News travels fast in the narrow lanes of Lyari. Usually, it is news of a football match, a poetry recital, or the passing of an elder. Recently, however, the talk of the town has been the release of the trailer for Dhurandhar, a big-budget Bollywood spectacle starring Ranveer Singh. The film, we are told, is a spy thriller set against the backdrop of the Lyari gang wars. Reportedly, because they could not film here, the producers constructed an elaborate set in India-recreating our Cheel Chowk, our chaotic skyline, and our weathered streets.
Watching the promotional material, one feels a familiar, weary sense of déjà vu. Once again, Lyari has been reduced to a gritty aesthetic, a convenient stage for bullets and bloodshed. To the filmmakers in Mumbai, and indeed to many content creators in Pakistan, Lyari is not a home; it is a genre. It is the “Wild West” of Karachi, a place where the only story worth telling is one of violence.
As someone whose family has represented this constituency in parliament for nearly a century, I view this not just as an artistic failure but as an erasure of history. My ancestors did not represent a gangland; they represented a hub of political consciousness, democracy, and fierce intellect.
For generations, my family has walked these streets, not with bodyguards and fear, but with the knowledge that Lyari is the beating heart of Karachi’s political resistance. This is the Lyari that stood as a bulwark against dictatorships. This is the Lyari of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). To reduce this politically astute, historically rich neighbourhood to a mere playground for gangsters and spies is an insult to the memory of those who fought for civil rights on these very streets.
For generations, my family has walked these streets, not with bodyguards and fear, but with the knowledge that Lyari is the beating heart of Karachi’s political resistance.
The tragedy of the “gang war” era was real, and its scars are deep. But it was a dark chapter, not the entire book. By fixating solely on this period, the media-both local and international-fetishises our trauma for entertainment. They build sets of our homes, but they do not invite our people to tell their stories.
If they did, they would find a narrative far more compelling than a spy thriller. They would see the Lyari that is often called “Little Brazil.” They would see the sheer electric atmosphere of a football match at the People’s Stadium, where labourers and students alike display a passion for the sport that rivals any European league. They would see the boxing clubs that have produced Olympians who fought for the Pakistani flag when the state gave them nothing but neglect.
If the lens were widened, it would capture the vibrant literary circles of Lyari, where Balochi poetry and progressive literature have flourished for decades. It would capture the explosion of the musical arts-not just the traditional folk music, but the revolutionary rise of Lyari’s hip-hop scene. The “Lyari Underground” did not just make music; they created a vernacular of resistance that influenced the very pop culture that now mocks their home.
Lyari is a place of filmmakers, photographers, and social activists who are using art to heal their community. Where are the films about the young girls from Lyari breaking barriers in education? Where are the stories of the cafe culture where politics and philosophy are debated over cups of tea until dawn?
When the media portrays Lyari solely as a den of vice, it has real-world consequences. It justifies state neglect. It makes it harder for a young man from Lyari to get a job in a corporate office in Clifton because his address carries a stigma. It tells our children that the world sees them only as potential criminals, not as the poets and athletes they aspire to be.
The creators of Dhurandhar may have rebuilt the physical structures of Lyari on a studio lot, but they have failed to capture its soul. You cannot reconstruct the resilience of this area with plywood and paint.
It is time to condemn this lazy, reductive storytelling. We do not need more films that exploit our past pain. We need cameras that turn toward our present promise. Lyari has bled enough for the headlines; it is time it was celebrated for its heartbeat. The talent in our streets is undeniable, and it is time the world saw Lyari not as a battlefield, but as the nursery of talent and culture that it truly is.
The writer is Spokesperson (Government of Sindh)