Well, there were two Cahns from Britain in Karachi on Thursday and Friday. Amir Kahn, the world Light-Welterweight boxing champion from Bolton has the glamour. Still, a British title has drawing power in Pakistan. Over 300 guests turned up for the Deputy High Commissioner's bash at Acton House, the imposing Residence with a fairy light-filled garden. And most of them seem to have been educated in Britain, have a home or a family or business interests there.
Karachi is an extraordinary sprawling city of 18 million people or so (up from 40,000 about 60 years ago). It is in a desert and wholly dependent on the river Indus 100 miles away for water. Over 50% of the population is under 25. I found the people delightful and passionate and talented. I met the Governor of Sindh Province, almost as big as the UK by population. He lives in a spacious Residence, once the home of late president Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan (who was also a London Barrister).
Pakistan is clearly a country of contrasts. We visited the GSK pharmaceutical plant in Karachi. To get there we passed camel drawn carts, areas literally the 'wrong side of the tracks' and tens of thousands of empty sea containers as a visible sign of global recession. Yet the plant, behind high walls, was modern, efficient and antiseptic. Another contrast was visiting the Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, in the hushed rooms that all central banks seem to inhabit, whilst just outside was the maelstrom of human street activity that is typical of central and southern Asia.
The biggest contradiction though is between Britain’s very close links with Pakistan – there are over 100 companies operating here and making good profits - and the amount of bilateral trade that exists between our two countries. Our biannual trade should be more than the £1bn level and we should manage far more trade activity than we do.
As I leave Pakistan, I recall the many charming Pakistanis who became instant friends because we had both been to the same university, or lived in the same suburb of London. And the subject absolutely guaranteed to get an immediate response? Cricket, of course.