KARACHI: Luring house buyers into ‘dream deals’

In order to attempt meaningfully a look at the enigmatic phenomena of rising prices of land and property in town, it is rather imperative to underline changing values, perceptions, and needs; the family unit turning smaller; and the sustained growth in the population; all of which are having a negative impact on our housing sector.

And for those, having vested interests, who exploit any given financial sector and its inadequacies and flaws to a ruthless maximum, this is yet more territory to exploit. It doesn’t surprise any more, given the levels of integrity and the cynicism of public opinion. Everything seems to be acceptable while everything that works is condoned, says a sociologist.

In passing one would like to mention the way in which the much discussed black marketing of Pakistani cars has been going on for some time now. No amount of argument, analysis or public outrage and frustration seems to have sorted out the matter so far. One may also like to mention how with the advent of Ramazan due in the last week of this month, a quiet increase in prices wherever possible seems to have been initiated, somewhat stealthily, says one observer of the price rise scene in this society.

But let us return to the housing sector in context of Karachi. One way is to look at the abundance of print media advertisements that appear regularly trying to appeal to the average citizen as well as the upper class clientele to buy property. Not just for inhabiting the premises, but also for investment purposes. Having said this, it seems that we have hit the nail on the head? While there is a shortage of fair-priced land and property for those, who do not own even one piece of land, there are others, who invest in real estate for profits all the time. And owning a house remains out of reach of common people.

Inevitably thought goes out to the over publicized, pompous project of luxury apartments and penthouses called the “Creek City”, a project of the Defence Housing Authority. It is said that this “Creek City” offers to the buyer an “idyllic world of endless exotic pleasures”. All in this very city of Karachi, where frustrations and challenges for the common man exist on every front, and which is regarded as unsafe for playing cricket with visiting teams like South Africa. The naive amongst us wonder when will that kind of general environment be created in Karachi that will make such concepts as the Creek City harmonize with the rest of the city. Many of us are grim in our more contemplative moods, as how far will we go to offer contrasting lifestyles, cultures and conflicting contexts.

Definitions of poverty often take academic shape, but the fact remains that poverty is more and more under focus and scrutiny by the private and the public sector, says a university teacher, who regretfully underlines that the rich are getting richer, and the poor becoming poorer. And in a free market context, the poor becomes poorer: the man who cannot afford to pay his utility bills or the man who cannot afford to have the utilities in the first place?

It is in this scenario that one must mention the lure of advertising by banks and financial institutions wanting people to take loans, to buy property or even other consumer goods. Often foreign consumer goods! It is very significant that at this point in time banks, Pakistani and foreign, are both offering the most attractive of deals for enabling customers to acquire loans, considered by them (the banks) as easy to repay.

Loans for buying a house or an apartment — there are difficult options. As most people find the loans as still not good enough when it comes to a repayment option, on time. Repayment of loans and its default, remains a principal sore on this canvass too.

Now the reason, as to why these loans are at present rendered virtually futile, is the steady inexplicable incline in the price of land and property. It is a city-wide phenomenon generally, but the emphasis is on Clifton and Defence, and some adjoining areas. The rise in prices in the last one year in particular, is regarded as being something of a sustained “scandal”, argues one person whose plans to get his first apartment in life (after 30 years of work) have failed to materialize. So we spoke to some property agents, who said that besides the bank loans for housing, the other factor creating this price rise was the investment by overseas Pakistanis in property in Karachi’s posh areas. Perhaps it is happening in some other cities like Lahore and Islamabad too. These Pakistanis have realized after 9/11 incident that they were highly vulnerable in the West and elsewhere, and that a Pakistan option needed to be held on to. They invest here in a variety of ways, and real estate is one. So while it is an investment for them, it is making it absolutely frustrating for the genuine buyer to own a house or flat. All that emphasis of advertising to own a home is a “bogus” proposition, remarked one weary citizen, who did not hold back his candid views. He said that property dealers and landlords (particularly those, who use this channel for multiplying their millions) used to manipulate the market without any semblance of any embarrassment.

