1,400 Kilometres to Karachi
What did I think I was doing? What made me think I could make this trip by myself, a woman, in Pakistan, driving across the country on my own?
Mom died in January 2019, suddenly and unexpectedly. After her death, I packed up the house and flew from Karachi back to Islamabad, where I lived and worked. I brought my cats back with me — Yoda, 15, Snickers, 15, and Samurai, 12 — perhaps not the smartest move, but it was better than giving them away to someone else.
Neither my sister nor I could face packing up my mother’s things after her death. Waiting a year to do it afforded us some distance, some ability to control our emotions. So she bought a ticket for 12 December. I took a month off work, and contemplated buying a ticket for 11 December.
Then Yoda fell seriously ill.
His illness upended my plans. I had to be in Karachi for a month, and I didn’t want to leave him with strangers while I was gone. I had to take him with me, but I wasn’t sure if he could survive the trip. From previous experience, they wouldn’t let him into the cabin, and he’d have to be at the hangar 3 hours before the flight. It would mean at least 6 hours in the carrier for a sick cat. I couldn’t do that to him.
So I came up with the bright idea of driving to Karachi. My friends had something to say about that: “You don’t have a car.”
I could rent one, but that was ridiculously expensive. So I decided to buy one. That was a lightbulb moment. I talked to colleagues at work and vacillated for almost three weeks between cars and banks and where to break up the (according to Google)16-hour journey (because, handing over the wheel to my imaginary friend when I got sleepy was not on the cards).
Five days after I found a bank whose terms I liked, five days after I got the loan, five days after the car had been booked, Yoda died.
He’d been sleeping with me for three weeks, curled up under my comforter, his small head nestled on my pillow, and a paw on my shoulder or arm, as though contact was essential for his health. Then I came home from work on a Thursday and found his stiff body in a back room, hidden behind a box.
He died on 21 November 2019, 10 months and 10 days after Mom died.
I began to rethink my solitary 2-day drive across Pakistan. The whole point of the drive was to keep Yoda comfortable in an air-conditioned car instead of cooped up in a cage surrounded by strangers. I wanted to take him home to the house he’d lived in for so many years, to let him die where he grew up. Instead, he’s buried somewhere off the Kashmir Highway in a dense forest of trees. Why would I do it anymore? I could catch a flight and be there in two hours instead of two days!
Having a car in Karachi would be useful, however. And I had two more cats, one the same age as Yoda. Perhaps leaving them alone in Islamabad for a month wasn’t the best idea.
It took me a week to revive the plan. I decided to leave on 10 December, spend the night with friends in Multan and then travel on to Karachi the next day. And I was taking both cats with me.
On the morning of 10 December, I stood by the sink where Samurai and Snickers were hiding (they knew nothing good happened when their carriers and suitcases were in the hallway) and I thought, what the hell am I doing? The voices of a couple of colleagues at work (well, just one, really; he knows who he is) were in my head.
“What happens if the car breaks down?” (It was a brand new car. I was worried about taking it on a long trip without breaking it in first.)
“Do you even know how to change a tyre?” (As it happens, I do.)
“You’re going to drive through Sindh. There are bandits.” (At night, yes. But I’d be driving through Sindh during the day.)
“What if your wi-fi cuts out? You could easily get lost.” (On the motorway? There are signs.)
“Do you even have a weapon?”
I had a paper cutter. I put that in my bag the night before as the voices in my head became relentless. In the morning, they were deafening. I reconsidered. What did I think I was doing? What made me think I could make this trip, a woman, in Pakistan, driving across the country on my own?
The only thing was, I had spent a huge chunk of my savings on the down payment for the car. I couldn’t afford a plane ticket at the last minute. And my sister was landing in Karachi on the 12th. She didn’t have keys to the house.
I pulled myself together. The scary voices had never done this drive themselves. They were fear-mongering because this was unknown to them. Conventional wisdom from our forefathers tells us the country is dangerous, that a woman travelling alone is liable to be car-jacked, raped, or murdered. That she is helpless in the face of technological or mechanical failures. That people aren’t going to help, they’re more likely to steal your valuables and leave you in a ditch on the side of the road.
All of this is probably true. But, generations later, this is a different country, and I’m not helpless.
