Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 233

“I belong to a very conservative family, so I’ve been dealing...

“I belong to a very conservative family, so I’ve been dealing with a lot of permission issues. There are a lot of boundaries on me. Most of the women in my family are housewives, and my father would prefer me to become a housewife as well. But I’ve been working so hard in school. I’m studying all the freaking time. These exams are so tough. I don’t want all this hard work to be wasted. I want to be a businesswoman. My mother is a housewife. She needs to ask my father for everything. When he’s not around, she tells me: ‘Do exactly what you want to do.’”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“I take her everywhere I go.”(Karachi, Pakistan)

“I take her everywhere I go.”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“Shortly after we were married, I got tuberculosis and rashes...

“Shortly after we were married, I got tuberculosis and rashes broke out all over my body. They smelled so bad that I had to be cleaned three times a day. She always made me fresh food and made sure I had clean clothes every time I bathed. One morning, during this time, she asked me: ‘Would you do the same if I got sick?’ I promised her: ‘I’ll do even more.’ She died a few years ago from a brain tumor. She was in bed for the last three years of her life. Toward the end, she couldn’t identify people. Water from her brain would drain from her eyes. I ran home from the shop three times a day to help her go to the bathroom. I was always sure to turn her. She never had a single bedsore. In the end, the doctor told me: ‘It would not have been possible to take better care of her.’”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“Lyari is a tough neighborhood. There are a lot of...

“Lyari is a tough neighborhood. There are a lot of gangs, and people are always trying to bribe young kids to do bad things. I’ve run this arcade for 15 years. It makes me happy to see children playing games instead of getting caught up in those things.”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“I want to have my own career. I don’t want to depend on...

“I want to have my own career. I don’t want to depend on anyone else. But there’s a view in our society that an independent woman doesn’t belong here. She is not ‘one of us.’ So if you want to do some things on your own, they expect you to do everything on your own. And that’s difficult. Because wanting to be independent doesn’t mean I want to be alone.”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

Today in microfashion…(Karachi, Pakistan)

Today in microfashion…

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“When I was ten years old, I had a bad disease that caused me...

“When I was ten years old, I had a bad disease that caused me to lose consciousness and when I woke up, I was blind. I screamed: ‘Mom, I can’t see anymore!’ And we both started crying. It’s been a very hard life for me. Nobody would give his daughter to a blind man. If I dwelled on how lonely I am, I’d have died a long time ago. My only friend is the radio.”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“I tried to travel to a school for the blind in India. When I...

“I tried to travel to a school for the blind in India.  When I got off the train, a man offered to polish my boots at the railway station.  He was very nice to me.  When he heard where I was going, he offered to take me there.  Along the way, we stopped to take a dip in a stream.  When I got out of the water, he had disappeared.  He’d taken everything.  I started screaming and crying.  I heard some kids in the distance, so I tried to walk toward them, but it was hilly and thorny, and I kept falling down.  When I finally reached them, they didn’t understand Urdu.  But they took me to some men who helped me.  ‘You’re lucky,’ they told me.  ‘We find a lot of dead bodies in that stream.’”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“The rain delayed our wedding. All the guests are stuck...

“The rain delayed our wedding. All the guests are stuck in traffic. We’re just killing time and trying to stay calm. We were afraid that everyone would stay home, but I just called my father and he said that people are beginning to show up. So we’re about to leave.”

(Karachi, Pakistan)

“I’m forty years old, and she still can’t...

“I’m forty years old, and she still can’t fall asleep unless I’m home safe at night.”

(Karachi, Pakistan)