BAD PAKISTANI: KARACHI AND THE LANGUAGE OF FOOD
In the first episode of Bad Pakistani, Nadir Nahdi returns to Karachi with a warm curiosity — aware of the small distances that can grow between oneself and a homeland, yet energized by the chance to bridge them. A British storyteller of Yemeni-Indonesian-Kenyan-Pakistani descent, he reflects on his relationship to the city with honesty, including the ways language, accent, and cultural fluency shift when you’ve lived far from the place that shaped your family.
As he moves through Karachi’s kitchens and street stalls, taste becomes the connector. Food offers a vocabulary that doesn’t demand perfect recall or perfect belonging; it lets him participate fully in the in-between. The joy is palpable in his return to Pakistan that feels simultaneously grounding and expansive.
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For more recs like this one, check out the rest of vol. 002:
