Ever since its inception, the Mohatta Palace Museum has showcased some of the most memorable, ambitious, even audacious, exhibitions the city of Karachi has ever seen — many of which you may well have attended over the years. Think of, Treasures of the Talpurs: Collections from the Courts of Sindh, Visions of Divinity: The Art of Gandhara, Sadequain: The Holy Sinner, Jewel in the Crown: Karachi under the Raj 1843–1947, Rebel Angel: Asim Butt, and many more.

Each one of those landmark exhibitions took place under the ever-watchful eye of Nasreen Askari, who has served as the curator of the Mohatta Palace Museum since 1998. And now, after 28 years of dutiful service, she’s decided to call it a day.

As I meet with Nasreen in her lounge — which is teeming with artwork, textiles and restored pieces of classical furniture amassed by her and her husband, Hasan Askari, over the decades — I ask her what state the Mohatta Palace was in when she was initially recruited by the museum’s board of trustees.

She shudders at the thought: “I can’t even begin to tell you what condition it was in. It was like Miss Havisham’s mansion in Great Expectations. There was undergrowth, strewn branches, garbage, broken walls, disintegrating doors and windows. Absolutely horrible. No one had kept it up. The trustees said, ‘We want this to be restored.’ They sought me out and asked me to come and join them. I was hooked.”

I suspect the trustees must have known that Nasreen was the woman for the job since she was hot off her triumph at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London.

A few years prior, while living in London, Nasreen had walked into the V&A and asked if she could see a textile collection given to the museum by a Pakistani benefactor — a collection that was buried somewhere in the museum’s storage.

Despite having no curatorial background, Nasreen delved through the museum’s catacombs and unearthed a staggering collection of textiles in a broad drawer simply labelled “Sindh”. She recognised the pieces instantly, including the storied textile collection of Justice Feroz Nana.

Nasreen offered to help the museum curate an exhibition on Pakistani textiles, which opened in 1997. The exhibition, Colours of Indus: Costumes and Textiles of Pakistan, was a grand success — so much so that its run was extended from the usual six months to nine. Nasreen had burrowed into the bowels of the V&A and emerged with her life’s calling.

But where does her love for curation, and particularly Pakistani textiles, stem from? For that, we’ll have to go back to her days spent in Sindh’s hinterland.

While Nasreen was working at a hospital during her medical studies in Jamshoro, a woman brought in her gravely ill son to the hospital. As Nasreen asked her routine clinical questions, the woman “lost her cool. She said, ‘Why are you asking me these stupid questions? You only have to look at my chaddar, and it will tell you everything you need to know. This flower is a Khosa Baloch flower. Nobody can wear it except a Khosa Baloch woman. And these black flowers on the side are my sons. Tonight I will unravel one black flower because my son is going to die.’ It was a rather seminal experience for me.”

In 1999, the Mohatta Palace Museum opened with its first exhibition, Treasures of the Talpurs: Collections from the Courts of Sindh, for which Nasreen secured access to private collections from the Mirs of Hyderabad and Khairpur. The items assembled were astonishing: guns with koftgari (gold inlay), silver furniture, masnads, takhts, treasures unearthed from sundooks (chests) and almirahs (cupboards) unseen for generations.

Looking back at those early years, Nasreen reflects, “The cultural, artistic landscape in the city was beginning to change and evolve. I think it [Treasures of the Talpurs] set a precedent. It was a first. But it’s very hard work to obtain these objects, have people trust you with them, study them, write about them, gain their context, and go back to the library. It’s a whole process.”

And, as the museum continued to curate more exhibitions over the years, Nasreen began to observe patterns in how the people of the city were interacting with the space and its exhibits: “The schools that brought children from more affluent backgrounds would make a racket, sully the walls. But children from schools in poorer neighbourhoods were much more interested. They felt it was a very special place.”

Across these past 28 years, Nasreen tells me that work at the museum “was relentless. I have always had to pull a rabbit out of a hat.” And while it is undeniable that “the Mohatta Palace Museum is here to stay”, thanks in no small part to the foundation Nasreen helped lay, she is now turning her attention to a newer challenge.

Nasreen’s latest venture has seen her transform the lower section of her family home, built in 1966 by Habib Fida Ali, into a textile museum, The Haveli, which opened its doors in 2024 with the exhibition A Coat of Many Colours — Textiles from Sindh, featuring many pieces from the Askaris’ large personal collection.

“The collection is mine, the house is mine, the money is mine,” she says. “So I didn’t have to consult anyone.” The Haveli is, in many ways, the culmination of a lifetime spent collecting, preserving and honouring the material stories of Pakistan.

It is also a testament to the fact that Nasreen is in no mood to slow down — at least not anytime soon. Even before we’ve wrapped up our conversation, she’s already ordering her carpenter, who seems to have materialised by her side out of thin air, to fix the mannequin that is to be used in The Haveli’s latest exhibition, Falak Sayr — Textiles from the Khyber, which has since gone up on December 9.

Nasreen doesn’t suffer fools, and she may well be a hard task master, but perhaps that is precisely why she always gets the job done. And I certainly know a boy from back in 2004 who is ever grateful to her for it.