The constant clanging coming from the four-arm swinging power-looms was deafening. I had only been inside the tiny silk cloth factory for 10 minutes but already had a pounding headache from all the noise.
And yet, produced out of that dark, dingy, space came some of the most beautiful cloth I have ever seen.
Karachi's Banaras town has long been a destination for shoppers looking to buy the country's finest silks.
Situated in Orangi - one of the city's poorest slums - the locally produced material has long provided an economic boon to an otherwise depressed area.
But not any more. Business is down by more than 50 per cent. Local traders say the city's chronic and often deadly violence is to blame.
At the factory, I met a young man named Naveed Ansari whose family has been in the silk business since before Partition.
He told me no one can remember business ever being this bad.
![[QODLink]](http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2012/5/24/2012524105149565734_16.jpg "The Brotherhood and Mubarak")
