Photos by the writer
At the corner of a bus-stand near Allah-wala Chowrangi, Sheheryar Munawar Siddiqui chases after a girl and her best friend. Like most young ne’er-do-wells, he gets a good piece of her mind. Dejected and shot down — like his ilk, the stubborn roadside Romeos — he persists.
A brief lunch-break and a quick zuhr prayer later, Sheheryar is at it again: this time, replacing his cool-denim jacket and jeans is a shalwar, a gaudy T-shirt and bitingly bright, coloured sunglasses. He runs out of a corner house a few blocks away from our last location on Sharae Faisal, gets on a heavy bike and chases the girl again. This time, she’s in a van, returning from college, and his expression is different; he is smiling from ear to ear.