I pulled the cats out of the cupboard under the sink, coaxed them into their carriers, and loaded them into the car.
Six months later, in June 2020, I did the trip again (I also drove back to Islamabad with my two cats in January 2020). With experience, I was better prepared. Back in December, I was relying on the second-hand experience of friends who had made the trip.
That first time, I took all morning to settle my nerves before I left Islamabad. I had two different wi-fi devices with me, the route programmed into my phone, and Google’s American voice giving me directions: off Kashmir Highway towards Lahore, all the way to the Pindi Battian interchange, then down the M4 to Multan. I drove carefully; I was unfamiliar with the car and still a little superstitious of over-stretching a brand new engine. I had my playlist blaring and the heater was on because it was (for a Karachiite) freezing.
An hour outside of Islamabad, the voices of fear were tiny pinpricks in the rear-view mirror.
Sunara and Ali, friends in Islamabad who routinely made the trip, offered me advice. Yes, the motorway was now open up to Sukkur. Filling stations and rest stops were not. Ali suggested I fill up the tank in Sial before I got onto the M4 to Faisalabad. Sunara suggested I start a WhatsApp group and share my live location. I added my sister in Rochester, a cousin in Karachi, and a couple of friends in Islamabad.
My friend in Multan sent me her location. “You should be here by six,” she said. She routinely made the trip in less than six hours. I added her to the WhatsApp group so she could (literally) see me coming.
The road was excellent, but I kept my speed to a respectable 100 kmph, occasionally calling out to my cats to ensure they were still alive. I made two stops, one on the first rest stop out of Islamabad for some tea and to make sure my cats knew where the water and food was. The second was just before Pindi Battian to refill the tank.
There are mile (kilometre?) markers on the motorway, which I kept track of. If I had to call for help, I needed to know where I was at the time. I went over the Ravi and Sutlej rivers, and enjoyed rolling farmland unfolding around me. The M4 was practically deserted. The motorway segment to Multan was fairly new, so traffic was spotty, almost non-existent. But around four in the afternoon, the fog rolled in. It dropped over the green farmland like a soft grey blanket and brought dusk with it. I could still see the road, but it was fuzzy, and I resisted the urge to take off my glasses and wipe them down. And when darkness fell, I was disoriented. I was driving through a tunnel, and the soft fields and lush greenery were now a blank, black wall. There are no street lights on the motorway, just reflectors that glare back at you with menace. My speed dropped to eighty. Cars travelling much faster than me whizzed by me on the right. (On the motorway, at least, people follow road rules.)
A line of turning trucks made me slow down at Shorkot. There are barriers across the road there that force you to turn into Shorkot’s toll plaza. I paid a hefty Rs. 670 toll at Shorkot, drove through the plaza, took a u-turn about 100 metres down and got myself another toll ticket to get back onto the motorway. I’m not sure why they’ve done this. Perhaps they’re short of funds?
Whatever the reason, the Shorkot municipality needs to substitute those barricades for ones that have reflectors on them because I didn’t see them. If I hadn’t slowed down to cope with the darkness, I would have run straight into them.
I don’t remember how long it took from Shorkot to Multan. I do know that Google pulled me off the motorway at some point and onto the National Highway. Suddenly, the road was uneven and motorcycles — which I hadn’t seen in seven hours — were weaving in and out of a line of cars that hadn’t been with me on the motorway. Multan itself, when I got into the city proper, was confusing. Narrow roads were squeezed by a city-wide flyover which, I assume, is an orange, blue, or green bus line — the PML-N’s pet transportation project — that hangs over the entire city, or at least, the part I was in. I took several wrong turns on roads bustling with pedestrians, motorcycles, rickshaws (which I hadn’t seen since the last time I was in Karachi), buses, and bicycles.
When I finally pulled into my friend’s driveway, it was almost eight hours since I’d left Islamabad. I was tired and stiff, and worried about the cats, so I pulled them out first, letting them out of their carriers into the sumptuous room prepared for me. I put down food and water for them, set up their litter tray, and then, went to meet my host.
The ground underneath was smeared with blood, and in my rear view mirror, as I sped past them, I saw the remnants of the accident on the car’s front grill. Roadkill. The motorway was new, and animals were not yet aware that crossing it meant likely death for them. I instantly slowed down.
