes, maybe thirty if we’re fortunate. It’s one of two opportunities we have. Miss it, and breakfast turns into yesterday’s paratha reheated on an electric hotplate that trips the breaker if used alongside the fridge. We eat quickly because the water tanker is expected between 7 and 9, and “expected” is a generous term.

I leave by 7:30. Three years have passed since the lane outside our Nazimabad home was last fully paved. It completely gave up after the previous monsoon. These days, it’s a patchwork of patched asphalt, potholes, and dust that rises with each passing bike and gets on your clothes before you’ve gone fifty meters. Sometimes the municipal truck comes to spray water, but all it does is transform the dust into mud, which then becomes a slick that motorcyclists can ride on.

The shops have made a trail out of old bricks, so you learn to walk at the extreme edge. Open gutters, trash bags torn open by crows, and the subtle sourness of standing water that never quite drains are all part of the fragrance. Here, the terms “dirt” and “scum” are not theatrical. They are merely background. They can be found in the corners of parks that were meant to be parks, on the bottom half of automobile doors, and on the soles of your shoes.

Once you reach University Road, the real test begins. This one stretch has been an unhealed wound for years. Construction of the Red Line BRT project started, halted, and resumed, leaving concrete pillars, dug-up lanes, and barriers that cast long shadows over everything. On a good day, the travel from Nazimabad to Gulshan, which used to take twenty minutes, now takes an hour. It takes two on a bad day. The width of the road has been cut in half. Overnight, diversions emerge. One week, you’re using the service lane; the following week, it’s also closed, and you’re crammed between a bus and a truck with just inches to spare. Construction dust coats windshields, hair, and lungs throughout the day. Because the drains were damaged and never fully fixed, the same area becomes a river when it rains. We are all caught in the same crawl: office workers, students, teachers, and patients from adjacent hospitals. University Road has caused people to miss flights, job interviews, and tests. We make jokes about it because we would cry if we didn’t. “Red Line” was meant to refer to speed. It has meant years of gradual pain for those of us who live nearby.

A water tanker is double-parked as men drag a heavy hose into a house. Buses lurch forward, belching black smoke, then grind to a halt. Another vehicle swerves to avoid a crater beside a construction barrier and nearly shears off a rickshaw’s side mirror.

Horns are not signals. They are punctuation. They mean “I’m here,” “I’m impatient,” and “I exist.” The journey should take fifteen minutes. It takes forty-five. Everyone calculates the price of petrol — Rs 280 a litre — out loud. “Do I take the longer, clearer route and burn more fuel, or sit here and burn time?” We choose time. Even when it isn’t, it feels cheaper.


The office is in a Clifton high-rise. At least the Wi-Fi and fans keep running because the building has a generator. Load-shedding still happens, but it is scheduled and has its own WhatsApp group. This is how Karachi works now — through WhatsApp groups. One for the street, one for the building, one for tanker rates, and one for the gas schedule. The gas returns at exactly 9 a.m. If the pressure holds, it comes back again around 5 or 6 p.m. Just as people in other cities plan their evenings around the weather, here you plan yours around the gas.

This is Karachi life. Not heroic, not tragic. Just steady. The city and its people never stop breathing. We keep going because to halt would be to acknowledge our weariness. And we’re not finished yet.

During the 30-minute lunch break, the only option is nearby. The same five places: a biryani shop, a burger joint, a chai dhaba with plastic chairs, and two cafés that charge 1,200 rupees for a sandwich and call it “artisanal.” That’s Karachi’s problem. There is always somewhere to eat. Eating is the activity. When you want to meet a friend, you say “let’s grab something.” When you’re bored on a Friday night, you drive to a restaurant. You eat when you’re celebrating. You eat when you’re grieving.

There are no public spaces in the city that invite you to simply sit and enjoy some quiet me time — alone or with others. The beaches are dirty or blocked off. The parks have broken swings, and the guards ask why you’re there. Libraries are few and close early. So we end up at the table — the only place with air conditioning and no questions asked.

The chaos feels different when you’re back on the road at six in the evening. Delivery bikes, office taxis, school vans, and families heading out to “do something” all converge and are funneled toward University Road or one of its clogged detours. Half-finished stations sit like skeletons beneath the towering Red Line pillars. Dust rises from the construction site and settles over everything. Commuters lean out of bus windows to see if traffic will move today. It rarely does.

Near the houses, a faint rotten-egg smell lingers in the air — a sign that the gas has returned and someone has left a burner on. The water pressure is low again. On our block, people store water in bathroom drums and rooftop tanks. If the tanker fails to arrive this week, you pay four thousand rupees for one and hope it isn’t half mud. Nobody talks about this tax. You simply pay it and move on.

By 8 p.m. the city grows noisier. Generators hum. Under yellow lights, vendors push carts loaded with corn and fries. Children play cricket in the middle of the road — the ground they once used was sold and turned into a new food plaza. Last month another one opened, complete with valet parking and neon signs. Inside, people laugh and take photos. Ten feet from the still-blocked barricades on University Road, a man sleeps on cardboard. Karachi is that close. Extremes are stacked on top of one another until they become invisible.

I check the group before going to bed. “Gas at 5 a.m. tomorrow.” “Tanker delayed.” “Avoid University Road — three lanes closed for piling work.” This is the daily briefing. You carry it with you as you fall asleep. And when you wake up, you start the process all over again.

People want to know why we stay. It’s not because we fail to see the problems. Every day we face them on University Road, in the bills, and in the daily struggle for necessities. But there’s also the neighbour who brings curry when you’ve run out of petrol money. The uncle at the corner store who keeps a tab for you when the salary is late. The way the city feels briefly forgiving for ten minutes as the sky turns orange over the water at dusk. The conversations over tea at one in the morning, when no one can sleep because of the heat and noise.

You are never quite at ease in Karachi. It gives you people. It gives you stories. It wears you down with years of traffic jams and construction dust, yet right in the middle of it, it startles you with kindness. It is both life-giving and draining.

Here, a typical day is made up of small calculations about money, time, infrastructure, and your own patience. To get fuel, you rise early. You set aside money for water and gas. University Road can take two hours of your life, so you plan everything around it. You can’t clean up the whole city, so you learn to ignore the trash. There’s nowhere else to meet friends, so you go to a restaurant. Tomorrow, you repeat the entire process.

This is Karachi life. Not heroic, not tragic. Just steady. The city and its people never stop breathing. We keep going because to halt would be to acknowledge our weariness. And we’re not finished yet.

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