Embarrassment! One is tempted to return to the Creek City concept, which seeks to beautify Karachi for the rich, as is being believed. The cheapest (what a description) apartment here costs six million rupees, and the market value even now is over seven million rupees at this stage. By the time it is ready, it will be over a crore of rupees, added one colleague cynically.

Of course, on the subject of the affordability of having a small house or apartment, there is more cynicism and skepticism than what is generally perceived. It is often felt that the inside view of the real estate theme is an unexplored one in this society, in terms of the psychology and sociology that prevail behind what appears to be a financial scenario.

Owning a house or a place to live in is a natural desire, argue citizens, and which has somehow not been given the priority by this society for over half a century. As a result of which, commercial banks now exploit this weakness and vulnerability of an individual and his family by what their promotional campaigns contend as going for the dream option and making that dream comes true. That dream for most of the people, particularly the genuine buyers, is almost a nightmare option, if you look at the repayment option that some financial institutions offer (interest rates being a cause).

In all this housing dream and insecurity, there is also the tenant, who lives year after year in that position, subject at times to the whim and fancy of the landlord — who may not be living off that rent. At times that is his business to rent out houses to those, who have been unable to buy any. Estate agents in town indicate that rent too has risen abnormally in the recent months, and there is no prediction where it will go. Besides, real estate market manipulation and reasons like wanting to live in urban Karachi, or moving to presumably “safer” areas like Clifton and Defence for stable living, also undo the prospects of the average citizen, in his pursuit of “average living”.

And it is the individual’s yearning for a home at times that makes him chase the “dream house”. Though home is where the heart is, says the poet.

Famines and cannibalism in Lahore

OVER the last 2,000 years, Lahore, and the Punjab, have been hit by almost 20 major famines, with a ‘major famine’ being classified as one lasting more than three consecutive years. For the most the granaries of Lahore held out hope, but there have been grim times in the past, much more grimmer than we can ever imagine today.

If we look up the records and consult various history books, we will notice that Lahore has faced a ‘major famine’ after almost every 100 years on the average. The worst one lasted almost six years, and things were so bad that people wanting to get into the city were shut out and starvation reached a level where people had to resort to cannibalism to survive. Such a situation is difficult to imagine today, but this has happened thrice in our history. Every time the famine crossed the four-year mark, reports of cannibalism surfaced. On the one major occasion, during the worst famine to ever hit Lahore, people stopped going out alone lest they were waylaid and “eaten up.”

We must research and record these gruesome events to understand who we are, and what we have been through. In a way it also is the underlying reason of the way we behave even today as a collective lot. Lahore is definitely about magnificent buildings, with a history a few cities on earth can parallel; it is also about gardens, about poets, about universities. But more importantly, Lahore is about people. This city is what it is because of the people who have lived, and continue to live here. That is why what befell them needs to be told so that it never happens again. We have a habit of blotting out the scars in our collective lives, and the scars left by terrible famines need to be seen, to be felt, to be believed today.

These famines have certainly not been fleeting moments in our history, which goes back thousands of years. A lot of our folk songs, our collective behaviour patterns, all flow from such terrible events. The first recorded famine to hit Lahore was in the year 650. Though famine existed throughout the subcontinent in that year, people from far and wide in the Punjab came to Lahore and surrounded it thinking that its granaries had food for them. The Hindu Rajput Raja certainly was well stocked and he helped his subjects considerably. But people were dying on the streets, of sheer hunger. The next major famine to hit Lahore was in the year 879, when the granaries inside the city were attacked, and because of the law and order collapse, the famine spread. In the process the population had to be quelled with force by the Bhat Raja. Once order was restored, food was made available.

