I’m now in the Karachi airport domestic departure lounge, which is far brighter (with natural light) and cleaner than the airport hotel. I should perhaps have eaten at the hotel instead of risking a chicken patty that might kill me at the airport but I couldn’t bear today go into the grim, grimy dining room.
Consequently impossible here early and amused myself by going from shop to shop asking if they had mix tea. The answer, sadly, was no. As of a month ago they all have Lipton branded tea machines, Lipton tea bags and Everyday non dairy creamer. They all, without exception, looked doleful as they, too, prefer mix tea to this filth.
I feel like I’m watching the industrialisation of food recur, a century after tinned soup casseroles swept across America. Why must we in Pakistan only take the worst of modernity?
Though tea itself is a colonial relic.