Pakistani actress Mahira Khan has publicly expressed both her deep affection for Karachi and her disappointment over the city’s current condition.
Mahira shared images and videos from Karachi’s inner neighborhoods, such as Burns Road and other small lanes on Instagram, showing visible signs of decay, poverty, and neglected infrastructure. She juxtaposed her love for the city with a critique of how it has been maintained.
In her post, Mahira said she considers herself fortunate to do work that takes her to places she might never have visited otherwise. Yet what she saw left her contemplative: neighborhoods where electricity is absent for hours, homes barely able to feed their inhabitants, and waste piled up for extended periods. She also noted the glaring disparity between rich and poor.
Still, she wrote, she found moments of resilience and humanity children returning from school, a mother preparing fresh parathas, neighbors in shared struggle, and even religious harmony in one lane where a mosque, a temple, and a church share a wall.
Her message concluded with both love and regret: “Karachi, I love you. I am sorry that we have not cared for you the way we ought to have.”
Mahira’s reflections have sparked renewed conversations about urban planning, civic responsibility, and the emotional bond citizens hold with their cities.