But the worst famine to hit Lahore was in 941, and it continued till the year 1022. This hit the entire Punjab as well as the entire subcontinent, and people died by the millions. One estimate is that 35 per cent of the population of the Punjab died in that famine. In Lahore the first reported case of cannibalism was in 947 (another source puts it in 946), and as the famine raged, more and more cases were reported. People began to hide their children. The population fell drastically and every day scores of dead would be found on the streets, dead from sheer hunger and exhaustion. One gruesome account tells of people being found with major portions of their bodies missing. Lahore was at its weakest. To add to our miseries, our Afghan ‘brothers’ launched their first major invasion, ruthlessly killing whoever stood in their way. They removed to Afghanistan a major portion of our scarce wheat and rice, even though our textbooks say they came to spread Islam.

Then there was, finally, relief, and a bumper crop followed after major floods hit the city and its surrounding areas. The land was well fertilized and for many a year bumper crops were reported. The granaries remained full and life returned to normal. In a way these prosperous times led Lahore to becoming a great city. The rise and rise of Lahore owes itself to the prosperity that bumper crops brought. This remains the pattern even today.

But by 1148 another famine hit Lahore, and it continued till 1159. Though it had spread all over India, where its effect was far greater, Lahore suffered as thousands died on its streets. Two good years followed and, before confidence could return, in 1162 another famine hit the city. Foreign invasions and famines seemed to come hand in hand. In 1344-45 the Great famine in India took place, when the Moghal emperor was unable to obtain the necessaries for his own household. The famine continued for years and millions perished.

In 1396 right up to 1407, The Durga Devi famine in India, lasting 12 years, took place. Lahore was devastated. Cannibalism took hold of the people and the habit of carrying an axe to protect oneself was established. One account puts it in perspective: “Today a neighbour’s young son went missing. On search his head was found in the next mohallah. He had been eaten up by the devils that people have become.”

But then super floods followed and life again returned to normal. The granaries of Lahore were known to be the largest in the subcontinent and the Moghals for this reason took a special interest in Lahore. Then came the Great Famine of Bengal from 1769 to 1770, and a third of the population (10,000,000) perished. It was a tragedy beyond comprehension. In this time period Lahore managed well, though in 1798 it had a very dry year. But in 1783 “The Chalisa Famine” took place affecting Lahore and Jammu, where thousands died. Though the city of Lahore managed to ration its wheat and maintain law and order, it was during this famine that the Kashmiri population moved to Lahore. Today we have a major Kashmiri population because of that famine.

In 1790 ‘The Doji Bara’, or skull famine, hit India. It was so called because the people died in such numbers that they could not be buried. According to tradition this was one of the severest famines ever known. This famine lasted four years and in this also cases of cannibalism were reported, but on a much smaller scale. It was during this time period that Lahore’s Mori Gate was built to remove the hundreds of dead for cremation on the River Ravi that flowed outside its walls.

After the ‘skull famine’ followed a series of major famines, which research now tell us took place because the British were taking over major stocks of our grains. This aspect of British imperialism has never been discussed. In 1838 an “intense famine hit North-West Provinces (United Provinces) of India in which 800,000 perished.”

In 1861 another major famine hit in Northwest India in which 500,000 died of starvation. In 1866 a major famine hit Bengal and Orissa in which one million perished. In 1869 a major famine affected Rajputana; one million and a half perished. In 1876 a major famine hit central and western India in which 5,000,000 died. Lahore was badly hit and its granaries were almost empty.

In 1897 yet another famine came about, while in 1899 right up to 1901 the last major famine hit Lahore. In this famine over one million people died in the subcontinent. In Lahore the last known case of cannibalism was reported from inside the Walled City.

Our people have seen terrible times. Famines have fashioned the way we behave, our insecurities are more ‘famine related’ than anything else. Thanks to modern transportation famines are a thing of the past, at least in Pakistan, unless we make a right royal mess of the way we manage our scarce water resources. But then that is politics. Imagine. — Majid Sheikh

collection at last

I HAVE always considered Azhar Javed a ‘Raja Inder’ as any time you go to his office he is surrounded by a bevy of beauties. And it is he who has inducted many of them in the field of literature. He has been regularly publishing a copious Urdu literary magazine, Takhleeq, for almost four decades, adding a few pages to it every month.

