Weary of obsessively watching the spectacle of a man trapped in a container, I decided to take a break and go some place where sanity still prevailed.

So I went to Mubarak Goth, a small fishing village near Karachi.   The village located approximately 60 km down the Hawks Bay-Mubarak Goth Road, is a longish 2 hours drive on roads through the usual busy and hectic parts of Karachi.  The madness of Karachi gradually gives way to the mostly empty landscape of barren hills.  Very basic huts made of wood planks and straw, and in some cases just rags, sprout up along the way.   This part of Karachi is one of the poorest in town. As you drive down the road, hills dividing Sindh from Balochistan run along your right side. The landscape, while rugged and almost bereft of vegetation, is very majestic and serene.

Mubarak Goth boasts what is most likely the cleanest beach in the vicinity of Karachi.  The sand is pure gold and the water is almost azure in colour.  Since there are not many visitors and no shacks selling food the garbage so ubiquitous on the other Karachi beach is almost non-existent.

The sea gives you two choices.  On one side there is the wide, pristine beach with small hills beautifully carved by nature standing at the back and to one side.

The other side of the beach is the mooring place for boats.  Here you can rent a boat and go out fishing in the deep part of the sea. A fisherman told me that during the relatively peaceful times of General Musharraf far more local and foreign tourists came here to fish and it was hard to find a boat available for rent.  I saw that while there were still some tourists renting boats, most boats were standing idle.

As we drove back to the madness of Karachi and the circus show on the television, I look back wistfully at the peace and quiet of the Mubarak Village.

—Text and images by Vaqar Ahmed