Daily Times

In this advanced age of science and technology, the social media is the latest miracle; especially Facebook has done wonders. Sometimes, people share things that are astonishing, and your jaw drops seeing the contents. Likewise, a friend of mine on this social network shared a video about Karachi approximately eight minutes long, titled Karachi at the end of the British Raj. This video was shot by an unknown British soldier during the early 1940s, just before the partition. Seeing the video, my heart was moved and I also shed tears of blood comparing two different pictures of Karachi. As I was watching this video it reminded me of the words of Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sindh in1843. As he set foot on the shores of Karachi, he took a cool deep breath and uttered: “I would make thee the glory of the east.”

This fascinating video starts with a loaded donkey cart going somewhere, a cow roaming in a street freely; the city centres were dominated by pedestrians and horse stalls. The filmmaker shot the street life, such as an elderly man dressed in a white shirt, white trousers and a white turban on his head sitting with three school kids in white shirts and shorts beside a building teaching them their school lessons. After that the camera focuses on a lady in white sweeping the street and collecting garbage in a basket made of palm leaves. After that the filmmaker shoots a cement water tank made for birds, and pigeons drinking water from it. An acrobat with his bear enters the scene and shows his tricks; after that the bear has a dance performance on two legs. Then there is a scene of public transport, trams going from one place to another, well-behaved people sitting reading newspapers or books, and the trams were never overloaded. There was no fear of harm or an accident; these trams moved at a speed that one could get in easily but it was very difficult to jump from a moving tram.

A neat and clean park is shown in the video, probably the ‘Ram Bagh’, which became ‘Aram Bagh’ after the partition. Beautiful colonial buildings such as the Imperial Bank of India, then the marvellous building of the New Cotton Exchange built in 1942; it was a multi-storey building. Then there is the Frere Hall, which at that time was the town hall.

Once Karachi was the hub of peace and prosperity, different ethnic groups lived in harmony, respecting each other’s point of view and religion. Children played on the streets without any fear, women roamed in market places as if they were in their homes. In Sindh, it was Karachi that witnessed the first railway track, and later, this track was extended to Kotri. Streets were always clean, there was fear of the law, and citizens were law-abiding. Karachi ‘killed’ with its beauty.

Now compare today’s Karachi with that old Karachi: fast ambulances carrying dead bodies and the injured from Lyari to Landhi want to reach hospitals immediately; smoke fills the sky of this mega city; dumped garbage is to be found everywhere, red spots of paan-liquid have coloured road signs; over-loaded mini-buses billow smoke and pollute the air. News has just reached that there was a bomb blast at an imambargah. Burnt human flesh and pieces of bodies lay on the street, and the administration is still sleeping. Another incident of firing at a mosque, five killed and eight injured. Traffic and noise on every road; everyone feels insecure, tense and worried, blowing their horns furiously. There are large plazas and malls but no public places. Citizens wait for water from taps but only hot air comes out, and they have to buy dirty and contaminated water for Rs 20-25. A speedy motorcycle with two passengers stops at a traffic signal; the back rider pulls out a gun from his pants, points it at a car standing nearby, robs cell phones, money and other valuables, and as the signal turns green the motorcycle disappears into thin air.

There is kidnapping for ransom, private torture cells, people are selling dog and donkey meat, which is somehow testified by the government that it is up to health standards. Young girls are abducted, raped, and then their videos are shared on YouTube. No one wants to enter Karachi, no one wants to live in Karachi, no one wants to invest in Karachi, everyone just wants to leave Karachi. The glory of the east is on fire, it is burning, and soon there will be a time when only the ashes of this city will remain. Though everyone verbally says ‘Karachi is mine…Karachi is mine…’ but no one really believes it. Please, for God’s sake, do something to save Karachi, make it the peaceful and prosperous Karachi of old times. At this time Karachi kills me, not with its beauty but its bullet.

The writer can be reached at kaleem_buttbutt@yahoo.com