Tucked away under the chaos of Karachi, every so often, you’ll turn a corner and stumble upon pure brilliance.

One such place is a small shop on the second floor of the Hashmi Centre at Regal Chowk, Saddar. Located on Preedy Street, Hashmi Centre is Pakistan’s premier camera market. Here, you can find virtually every camera and lens in the world.

From the latest Canon professional 1Dx (with a Rs6 lacs price tag), to a used more humble point-and-shoot for Rs2,000, everything is available. High-end lenses from Zeiss, Canon and Nikon are always in stock, just waiting to be plucked from the shelves in small stores that belie the riches they hold.

Along with the equipment sellers, are myriad little shops for camera repair. But of these, there is one that is a cut above the rest.

Take the dark, paan-spittle-stained stairs to the third floor and turn right. You'll see a small store that is within another small store. If you peep inside, you will find a very humble looking man of about 60 years of age, bent over the deepest entrails of a lens or a camera.

With the tenderness of a lover, he handles the electronic mess spread before him. Say hello to Mr. Riaz, the genius of the camera market!

Mr Riaz, better known as Riaz bhai, is something of a legend. If any photographic equipment is fixable, Riaz bhai can fix it.

Conversely, if Riaz bhai declares it beyond repair, you may as well throw the camera in the nearest garbage dump.

I first made acquaintance with Riaz bhai when my camera went on the blink. I was busy clicking away at the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi when the shutter of my camera froze and all I could see through the lens was a black curtain. I felt a cold sweat on my brow.

After a restless night, I rushed off to the camera market with my