Instant City

September 12, 2011
Reviewed by Mohammed Hanif.

On December 29, 2009, a bomb blast targeted the annual Shia procession in Karachi. Forty days later another Shia procession was attacked. When the victims, survivors, and their distraught families arrived at Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital, another bomb blew up outside the emergency ward. And as the debris from the blast was being cleared, someone noticed a computer monitor strapped to a motorbike parked in the compound. The bomb disposal experts discovered yet another improvised bomb inside the monitor and defused it. Just another day in Pakistan’s largest city., In the absorbing Instant City, Inskeep, cohost of NPR’s Morning Edition, sets out to recreate the events of these two days. The opening reads like a sophisticated thriller as the author traces the movements of a number of people: the participants in the procession, the law enforcers monitoring their video screens, shop owners about to lose their half-century-old businesses, and ambulance drivers who’ll have to clear up the bloody mess. As we reach the computer monitor strapped to a motorbike in the midst of the carnage, Inskeep plunges us into another turbulent time—the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan—and he gives us very readable capsule histories of the various communities and political forces that have brought us to this hospital compound., This is an intimate book about a mega-city, and Inskeep succeeds by keeping his ambitions modest. By trying to understand the horrific event of one particular day, he keeps his narrative well paced and full of small surprises. The book sparkles when Inskeep takes an unexpected turn and follows a stranger, or when he tracks down a new trend to illuminate a new facet of the city. The old man he encounters outside a liquor shop, the slum under construction, the upscale leisure park tell us more about the city than any bomb blast., Occasionally, Inskeep overreaches—such as when he tries to understand the mood of the nation by deconstructing the wardrobe of its founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, or speculating about the personal lives of Pakistan’s most famous philanthropist couple. It’s in the ordinary fates of the ordinary people that he finds the extraordinary spirit of Karachi. The story of Tony Tufail, a cabaret manager who built Pakistan’s first casino but could never open its doors is heartbreaking, yet foreshadows the new religious trends. The story of Nasir Baloch, a young activist, fighting to save his neighborhood park, is evoked in loving detail. Baloch takes on the land mafia encroaching the park and is shot dead.
Inskeep tries to offset such tragic stories by comparing Karachi to other megacities around the world, and in the end includes an obligatory set of recommendations. , Not many politicians read books in Karachi, but if they were to read one, let it be Instant City. (Oct.), Mohammed Hanif is author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Vintage, 2009). His new book, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, will be publishsed by Knopf next May. He lives in Karachi.

September 1, 2011

NPR's Morning Edition co-host Inskeep explores Karachi, Pakistan, a mega-city of hopes and conflict, "a field of operations for the makers of buildings and bombs."

Karachi is an "instant city," where, as with Shanghai and Istanbul, the population has soared with unprecedented speed. In 1945, Karachi had a population of 400,000; today it is 13 million. Millions arrived during the partition of India, still more from what is now Bangladesh, and millions more have fled the violence of Pakistan's northern border with Afghanistan. Amid a combustible mix of religious difference—though the population is overwhelmingly Muslim—and divisions of class, language and even ancestral home village, Karachi is a city where "[l]ifelong residents and newcomers alike jostle for power and resources in a swiftly evolving landscape that disorients them all." As venal political parties both breed and feed on the city's divisions, battles over the riches to be made, especially in real estate, have changed the city. Inskeep examines this part of the culture, but he also looks at those simply trying to make a difference. An emergency-room doctor tended to all wounded by bombings and riots, as the emergency room itself became a target for terrorism. Another resident built a charitable empire by providing cheap or free ambulance service and pharmaceuticals. An organizer helped the poor build housing and find basic services, creating self-governing enclaves within a debased political system. Developers have dreamt of, and at times realized, skyscrapers, malls, hotels and city centers to attract the foreign capital Karachi needs to survive in an age of globalization. Inskeep seemingly looked at everything and talked to everyone—religious zealots, political bosses and people simply trying to get by. Here he finds the promise of Karachi, "the most powerful force in the instant city; the desire of millions of people—simple quiet, humble, and relentless, no matter what the odds—to make their lives just a tiny bit better than they were."

Passionate and compassionate reporting on an extraordinary city.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011

Megacities keep mushrooming up in our overcrowded world, and Inskeep, the cohost of NPR's Morning Edition, uses Karachi, Pakistan, as an example. In 1941, it was a sleepy port town of 350,000; now it's home to more than 13 million, often violently divided over religion, ethnicity, and politics yet noted for innovative projects aimed at helping the poor help themselves. So much literature on the Middle East, but this goes behind the headlines and has that NPR advantage. With a national tour.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2011
Karachi, Pakistan, with a population of 13 million, is about 35 times larger than it was in 1945. It's an excellent example of the instant city produced by a shift in population from rural to urban areas that strains resources and often exacerbates ancient social tensions. NPR Morning Edition cohost Inskeep details how Karachi developed after the 1947 partitioning of Pakistan from India. He draws on the history of Muslim independence and explores the 2009 bombing of a Shia religious procession in a popular market, which sparked new terrorism from old animosities. He describes a city of great wealth and open sewers, which is plagued by spasms of political killings. Karachi suffers from age-old conflicts between Sunni and Shia, Hindus and Sikhs, and Pakistan and Afghanistan, with land mafia taking advantage of them all. Inskeep provides insight into the international instant-city problem, the agglomeration of hugely different, competing points of view in an area in which few trust the government. Photos enhance this fascinating depiction of one of the world's largest, most strategically important cities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)