We got up early. "Early," when we're visiting Pakistan, is anything before noon. I think we were up by 10:30 and out the door by 11. We left the baby at home with his grandparents. It's just so much easier to leave him that to cart him all around the city with us, plus all the various food/clothes/toys he needs during the day - plus the grandparents want as much of his time as possible. My mother-in-law would snuggle up with him in between whatever else she had to get done that day, and in the times in between, he would watch one of the two Little Einsteins DVDs his other grandparents had given him. These were the only dvds I'd brought with us. By the time we were leaving Pakistan, we were all really tired of listening to their theme song.
The baby, vegging out on the floor at M's parents house in Karachi, watching baby movies on my computer.
The entrance to the book fair at the Expo Center in Karachi
We happened upon a bunch of boy scouts, one of whom was taking a picture of the rest of the group and M offered to take their picture for them. Then he forced his way into the group too and insisted on having a group-plus-one picture taken. It's a really funny picture, but it's loses something if I blur out his face :(
Stacks and stacks
Each vendor had its own cubicle
Browsing
We found the prayer space before leaving - we'd stayed so long we were running out of time for Zuhr, the midday prayer.
After buying entirely too many books, we wandered out of the hall - only to find that the book fair was occupying THREE of the halls, and we'd only just finished the first! We wandered down to the next hall (taking a picture with the boy scouts on the way) and found Hall #2. That was where things really got strange. One of the first booths we saw was for Geo TV, one of the largest TV networks in Pakistan. (i think, right?) They'd set up a talent scout station where you could audition to the the next big GeoTV star. M is a rational, serious adult - but he couldn't resist the pull of starlight, fame and fortune, so he elbowed through the throng of boy scouts to sign up.
The audition setup, with the cameraman on the left and the girl behind the desk reading off the day's headlines. Maybe you'll see her soon as the next GeoTV newscaster!
He didn't really elbow them out of the way - it was his turn first. I was just kidding before!
Unfortunately, even though he was thankfully in front of all those boy scouts in line, he still had to wait a long time for his turn - maybe 30-45 minutes? I quickly found two nice armchairs off to the side. I don't know who the chairs were meant for, but I guiltily stayed seated, even though I knew it probably wasn't meant for me and the only reason no one was asking me to leave was because I was non-Pakistani. I was too tired to live up to my own princples at the point in the day I guess. A woman was seated next to me; she was putting on makeup and was friendly and asked me a few questions. Just one or two, the usual - where are you from, who are you with, nothing too invasive, and in Urdu. Luckily they were such basic questions that I was still able to answer them reasonably well. Then, to my surprise, she got up and started interviewing people who'd finished their audition - she was one of the GeoTV newscasters!
Interviewing one of the auditioners.
Mian finally got to the head of the line and finished his auditon. He was okay; strong voice, good read-through, but a little fast and out-of-breath. That kind of work is hard to do! Unfortunately, he's still awaiting his call back from GeoTV. I might never get to be the wife of a famous newscaster afterall.
After finishing, he was called over by the newscaster I'd sat next to and asked if he wanted to be interviewed for that's evening's news program. M, the fame-chaser, of course said yes. She asked him what he thought of GeoTV's setup at the International Book Fair and how they were trying to find their next newscaster, or something like that. M said something to the effect that "It's a great thing that GeoTV is doing, everyone else should take a lesson from them. And please, eveyone viewing at home, please pray for me that I will be picked for the job." Apparently this was a very funny joke and M was quite pleased with himself, but the anchorwoman just kind of mildly rolled her eyes at him and ended the interview there. Then she turned to me and asked me if I wanted to be interviewed to which I quickly responded NO! What in the heck would I have to say about Karachi's International Book Fair or GeoTV's audution process?!? (Uh, well, I mean EXCEPT the neverending story I've just written here - but that's completely different!)
At the end, M asked her when his television debut would air and she told him it would be on later that evening. We went straight home after leaving the book fair and had GeoTV on all evening and night after that, but we never did see him and figured he must have been cut because of his mediocre joke.
BUT THEN! Two days later, one of M's uncles who lives in the US called us in Pakistan to ask "Why did I see your face on the news the other day?!" He said he hadn't even been looking at the TV, it had just been on in the background, and suddenly he'd heard his nephew M's voice coming out of his TV! Too bad we missed it, but my M was famous for half a second once!
So, as you can now understand, it turned out to be one of our most interesting days in Karachi. The original purpose of the day - to go to the book fair - actually takes a bit of a side note in my memory, but I did really enjoy it! I thought they had a fantastic selection for my purposes, which is to say that I was mostly looking for desi fiction or non-fiction about the region for adults and kids. We actually ended up going back another day because, while we'd bought a lot already, we had run out of money. M doesn't like to carry a lot of cash on him while we're traipsing around Karachi and he'd underestimated how much I was going to spend on books. Plus, he was easily persuaded that we could not find this kind of selection of Urdu books for his son later without paying three or four times the price so we absoluely HAS to return and stock up some more! In the end, I think I only bought 5 books for myself, and M did about the same. All the rest of the haul was kid's books. All the books alone took up a full suitcase on the way back home to America.
Lucky Baby! We've already gotten a lot of miles out of all the baby books, too. They were some of our best purchases ever!