Departure at seven am in Multan was much easier than my arrival. The streets were empty, clean of the mayhem that I drove through the night before. With dawn and a good night’s rest, I was prepared for the day-long trip I was about to embark upon. I filled the tank, because, just like the stretch from Pindi Battian to Multan, Multan to Sukkur had no rest stops or fuelling stations. If I emptied the tank before Sukkur, I would have to get off the motorway to refuel.
An hour out of Multan, I saw a car pulled up on the shoulder. Three men were dragging an animal off the road. The ground underneath was smeared with blood, and in my rear view mirror, as I sped past them, I saw the remnants of the accident on the car’s front grill. Roadkill. The motorway was new, and animals were not yet aware that crossing it meant likely death. I instantly slowed down. Killing an animal would be horrific by itself, but damage to my car would mean I could be stranded on the motorway. I started keeping note of the mile markers again, and vigilantly watching the edges of the motorway for movement.
By eleven am, I was succumbing to highway hypnosis. After miles of unrelenting undulating tarmac and only one or two vehicles on the road, my eyes began to close. Over-vigilance didn’t help, it just strained my eyes and made me sleepier. So at the first chance I got, I pulled over into a small shed-like enclave that they’d set up every 10 kilometres. I took a 20-minute nap before resuming the journey. It helped.
The National Highway
The [National Highway]cuts through small towns and almost every hour, a sign warning me that there was a town ahead (slow down, people around) would flash by me. These edges of small towns were usually littered with ramshackle shops, mechanics, donkey carts, people on bicycles, kids, and lots, lots, lots of animals.
At the Sukkur Rohri interchange, you have to get off the motorway and join the National Highway. It takes you past the city of Sukkur, which is just across the Lansdowne Bridge, and then on to a rough, weaving trail filled with lumbering trucks and through fields and fields of date palms.
It’s not the motorway, that’s for sure. And there are parts of the road that look like it routinely rains jackhammers. But I managed to maintain a good speed. I followed other cars’ paths, swerving away from potholes and ditches, and comfortably overtaking large convoys of trucks. Even on the National Highway, and especially if there are smaller cars on the road, trucks will stick to the left lane, allowing us to pass them by at fairly good clips.
Unlike the motorway, however, you’ll see motorcycles and rickshaws on the highway. The road cuts through small towns and almost every hour, a sign warning me that there was a town ahead (slow down, people around) would flash by me. These edges of small towns were usually littered with ramshackle shops, mechanics, donkey carts, people on bicycles, kids, and lots, lots, lots of animals.
The contrast to the motorway was stark. Petrol stations were aplenty, usually flanked by a ramshackle truck stop or “hotel”. I sped past them like a blur, concerned about getting to Hyderabad before dark. I had lunch in a shady spot off the road, eating my sandwiches in the back seat with the cats. My biggest issue was bathrooms, and I have yet to find a decent one off the National Highway.
Perhaps the starkest difference was the toll. The National Highway has a number of toll gates along the way and they charge cars a measly Rs. 30. Yet none of the toll booth collectors would accept my money. EVERY collector on the National Highway saw a woman driving alone and waved me through for free.
I was enjoying my elevated status so much that, about halfway to Hyderabad, when Google pulled me off the National Highway onto the new Indus Highway, I went without considering the idea. Advertising less traffic, and an estimated 30 minutes faster, the detour to the Indus Highway was narrow and almost deserted. Inevitably and to my detriment, I was feeling gleeful about my clever use of technology to help me find the fastest route to Karachi.
I should have been in Hyderabad well before dark; instead, by the time I navigated the outskirts of [Hyderabad] to the Karachi-Hyderabad motorway, darkness had fallen.
An hour later, I was cursing that Google bitch spouting directions at me. The Indus Highway, at the time, was still under construction, so one side of the road was dug up and cordoned off. Unlike as advertised, there was plenty of traffic on this road, and because it was single-lane due to the construction, I was stuck behind and between giant trucks carrying loads too big for their containers. They looked like enormous moving trees, with cargo packaged horizontally above the container, spilling over the edges. My speed vacillated wildly down this road from a sedate 60 kmph to the occasional burst of 100 kmph on clear stretches.
