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 I began my exploration of Karachi escorted by the Sait family by visiting the Musoleum of Kaide Azam Mohammed Ali Zinnah and paying homage to the Father of the Nation. It is a beautiful and uniquely designed modern structure inspired by pyramids. Surrounded it are vast green grounds and beautiful gardens where most of the people of Karachi come to spend very pleasant evenings. While strolling on the ground I saw many beautiful women. I was tempted to take a picture of a newly-wed woman, of course, I had to take permission from her husband which he graciously granted.
From there we drove around Zinnah road, Port Office, Taj Mahal Hotel, Avari Hotel and the Karachi Bay from where boat rides can be taken to various places including an island called Manora where a small temple is believed to exist. On the roads what strikes you first is the colourfully painted and decorated buses. Private transporters vie with each other in beautifying their buses. The government buses can be identified by their more sober exteriors. The best thing is that all trucks and tankers are also beautifully decorated and you feel that they are headed for a marriage procession. Equally colourful is Subzimandhi where you see mounds of fresh vegetables and all types of familiar and unfamiliar, big and small fruits. What strikes you most is the large melon like fruits (which are not melons) and for some reason are called both Garmas (hot ones) and Sardas (cool ones) by the people as per their wish. It has a cooling quality so why call it Garma? (perhaps because one eats them in hot season). Incidentally, Karachi was even hotter than Madras in October.
Sadar Bazaar is the place to go for inexpensive shopping. The streets are full of shops selling dry fruits and video & audio cassettes. From here you can generously help yourself to video tapes of Pakistani plays (most of the video libraries in Madras have a fine collection of Pakistani plays). You can also buy plenty of audio tapes of good Pakistani classical music (which is similar to Hindustani classical music) gazals and melodious qwalies. I picked up a tape of popular hits and another of gazals sung by the star gazal singer Munni Begum. Every gazal sung by Munni Begum centres around the joys of drinking alcohol. It is in strange contrast to the prohibition enforced in Pakistan. Coming back to the shopping the real thing to buy in Karachi is the finest Pakistani cotton printed with bold Sindhi prints and a variety of checks and stripes. The best Egyptian cotton is grown in the black soil of Indus Valley. The textile shops are full of colourful Pakistan, Japanese, Korean, Indian and assorted materials. One can also purchase embroidered as well as hand printed shawls with Sindhi block prints. The thriving local craft is the articles made of marble and the green onyx stone exquisitely hand carved into ash trays, bowls, flower vases, jewellery boxes, lamp stands, plates and even ice buckets. Thousands of artisans make a living on this craft which reminds one of Mughal and Rajput school of stone craft.
The town of Karachi is a large sprawling town which goes along the coast for miles with a population of more than a crore. Yet you neither see crowds nor traffic jams. Roads are very wide. New areas are all very well-planned and have a lot of high buildings. There is a lot of open space around the high-rise buildings. You have a great sense of space. Pollution levels are much lower compared to both Bombay and Madras. Best of all, the roads are clean. Nowhere you see piles of garbage or huge dumps of waste cluttering or the debris on the roads which is such a familiar sight in Madras. There are no encroachments on the roads and the pavements are for walking. Most of the city really looks beautiful. There are several beaches in and around Karachi. The most known being the Clifton beach, which is very large and offers very exciting camel rides. You can ride a colourfully decorated camel, who will rush you right into the waves, for just ten rupees. You can also have rides on the horse-driven buggies.
One of the most outstanding buildings in Karachi is the Aghakhan Memorial Hospital, a well-planned hospital with latest equipment and treatment facilities. The building is a very modern cubist structure in red soft stone, the type, extensively used in buildings and forts in Rajasthan. It is surrounded by large gardens and plenty of trees. The Aghakhan family, who lived in India, migrated abroad after partition of India and have made large donations both in India and Pakistan. It was in the Aghakhan Palace that Gandhiji was kept in captivity, when Kasturba breathed her last. Not very far from the Aghakhan hospital is the stadium where all cricket matches are played. I ended my first day's exploration of Karachi by paying a visit to the house of my host Mr.Ayub Sait and sharing a meal with his family.
(To be continued - next week)
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