KARACHI: In a neighbourhood in Karachi, families continue to observe their religion, culture and traditions rooted thousands of miles away in southern India.
Known locally as Madrasi Para near the Jinah Postgraduate Medical Centre, the settlement is home to Karachi’s tiny Tamil community — descendants of families from south India who migrated during the British colonial era in search of work and better opportunities.
Despite passing of decades, they remain deeply attached to their culture, religion, and customs despite living far away from Tamil Nadu.
“It is Karachi’s tiny Tamil Nadu,” says an old woman who is living in the small house of a Madrasi para for decades.
Unlike many Karachi residents whose ancestral roots lie in different parts of the subcontinent, the Tamil families have preserved a distinctly South Indian way of life through language, cuisine, festivals and religious rituals.
The Tamil families gather at the decades old temple Shree Mariamman Temple to celebrate festivals with devotion and enthusiasm.
“We celebrate Mariamman, Murugan, Diwali, Pongal and all other festivals here,” says a resident.
A resident, Dana Kori, says they prepare traditional dishes such as idli, dosa, vada, chicken biryani, vermicelli desserts, kheer and puri in the festivals.
Though the community has preserved their religious practices and many traditions, but their younger generations are struggling to learn the Tamil language.
Many younger Tamils can recite prayers learned at the temple yet struggle to speak Tamil fluently.
“We can only read and speak prayers which we learnt by heart in the temple, but we cannot speak Tamil properly,” admits one community member.
Another resident says efforts to organise Tamil language classes have seen little success. “People are busy with work and daily life. Most parents focus more on giving their children English education,” he explains.
Community experts say the community’s survival as a distinct cultural group is remarkable. They are of the view that preserving a distinct identity over generations is never easy, especially for a very small minority community.
They say that Tamil community have held on to their religious traditions and cultural practices for decades which shows a strong sense of commitment to their heritage.
One of the residents, Pawan, says some of his relatives living in south India were surprised over their existence with Tamil identity in Karachi.
One older woman says that most of her relatives were living in India but she had lost contact with them. “I wish to go there again, but I lost contact with many relatives,” she adds.
Though Karachi has changed a lot in decades, Madrasi Para remains a rare cultural pocket where South Indian traditions still thrive — a reminder that identity can survive across borders, generations and time.
