Karachi - People and Places
Hasan Square is virtually at the center of Karachi, in the Gulshan-E-Eqbal
area ("Garden of Eqbal", named in honor of the famous poet Allama
Mohammad Eqbal). It is close to the National Stadium, where the big
cricketing events are held, and right by the Civic Center, a modern office
complex, that is something of a city landmark.
It is well past midnight when we reach Hasan Apartments, driven
there by a kind friend of Aslam Khwaja's from Hyderabad-Sindh. We
learn very soon that this is how the two Hyderabads on the sub-continent
are referred to in Pakistan: unambiguously - as either Hyderabad-Deccan
or as Hyderabad-Sindh. The apartment blocks, despite such a central
location enjoy an enclave like privacy behind a row of shops. There
are large parking areas between the blocks - full of cars - and there
are even a couple of people around, despite the late hour. We
eventually locate the apartment we want - the home of Khalique
Ibrahim Khalique and his extraordinarily kind and gracious wife,
Hamra. A few minutes later, ensconced in their very comfortable,
book lined living room, with a picture of Ghalib on one wall - we sip
chai (at 1am !) and get to know our hosts-to-be for the next several
days.
The Khaliques are a remarkable family. Ibrahim Khalique is a
renowned documentary film-maker of Marxist persuasions, who is
now largely confined, by age, to his home. Many years earlier, his
much acclaimed, and much-screened film on Mirza Ghalib ran
afoul of General Zia's censors who found a song and classical dance
sequence featuring the incomparable Noor Jehan, 'objectionable'.
In our conversations with him over the next few days we get a
sense of the man he is - totally unconvinced by the logic of partition,
he still sees the two 'countries' as really one land. He is a man of
ideas and ideals, a writer of fine poetry and embodies great
humanity. He grew up in Lucknow and entered the business of
film making in Mumbai before he moved to Karachi in the early 1950s.
He has never 'been back' to India but lives with great nostalgia about
his 'home land'. Hamra (the name means 'red', in Persian) is
working an unbelievable schedule of looking after home, her
husband and an infinite stream of friends, relatives and
guests streaming in at all strange hours of day and night
(such as us !) We find it remarkable how she manages all of
this with such grace, but very soon our inhibitions about 'adding
to her chores' dissolve in the great hospitality and camaraderie
of the entire household.
Read this profile of Khalique Ibrahim Khalique from the Dawn
Tariq Khalique, who works with a Karachi business newspaper,
his wife Bushra, and their wonderful daughters Misaal and Imbisat are
our constant companions over the next several days. Harris, Ibrahim
Khalique's older son, and poet in his own right, flies in a few hours
after we arrive, from Islamabad. He heads "SPO", an NGO that
is a key participant in the WSF. In a few hours, we already get the
feeling that the Khalique residence has become an extension of the
bigger event at the KMC Complex. Over the next few days several
visitors to Karachi & the WSF, as well as volunteers, will visit the
Khalique residence for conversations, for a chat, to relax and to
get a cup of tea.
Karachi's population estimates range from 12 to 18 million
- and so it does possess a certain cosmopolitan character. There
are people in Karachi from every part of India (the population of
the city doubled in one year, after partition, with the influx) and
of course from every corner of Pakistan, drawn by its ability to
provide jobs and opportunity in much the same way that Mumbai
continues to. There are also over a million Afghans who migrated
here during the Soviet occupation and a very substantial population
of Iranians. It is home to a sizable community of Parsis and still
has Roman Catholic and Hindu populations that are not insubstantial.
The city's architecture is decidedly mixed, too - with numerous notable
colonial buildings (The Customs House, Frere Hall, Empress
Market), modern and traditional Islamic structures and mosques,
as well as Hindu architecture (the Swami Narayan Temple, the
Mohatta Palace) - along with the usual explosion of contemporary
office, housing and shopping complexes. It is Pakistan's main port,
has a huge manufacturing and industrial base, is the country's
pre-eminent financial center and likes to claim for itself titles such
as "the Revenue Engine of Pakistan" (we saw this proclaimed on
several hoardings and city offices) making it truly Mumbai's
counterpart.