I had turned off the National Highway around 2 in the afternoon. By the time I got to Hyderabad, it was past 5 in the evening, and it was getting dark. Far from shaving off time, I’d lost an hour. I should have been in Hyderabad well before dark; instead, by the time I navigated through the city to the Karachi-Hyderabad motorway, darkness had fallen.
Thunder cracked above me as I rolled through the toll gates for the M2. I was glad to be back on a three-lane road, but the thunder morphed into a full-blown storm, the skies opening up in a devastating parody of the monsoons. The rain was thick and hard, and even with the wipers at the fastest setting, I could barely see ten feet ahead of me. My speed dropped to a crawl, because there was a disturbing amount of traffic on the road, and because, after spending almost the whole day under the back seat, my cats decided to come out and enjoy the view.
The younger of the two cats, Samurai, hates storms, and all she wanted to do was to crawl into my lap. After trying to keep her at bay for several anxious minutes, I finally pulled her to me. She was happy enough in my lap. Snickers came to the front seat, leaning up against the window to stare outside at the blurry lights passing by on my left. I stuck to the middle lane — the left lane was crowded with slow-moving trucks, and on the right, cars whizzed by me as though there was no rainstorm and no visibility issues.
Maybe there weren’t for them. For me, the drive was nerve-wracking. I had been driving for more than 12 hours. I was stiff and my right leg was beginning to cramp. I was dreaming of my bed in Karachi, of the joy of stretching out my legs and letting my arms fall to my sides. And I was praying, fervently: Please God, I JUST bought this car. Don’t let me wreck it, don’t let me drive it into a ditch or into the car in front of me, because I can barely see its taillights, and what happens if it comes to a sudden stop?
The drive to Karachi from Hyderabad is barely two hours. It took me three; the longest three hours of my life. The rain eventually stopped, and several times, as lights glittered in clusters ahead of me, I thought I had finally reached Karachi. Several times, I was completely wrong. I don’t remember what I passed, but there are mini-towns on the outskirts of the city that I have never known about.
Karachi glows.
I saw the glow from a distance, the collective luminescence of millions of lights across a vast stretch of urban sprawl that keeps growing and growing. I saw the glow almost 20 minutes before I reached Toll Plaza.
Finally, there were street lights. I was energised, overwhelmed, and deeply drained at the same time. I lived by the sea. I had to cross the whole city before I reached home. Driving across the city without traffic used to take me an hour. With traffic, it could take upwards of two. Unsurprisingly, once I’d crossed the toll gates, I slowed to a crawl. Along with the glow came a rush of disorderly traffic in the form of rickshaws, motorcycles, pedestrians, and various carts being pulled by livestock.
This area was unfamiliar, so I let Google do the talking. Despite the Indus Highway debacle, when it pulled me onto a ramp off Super Highway, I followed.
The Lyari Expressway
Small, unfinished brick houses crowd up against its barriers, overlooking the twinkling lights of cars zipping by. The roar of engines must be deafeningly close.
You pay a Rs. 30 toll on the ramp, and because of that, the expressway is practically empty. It’s a winding elevated road that follows the generously-named Lyari “River” through the slums of the city. Bypassing major arteries and congested areas, the expressway shaves hours off your travel time, and for the well-to-do residents of the city familiar with the grind of daily traffic in a city of 22 million people, it’s a godsend. For the slum dwellers, not so much. Small, unfinished brick houses crowd up against its barriers, overlooking the twinkling lights of cars zipping by. The roar of engines must be deafeningly close to them, however. Another reason for the slums to remain slums.
Google pulled me off the expressway at Garden, and I drove off the ramp and into familiar territory. I was a few minutes away from M A Jinnah Road, and on the other side of that lay Saddar. Home was tantalisingly close.
I think I reached home at nine pm. Whatever time it was, I had made it.
My cats had made it, who are proudly among the most well-travelled cats in the country. They’ve made this trip with me three times now; December 2019, January 2020, and finally, in June 2020. It’s a devastatingly exhausting drive, and I would probably enjoy it a lot more if I had a driver to share it with me. But it’s equally exhilarating, and I will do it again.
My next trip, after this pandemic passes, will be to Mohenjo Daro. I haven’t been there since college, and I’d like to try a long trip without any cats to worry about.