A completely self-made man, Azhar has been through the mill and faced numerous hardships. He worked to pay for his education and slaved in weeklies, monthlies, digests and film journals. He contributed to Jamhoor, Lahore, and Hurriyet, Karachi. He served for 15 years with the daily Imroze with a gap of seven years being one of the journalists dismissed by the martial law regime in 1983. He was reinstated but then the Imroze itself was closed down in 1991. However, he kept the Takhleeq alive all this while.

Azhar has been writing poetry for almost 45 years, but had never thought of having a collection published. It is only this year that at the insistence of some friends he has agreed to have some carefully selected nazms and ghazals come out in the form of a book under the title, Gham-i-Ishq Gar na Hota. The selection has been made by no less a person than Dr Khwaja Zakariya while the title has been conceived by another notable figure and artist, Salima Hashmi. The printing of the book speaks of the refined taste of Safdar Husain of Al-Hamd Publications.

There are known romantics in English poetry, but if anyone asks me to pinpoint one in Urdu, I’d place my finger on the name of Azhar Javed. Like Shelley, he lives in two worlds. One is the world of misery, cruelty, pain and oppression. The other is the world of imagination which is just, peaceful and full of love. Azhar’s poetry contains different elements — sensuoness with deep rooted pessimism. Says he:

Kaya batlaein kis nein loota kaisey kaisey piyar luta

Raat ko ghar jab deir se aaun roothneywala koi toa ho

Grief does not cause destructive effects alone, it also has its constructive effects. Azhar’s pensive mood is clustered with delicate and dewy feelings. Just read his poems, Larkian bewaqoof hoti hein, Shola shabnam larki and many others. They would give you an insight into Azhar Javed’s mind.

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AUTOBIOGRAPHIES and travelogues have always been my weakness. When I was in-charge of the well stocked library at Air Headquarters, I had three almirahs in my office. One was full of autobiographies and the other of travelogues. The third had all the available material on 1857. Now Dr Syed Moeenur Rehman who has retired as head of the Urdu Department of the Government College, Lahore, is concentrating on publishing books. He has, as always, been kind enough to keep me on his mailing list. The other day, I received the autobiography of the 1921 born Prof Khwaja Muhammad Saeed, who, at one time, was head of the Urdu Department at the Government College, Lahore. The book has been published by Al-Wiqar Publications managed by Dr Moeenur Rehman’s son Syed Waqar Moeen. It is a thick volume of 560 pages, but I went through it in no time.

Unfortunately, I left Lahore in 1943 just after graduating from the Government College and only came back to live in the city at the end of 1977. As such, I never had the occasion of meeting either Prof Khwaja Saeed or Dr Syed Abdullah. But this is the first time I have read such vehement condemnation of Dr Syed Abdullah. It is totally in contrast with what I have all along been reading about that lover of Urdu, they could be regarded as eulogies. It seems Khwaja Sahib had some personal grudge against him, and he has tried to make his readers a party to it. I can only denounce this tendency. It is for this reason that I find this autobiography to be utterly disappointing.

While writing his autobiography, Khwaja Saeed has all along indulged in self-praise. He has even gone to the extent of claiming that he is a bigger scholar than Dr Ghulam Jilani Barq and a better speaker than him.

In the same book, Khwaja Sahib has written about his days as controller of examinations at the intermediate board of education at Sargodha. I have also served at Sargodha as the base education officer of the PAF. I very well know the reputation the board enjoyed. A munshi of an industrialist of Faisalabad had the cheek to approach me with a brief case full of money with the request that I talk to someone in the board and get high marks for the son of his boss. All I could do in response was to shoo him off with the threat that I would hand him over to the PAF police if he stayed a minute longer. — ASHFAQUE NAQVI