Importance of ‘Pathan’s dhaba’ in Karachi
For most people who do not live in Karachi, the city means a war zone where the situation is always precarious and where your mobile gets snatched if you take it out. However, we Karachiites regard such talk as nonsense because, perhaps, we do not get our cell-phone snatched every time we go out or perhaps because we have developed a sense of resilience over a period of time.
Now even if the law and order seems to be on the shaky grounds in the metropolis, you would still find two things on the roads of Karachi; Tape-ball cricket on the empty roads and a horde of young and aged men on a ‘Pathan’s Hotel’.
While the love of cricket is ubiquitous across Pakistan and is an understandable factor but the popularity of ‘Pathan’s Chaaye’ and ‘Pathan’s Hotel’ is something that is found in Karachi only as compared to the metropolises across Pakistan. It is so much ingrained in the life of a typical Karachiite that we go to this Pathan’s hotel on almost every occasion. You win a tape-ball cricket match, you go on a Pathan’s hotel for a Chana, Paratha and tea. You are enjoying a late-night gossip after your exams; you go to a Pathan’s hotel for a cup of tea with your friends. You have a business proposal/problem to discuss; pathan’s hotel is the place. In fact, you will find Pathan’s hotel occupied for most of the day, almost every hour and it is not because Karachiites have got a lot of free time, but because we are comfortable at the Dhaba.
Examining the phenomenon, Pathans’ tea hotels appeared on the scene in the 1980s. Most of these hotels are owned by the Pathans belonging to Quetta. Prior to them, Karachi had a lot of Irani hotels who offered tea, coffee and green tea but were not so inexpensive and were taken over by the Pathan’s dhabas over the next few years.
Over the three decades, many things have changed in Karachi but the Pathan’s hotel and Karachiites’ love to drink tea at such hotels have only increased. In fact, it is a large number of non-Pathan youth who are regular customers at such hotels and most of these hotels are based largely in areas not dominated by Pukhtoons, which shows that the ethnic clash in Karachi is not as bad as it is depicted on the media. Further, the Pathan’s hotel is actually a sign of how resilient Karachi has become after suffering two and a half decades of violence (exempting the period between 2002 and2008). In fact, being a Karachiite, I have seen many MQM, PPP and ANP workers sitting on the same Dhaba, sipping tea and enjoying the famous ‘Pathan kay parathay’, as we Karachiites call it, without even a scuffle breaking out.
Whatever the reasons behind the increase in the number of Pathan’s hotels, the fact remains the same that Karachi’s ethnic diversity has not only increased but the true phenomenon of unity in diversity can be seen in Karachi and Pathan’s hotels are actually a clear example of that. Karachi’s diversity can only through this and I hope that Karachi will shine again like its glory days back before 2008.