January 22, 2026
KARACHI – Gul Plaza only announced its importance after it was gone.
As I’m writing this, I realise that the lamp on my bedside table is from there. So is the wall clock ticking opposite me, the plant sitting just within my line of sight, the bedsheet folded at the foot of my bed, and the ceramic tray holding loose change on my desk. I hadn’t noticed how much of my living space traces back to that same address in Karachi’s historic centre — until it burned.
Each object carries its own small origin story: a practical purchase the first time we moved houses, an impulsive buy after a long walk through crowded aisles, or something my mother spotted on her trips there, sent to me on WhatsApp, and I approved from afar. At the time, none of it felt consequential. These were low-stakes decisions made between bargaining and staircases, between “let’s check one more shop” and “we’ll just take this one.”
Everything we ever bought from Gul Plaza (and there is a lot) will eventually break, fade, or quietly disappear into storage. Objects generally meet that fate. But what will inevitably remain is the memory of where they came from. The phase of life they belonged to. The small rituals of choosing and bringing things home.
When the fire tore through the plaza over the weekend, it unleashed destruction on a scale few of us have seen. Lives were lost. Livelihoods were erased. And with them, a shared archive of memories: wedding shopping trips, childhood errands, first-home splurges, birthday gift sprees.
This isn’t just one person’s story. It is the case for most Karachiites, across class and generation, for whom Gul Plaza simply existed in the background as they put together their homes and lives, one item (sometimes remarkable, sometimes gloriously ordinary) at a time.
This piece is an attempt to map that collective meaning, now rendered painfully visible in its absence.
A market of firsts
“It was the first place one would go to when they needed to prepare for moving into a new house, getting married or having a child,” said Sana Chaudhry, summing up what countless others echoed in different ways.
“It was the place I bought a wedding gift for one of my closest friends, where I bought a high chair for my nephew and where my sister and I shopped prior to her wedding all those years ago,” she added.
Wedding shopping, particularly, was inseparable from Gul Plaza. Taniya Awan recalled how when she was getting married, her parents went there for her jahez which included kitchenware, blankets, bedsheets, and home appliances. Years later, she returned not for herself, but for her son, Azhaan.
“When Azhaan turned five, he wanted a bicycle so I bought him one from Gul Plaza. At seven, he wanted an electric bike and I bought it from there too. In a way, it was a part of the timeline of his childhood.”
That sense of continuity, of returning to the same place at different stages of life, came up again and again. Ujala Nadeem described the ill-fated shopping mall as “a quiet witness to time passing and one that met her family’s needs across generations.” She visited first as a child with her grandmother, later as a working adult with her father, and then as a newly married woman, designing a home of her own.
“When I received my first paycheck, I could only think of going to Gul Plaza for a shopping haul,” she said, recalling the pride of buying a rug from the basement with her own earnings. “Today, as fire scars its structure, it feels like watching a chapter of my own life get erased.”
For 50-year-old Novera Shamim, Gul Plaza was an integral part of her life, as it was for many in her generation. She fondly recalled her wedding 25 years ago, when the very first crockery set she bought for her in-laws’ home came from there. And she still has it.
Her love for artificial flowers drew her there monthly. “I would go there often because there was incredible variety and quality,” Shamim stated. Just last week, she ordered Bougainvillea flowers from a shop called Fantasia Florist. “They responded so promptly when I placed an order online, and it was delivered within three days.”
Family rituals
For many Karachiites, Gul Plaza was a repository of family memories and small daily rituals that shaped childhoods. Umair Ali Jaffery recollected, “My core memories of Gul Plaza date quite far back. I used to go there with my father to buy plates, crockeries, and other household bits. I would eagerly look forward to having a samosa chaat from a thela at the corner of the plaza.” He remembers the maze of narrow lanes lined with countless vendors, selling everything from electronics and clothes to kitchenware.
In the same vein, for Muzhira Amin, Gul Plaza was a part of weekly routines and shared experiences with family. She described it as a central thread in her childhood: trips to the shopping complex were almost ritualistic. “Back then, we lived 10 minutes away from the shopping complex, which meant we’d visit at least once a week, sometimes three or even four times.”
She would hop into a rickshaw with her nani, navigating her way through the packed aisles for hours, sometimes buying, but mostly just brushing her hands against toys and clothes she liked. “My favourite part was the kachoris and bun kebabs we would have afterwards. They were half the joy!” she recounted, with a smile.
