The drive from the hotel to the studio in Korangi is an uneventful one. We have waited for the Friday protests to disperse peacefully, in as much as peace does not really mean the absence of war. The hotel across the road from mine is barricaded on all sides, some flimsy attempts made to secure life and property after a series of murderous attacks at that site. We drive past the grand gate of the Chief Minister’s premises — a vehicle with tinted windows glides out, another with uniformed guards, guns flexed for fire, follows it. We wait for the luminaries to be well on their way to their exalted destination before resuming our journey, winding our way through a tangle of traffic, vehicular, bi-pedal, animal-drawn, equines crushed under the burden of the goods they carry, crushed between metal monsters vying for space on the roads of this beloved, blighted city.

It is almost dark by the time we get to the compound which houses the studio where I am to record an episode of a satire I have long admired. The car moves through the wide, abandoned streets of the Trade Corporation of Pakistan, pavements broken, debris strewn all over, planks of wood piled up on cement platforms, much like the aftermath of a typhoon. A few stray dogs follow the car, trotting behind on thin legs, one of them a female probably nursing her young. We stop outside a large building. A generator purrs outside; three men sit on broken chairs and play a board game in the pale light of a naked bulb set high on the wall. I alight, my various costumes slung across my arm, breathing in the fishy air of Karachi. The dogs stop at a safe distance from the car, the female sniffing the air for food, clearing the air from fear.

Inside there is a web of tangled cables, dark passages into dark spaces where mysteries repose before the lights are switched on to reveal worlds of make-believe, illusions spun with the deft hand of a carpenter who creates fantasy out of wood and plastic. There is much to-ing and fro-ing, young men in jeans and sneakers purposefully rushing between studio and dressing room, carrying trays of tea in chipped cups, plates of fragrant biryani, boxes of burgers and chips. I am led to the dressing room where I shall be transformed into this and that female politician mouthing platitudes as if wisdom had occurred only to their bright minds. A young man in a tartan shirt, diminutive even in his block-heeled boots, asks me if I would like a meal. I am hungry, coming straight off the flight where a biscuit and a sandwich served for lunch had left my stomach growling for something more substantive. A plate of aromatic qorma is served up in a dented tin tray. I savour the meal, licking my fingers, and collect the bones for the dogs outside, scraping the plate clean with the left-over naan.

Outside it is dark now, the air is still, and desolation hangs heavy over this moonscape. I whistle for the dogs to come for their meal, holding out the scraps for them to smell. None come; I am disappointed — it is a compulsion for me to feed an animal, a bird, a stray creature, hungry and homeless. I turn to go back inside when the female emerges, her tail wagging and anticipation lighting up her doe eyes. I call to her, encouraging her to come near me. She takes small steps, stops at a distance and sits on her haunches. I place the scraps before her and return to the studio.

Something terrible has happened in the time I have spent outside. The young man in the tartan shirt is on the phone, trying to contact his family who live in Ancholi where a bomb has killed several. His voice shakes as he shares the news with his colleagues: a young associate producer with the same television channel has died in the blast. Salik Ali Jaffery was recording an episode of a popular investigative programme in the same neighbourhood when he had stopped for a cup of tea at the roadside establishment. He was just 28, a graduate in mass communication and an able professional. He was the only brother of five sisters, the sole breadwinner in the absence of a father. His body was devastated almost beyond recognition. He shall be buried in the morning. His colleagues mourned him on the floor of the studio where I stood, forlorn, bereft of words to comfort them.

By the time I got back to the hermitic comfort of my hotel it was well past midnight. But the city did not sleep, waiting to bury another son in its blood-soaked soil.