A photograph to send back home to India

Image and Narrative contributed by Late Nargis Jahan, Karachi, Pakistan

Volunteer Assistance : Zeba Siddiqui, Mumbai

My husband Fehmeed was born and brought up in Lucknow, and spent his early years darning cloth at his father’s shop in Hazratganj. He would often tell me about his struggles in Calcutta (now Kolkata), where he moved to in 1965, while in his mid-20s, to find better work. He also spoke about the gruesome violence he witnessed between Hindus and Muslims there, how it shook him, and prompted him to move to Karachi, where his paternal relatives lived at the time. After migrating to Karachi, he found work at a shop selling carpets and a few years after, when some mutual relatives arranged our match, we got married in 1974.

In this picture, Fehmeed and I were about eight months into our marriage, and still getting to know each other. He would take me out on dates a lot, and frequently to Karachi’s Clifton Beach. This is a photograph from the time when Fehmeed took me out for our first photo shoot together to a studio on Tariq Road, a famous shopping district in Karachi (now Pakistan). He wanted it photographed so he could send it back to his home in Lucknow, India, to relatives who had not been able to attend our wedding.  “What kind of a picture is this?!” my father growled when he saw it and did not allow us to send this photograph. Eventually, we sent another one where I am mostly covered in a burqa.

Karachi was a completely different place then. Couples would be seen going out a lot more. There was a lot less violence. The street outside the photo studio where this was clicked was a popular tourist spot, and many foreigners would be seen sitting around at restaurants here. The pant-suit I am wearing, was stitched for me by a cousin who lived in Saudi Arabia. Such suits were in fashion in Saudi at the time, so he got about five or six of these for me. The goggles were a gift from another cousin in Lahore.