Karachiwala; a Subcontinent within a City!!

It was busy day at work; T2F is the place that provides food for thoughts . Last evening one of the stand up comedians Sami Shah performed there. I reached half an hour earlier and decided to explore books and then grab sandwich along with coffee. I was looking at books I came across an interesting cover page, a book written by Rumana Husain, graphically appealing and thought provoking title “Karachiwala a Subcontinent within a City”!! When I flipped few pages I came across an African descendent Baloch woman’s picture, each page had description such as name and ethnic group of the person in the picture. I came across a funny ethnic group name, it described African descendent Baloch woman as MAKRANI. To me it is funny that people end up writing books without knowing the basics of an ethnic group. However being a Baloch, my forefathers migrated from Makran to Karachi, born and brought up in Karachi, i am a truly Karachiite but deeply connected to my roots. When one looks at various definitions of ethnic group, it is described as “a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed, sharing cultural characteristics. This shared heritage may be based upon putative common ancestry, history, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance".  Markran is a place and people living in that area are called Makrani and ethnically they are Baloch. Similarly I can not call Karachiite an ethnic group, no one describes the ethnic identity of people living in Karachi as Karachiite. The African convert Baloch were once ethnically from various African origin tribes bought (during slave trade) by rulers of Muscat and various princely states of Balochistan. There was severe drought in Balochistan and African slaves “convert into Baloch; adopted Balochi culture and language” were freed. During 1850s modern port construction work started and most of the slaves got laborious jobs and settled near Liyari. Unfortunately, we as Pakistani do not interact with each other, don’t understand each others' background, psyche, history, norms, values and to large extent culture and we never try to explore the rich cultural heritage of Pakistan. At times I feel that in Pakistan we are alien for each other.