Coming soon

Conversations with Pakistan

No country can be defined without talking about the people who live there. To me, what it means to be a ‘country’ is synonymous with the stories of people who make the diaspora of a nation what it is.

I’ve had the urge to take this journey since I was 18 years old. Starting in 2025, I plan to travel to all 156 districts in Pakistan, as much as I can, by myself. Though the motivation is to be a personal journey to explore and understand the complex Pakistan, I will interview 156 people - at least one person from every district in Pakistan. I hope to compile this in a book - Conversations with Pakistan. This is massive project that has no specific aim other than to explore and capture a sort of ‘living history’, and understand what Pakistan means and life in Pakistan means to the people who make up it.

Despite having lived in Pakistan for most of my life growing up, I realized I had traveled more extensively in Bolivia, or Romania, or any of these other countries I worked in, more than I ever had in Pakistan. The second hand versions of these places I hear about my own country fail to tell the rich stories of deeply meaningful and interesting lives of the 200 million+ people that live these. As I know and love Pakistan, I want to know how other people have grown within it and come to know it in similar or different ways.

Having been a journalist for a brief period of time for The Express Tribune in Pakistan, I know there is so much more that doesn’t make the fast-paced, click-bait headlines within and outside the country. I am just deeply passionate and curious to know about life, love, and general spirit that embodies so many people. For the past 10 years, I’ve worked at the World Bank, and part of my job was developing surveys where I constantly think about how and why to ask questions, and what the right ones are to learn what exactly we are trying to learn. I love interviewing people, love hearing stories of different lives, and I cannot wait to start.

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With gratitude,

Myra