“The fire,” she explained, “felt a little too personal, almost like the erasure of a childhood I held on to so dearly.”
Everything under one roof, at a price you couldn’t ignore
What set Gul Plaza apart was its promise of completeness. It was that rare market in Karachi where affordability, convenience, and variety converged.
Ali Osman called it his go-to place for buying groceries and cutlery, a place where he knew everything he needed will be available under one roof. That predictability mattered, especially in a city where shopping often requires crossing neighbourhoods and negotiating multiple markets.
For Fatima Sheikh, even a single-purpose visit rarely stayed that way. She went there recently to buy clothes for her nephew’s birthday, intending to shop only at Kaka Garments. “There was so much variety there, I slipped and bought more things than I needed,” she said. What began as a quick errand turned into a full-fledged shopping trip, complete with baby items, towels, sheets — all “at reasonable rates and of good quality.”
“It was chaotic to find parking close by,” Anushe Engineer recalled. “We used to joke about how much of a headache it was going there, but that headache was worth it because it had the most gorgeous crockery. My mother would buy it as gifts when people invited her over, or even just as a thank-you.”
She said that over the years, those gifts became a hallmark at family dinners and get-togethers. Big salad bowls, serving platters, and delicate crockery would appear on tables, prompting compliments here and there. Many guests assumed these were pricey pieces, she added, when in reality they cost between Rs1,000 and Rs3,000 (far less than what the same items would sell for in upscale retail stores).
In a city where the gap between the haves and the have-nots streches wider by the day, Gul Plaza was something of a delightful anomaly. Because its offerings were affordable and simultaneously maintained quality, naturally, people from all socio-economic backgrounds found themselves there — one of the few places in Karachi where class lines subtly dissolved.
Vendors, familiar faces, and quiet bonds
Aside from the availability and affordability of the goods, it was the relationships that anchored people to the space. Behind every shop was a person; a fact that hit shoppers hardest as images of the blaze circulated.
Majid Ali reminisced shopping there for his children for special occasions and gradually forming personal connections with the shopkeepers. “The vendors there were really friendly,” he said. “I knew them by their faces, and vice versa. They gave me discounts very easily, especially when I took my children along. Some even offered us cold drinks and tea.” For him, these were small gestures that transformed ordinary transactions into moments of familiarity and warmth.
For Sheikh, the tragic incident stirred memories of the people she had come to know there. “I could see the faces of the vendors in front of my eyes,” she lamented. During her visit last month, some had excitedly told her they had stocked up for Eid. “They made investments with hope and anticipation, only to see them reduced to ash in an instant. It’s so heartbreaking.”
Similarly, Shamim reflected, “Just the thought of losing Gul Plaza feels like losing a piece of the city’s soul. My heart goes out to people who worked there and made it what it was.”
A preventable tragedy
Alongside grief, there is anger.
When the fire broke out late Saturday, it engulfed a complex housing nearly 1,200 shops, raging for more than 24 hours. By Monday, rescue workers were combing through debris — twisted metal, fallen signboards, air-conditioning units — cooling the structure that once pulsed with life.
Several Karachiites pointed to what they described as longstanding safety hazards. Narrow staircases, exposed wiring, congested floors, and crumbling infrastructure were not new discoveries.
“The ceilings were a spiderweb of exposed electrical wires,” said Chaudhry, adding that the fire “was an incident waiting to happen.”
The surrounding roads, too, have deteriorated, with sewage flooding and potholes hampering access. These issues may have compounded rescue difficulties.
“I can’t imagine what the traders and shopkeepers are going through with the loss of their entire livelihoods and the immense loss of lives,” Engineer said. While acknowledging government promises of relief, she added that accountability must not fade. “This tragedy was entirely preventable.”
Amna Kamran, who had visited the plaza three times in recent months while redecorating her home, said there were hardly any walkways and very few visible exits. “The tragedy may have been incidental,” she noted, “but anyone who’s been there would call it a predictable outcome of a chaotic, crammed-with-shops layout.”
What she found truly unforgivable, however, was the poor rescue response. She questioned how firefighters struggled to enter the building as flames devoured floor after floor, and why officials kept pointing to hydrants and water tankers while people remained trapped inside.
“The loss of material, as devastating as it is, is reversible; shelves can always be restocked. But the loss of lives … who will compensate for those?”