Karachi also shares Mumbai's reputation for being the
home of the rich and famous. Areas such as Clifton, Sea-View
and the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Enclave (referred
to simply as, "Defence", by Karachiites) could outshine Mumbai
& Delhi combined, in terms of its concentration of wealth and
power. From everything we hear, and the little we ourselves
see of it, the Pakistani elite live in another world - of their own.
Their children drive frightfully expensive cars, go to fancy
"Grammar" schools before going away to the West and look
and talk like they just popped out of West Hollywood, or New
York's Upper West Side. There is also, of course, as the name
would suggest, a very substantial population here of current and
ex-military elite, indicating the highly influential and self-rewarding
role that institution continues to play in affairs of the country.
The massive new constructions along the Sea View coastline -
towering housing complexes, wide boulevards, vast gardens
paved with white stone, even a fountain out at sea, suggest to us
Karachi's aspirations to the opulence and grandeur of the
Persian Gulf, where many hundreds of thousands of
Pakistanis go in search of fortune and success.
Shahrah-E-Faisal - Karachi
Picture: Courtesy Wikipedia
Everything stays open really late in Karachi. At 9 at night - you can
call someone to tell them that you will drop in to see them in the
next couple of hours (!) At 11pm, the streets are abuzz with traffic
and shopping areas are packed. The restaurants are crowded past
midnight and so are the beaches with their flood lights, camel rides,
cava sellers and families. And at 2am there are eateries and
ice-cream shops that show no signs of being in a hurry to close
down. This takes some getting used to - coming from somewhat
restrained India, where most cities are forced by law-enforcement
to shut down at 11pm.
Karachi's old commercial areas - the 'Tower' and Sadar areas
make for interesting exploration on foot. Textile and handicraft
stalls, endless quantities of shoes and chappals, alongside the usual
infiltrators into modern sub-continental bazars - stalls selling
smuggled 'foreign' goods, pirated DVDs and music, the odd
assortment of toiletries, sex-aids, Chinese electronics and
toys - line the alleyways. The air-quality on the main roads is
atrociously bad - even by low Indian standards. It is hard to see
very far into the haze of vehicle smoke on a March mid-day. Old
auto-rickshaws and the ornate, though rickety, mini-buses seem
to be the biggest contributors to the particulate soup - although, as
everywhere else, on a "per-capita" basis it is probably the individual-
driven cars that are doing the worst damage. We find relief inside the
cool, narrow alleys of the bazaars, with their friendly store owners
(and especially so when they hear we are from India), chai and
fruit juice stalls. Our taxi driver, Pervez Mustafa, with whom we
have established, by now, much more than a client relationship -
tells us that the days of the old auto-rickshaws are numbered and
moves are underway to get Karachi's air cleaned up.
Old City - Karachi
Picture: Ka-Neng Au; http://newark.rutgers.edu/~au/tourist.htm
We bounce off the touristy Zainab Market where I am captivated
by scale-model, toy versions of baroque Pakistani trucks, but which
we are quoted a thousand PRs for - curing my captivity instantaneously.
We chat up a seller of antique furniture from Peshawar in his store
close by. While we chat and look at photographs of old doors and
wooden screens from that region and sip a chai he has got us (in
exchange only for our Indian-ness, and no business) he calls down
a worker of his who is from Bombay, he says, and migrated to
Karachi some 20 years ago. We are repeatedly struck by some
things on the streets of Karachi - the number of people who will trace
their origins to some part of India, the extraordinary warmth with
which we are received once anyone (whether they have 'Indian
origins' or not) knows where we are from, and the very gracious
human interactions we have had - devoid of the edginess of interactions
in many of our own over-busy, big-city market places. We could
be imagining some of this - we think, at the time - but the evidence
is mounting that this is a city where people set aside a little more
time and mind-space for, especially, someone they see as a
'guest'.
At some point, I spot the Pakistan National Museum on my
map. Pervez does not know about this and has never been there.
He asks me what is in this museum - so we invite him to come
and see it with us. We walk to the ticket counters and I read a
sign that says tickets are PRs 10 for adults & PRs 5 for children.
So I take out PRs 30 from my wallet, for the three of us, and
wait for the ticket attendant to show up. My wife is gesturing and
pointing something out to me on the sign. Line 3 of the sign reads
'Foreigners - Rs 200'. I ignore her because I think she has
misread or misunderstood something. In reality, I seem to be feeling
so comfortable in this city that I have simply forgotten I am
a foreigner in Karachi.