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KARACHI: As Karachi’s scorching sun dips below the horizon, a familiar figure appears on Sir Shah Muhammad Suleman Road in the bustling Liaquatabad neighborhood, also known as Lalukhet.

Sixty-year-old Muhammad Abid arrives at his small, elevated wooden kiosk, carrying something special: kulfi, a dense, frozen South Asian dessert whose creamy richness once graced royal tables.

Kulfi is widely believed to date back to the Mughal Empire in the 16th century, where it was considered a royal delicacy, according to commonly available online sources.

The name is thought to originate from the Persian word kulfa or kulf, loosely meaning “covered cup” — likely a reference to the sealed metal molds traditionally used to freeze the dessert.

Unlike modern ice cream, kulfi is not churned, which results in a denser, creamier texture.

”This used to be royal kulfi,” Abid said. “It was made during the times of kings. Now it’s being sold on the streets.”

Asked how the product is prepared, he said traditionally, full-fat milk is slow-cooked until it thickens and reduces significantly, which is then sweetened, flavored with almond, sugar and another thing, which is his ‘secret.’.

”I told you about the almonds, I told you about the sugar, but that third ingredient is a secret,”he said, smiling while refusing to share the secret he claims was passed on to him through previous generations.

Abid said his family’s tradition of making kulfis dates back to pre-Partition India. As a child, he would accompany his father and grandfather to their cart, until both passed away and he took over.

”We’ve been selling kulfi for quite a long time,” he said, adding that his grandfather who took the tradition from India’s Delhi, where his family had been making kulfi for centuries, to set up shop in Karachi’s Liaquatabad area in 1968.

Before moving to Liaquatabad, they would sell Kulfi at a roadside corner at the city’s famous Jama cloth market under a peepal tree.

Much like him, other kulfi sellers in the vicinity claim to have similar roots. While these oral histories are not easy to independently verify, the richness of their technique and the taste of their product speaks for itself. Most of them have also remained associated with the business for decades in the same neighborhood.

Abid takes pride in preserving the authenticity of his craft.

”The kind we make, with almonds, butter, and cream that you won’t find anywhere else,” he said with a sense of pride.

A few stalls down, 62-year-old Abdul Rasheed, who also identifies as a fifth-generation kulfiwala, shares a similar story, saying his family migrated from India where it practiced the same craft.

“My father set up a stall inside the Jamia Masjid [in Karachi], and then in 1976, we came to Lalukhet,” he said. “Since then, we’ve been selling here.”

Like Abid, Rasheed emphasizes the purity of his offering.

“This is pure milk kulfi, real milk,” he said. “We cook the milk, make rabri, make khoya from it and add sugar. That’s all. Our kulfi is pure. We don’t use market-bought khoya or anything like that.”

But with kulfi now widely available in shops across Karachi, these traditional makers say the demand for their product has declined.

“Now every sweet shop, every mithai shop has kulfi,” Rasheed said. “Earlier, they used to buy from us. Now they make their own.”

Still, loyal customers return for the taste and tradition.

“I don’t pass by here often, but whenever I do, I always stop to eat this kulfi,” Majid Ali, a 40-year-old property worker and catering center owner, said. “It brings back old memories.”

“We eat a lot of different kulfis, new ice creams with new names,” he added. “But this is a part of old culture, a landmark of this road.”

Farhana Niazi, another customer, said she only recently discovered Lalukhet’s kulfi.

“‘Let me finally have you try this today,’” she quoted her husband as saying while they were passing through the area this week.

Previously, she would ignore such offers, thinking the taste might not be good.

“When I tasted it, I realized it was actually very delicious,” she said. “It has a very different flavor. The taste of khoya really comes through. It was excellent, very different. I truly enjoyed it.”

Niazi believes more people should come and try the royal kulfi.

“It’s a tradition that should go on,” she said.

But for Rasheed, the golden era feels like a distant memory.

“Back in the day, we had a huge rush,” he said, recalling when 15 to 20 cars lined up at once in front of his kiosk, Madina Kulfi. “Now, that’s no longer the case.”

KARACHI: Ahmed Raza is invisible in the eyes of his government, unable to study or work because, like millions of other Pakistanis, he lacks identification papers.

In the South Asian nation of more than 240 million people, parents generally wait until a child begins school at the age of five to obtain a birth certificate, which is required for enrolment in most parts of Pakistan.

Raza slipped through the cracks until the end of elementary school, but when his middle school requested documentation, his mother had no choice but to withdraw him.

“If I go looking for work, they ask for my ID card. Without it, they refuse to hire me,” said the 19-year-old in the megacity of Karachi, the southern economic capital.

He has already been arrested twice for failing to present identification cards when stopped by police at checkpoints.

Raza’s mother Maryam Suleman, who is also unregistered, said she “didn’t understand the importance of having identity documents.”

“I had no idea I would face such difficulties later in life for not being registered,” the 55-year-old widow told AFP from the single room she and Raza share.

Pakistan launched biometric identification cards in 2000 and registration is increasingly required in all aspects of formal life, especially in cities.

In 2021, the National Database and Registration Authority estimated that around 45 million people were not registered. They have declined to release updated figures or reply to AFP despites repeated requests.

To register, Raza needs his mother’s or uncle’s documents — an expensive and complex process at their age, often requiring a doctor, lawyer or a newspaper notice.

The paperwork, he says, costs up to $165 — a month and a half’s income for the two of them, who earn a living doing housework and odd jobs in a grocery shop.

Locals whisper that registration often requires bribes, and some suggest the black market offers a last resort.

“Our lives could have been different if we had our identity cards,” Raza said.

In remote Punjab villages like Rajanpur, UNICEF is trying to prevent people from falling into the same fate as Raza.

They conduct door-to-door registration campaigns, warning parents that undocumented children face higher risks of child labor and forced marriage.

Currently, 58 percent of children under five have no birth certificate, according to government figures.

Registration fees depend on the province, ranging from free, $0.70 to $7 — still a burden for many Pakistanis, about 45 percent of whom live in poverty.

“Our men have no time or money to go to the council and miss a day’s work,” said Nazia Hussain, mother of two unregistered children.

The “slow process” often requires multiple trips and there is “no means of transport for a single woman,” she said.

Saba, from the same village, is determined to register her three children, starting with convincing her in-laws of its value.

“We don’t want our children’s future to be like our past. If children go to school, the future will be brighter,” said Saba, who goes by just one name.

Campaigns in the village have resulted in an increase of birth registration rates from 6.1 percent in 2018 to 17.7 percent in 2024, according to UNICEF.

This will improve the futures of an entire generation, believes Zahida Manzoor, child protection officer at UNICEF, dispatched to the village.

“If the state doesn’t know that a child exists, it can’t provide basic services,” she said.

“If a child does not have an identity, it means the state has not recognized their existence. The state is not planning for the services that the child will need after birth.”

Muhammad Haris and his brothers, who have few interactions with the formal state in their border village in the mountainous province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, have not registered any of their eight children.

“The government asks for documents for the pilgrimage visa to Makkah,” a journey typically made after saving for a lifetime, he told AFP.

For him, this is the only reason worthy of registration.