A clear blue sky, and a crisp Karachi winter afternoon. I drove on the Clifton Bridge -- and for yet another time noticed that there were imposing personnel of law enforcing agencies posted on it, in a state of ready alert. A thought went out to other places in the city. Is this the kind of posture elsewhere also? The news that Saddam Hussain had been hanged to death had come in earlier. The TV news channels are reporting details, and reaction and analysis --including the official reaction of the Pakistan Government, which has described the hanging as "sad"

The city could well be in a state of contemplative sadness as the news (read shock waves) of former President Saddam Hussain’s hanging spreads. The mood of the city is bound to be varying shades of deep grey with this news-- in what is regarded so far as a holiday spell-- with Eidul Azha being celebrated tomorrow.What kind of an Eidul Azha is it going to be? It is also New Year's Day .Which makes it natural that I refer to the end of 2006 that stares us in the face. The end of a year, as always been a time for stock taking, soul searching, and in one's younger years, a time for wishes, and resolutions, and hopes, reminds a dear friend, who has turned cynical with time.

This time this year end column is also a farewell column to its readers -- which I began writing in the middle of 2001. I haven’t tired of writing on these themes, though I must admit a part of me of late, wasn’t as hopeful as it was when such themes and stories began troubling me, far back in the sixties. Even as a student, and later as a young reporter, I was unable to accept or condone the quality of life that a Karachiite was handed out. Today, what Karachiites get is saddening, disturbing and frightening, if one looks into the future.

Water and power shortages or those of public transport, the venomous frustration or the standards of the functioning of our police or those of schools and hospitals not delivering, are themes that are among the central ones in Karachi. Any one residing here for as long as I have, cannot escape them, and to write about them, is in a way, a kind of self-defence. To that extent I have written of them in self defence? Perhaps, I do not know, but the thought does cross the mind.

Many thoughts cross the mind as one writes a year end column. It seems that Time weighs heavily on the individual as autumn bows out and departs from the canvas of Time, making way for winter, which in itself is a season for introspection. For Karachi, generally speaking, it is always a better time of the year. The cool weather serves as a sort of shock absorber against the harshness and the humiliation that citizens have to undergo. Water and power shortages do not bite as much, and the traffic jams that have become daily hurdles, and hardships are not as suffocating. But the perils, and the pains of something as quick as cellphone snatching, bring the same degree of risk and ruin at any time of the year.

I had originally wanted to write about cellphone snatching -- and car thefts and snatching -- twin terrors that haunt this city. Two separate stories in Dawn this month have indicated, with concern for us, that both forms of crime have increased in the outgoing year. For all the efforts and the repeated assurances made officially, cellphone snatching has risen almost in defiance. I am reminded here of the disappointment and disgust of a local graphics artist, Quratulain Ahmed, who was held up at gunpoint by two young men in Defence Housing Authority last month, while she was waiting for the door bell to be answered at the main gate of a family she was visiting. No one helped her, no one was in sight, and she lodged no First Information Report. Instead, she sent out emails to family, friends and acquaintances, sharing the information, and seeking comfort, I guess she got that and she sent out another email on the same subject “How safe is my valley?” and this time she thanked those who had stood by her.

This brings me to another point. Even though Karachi has grown and the population stands at over 15 million, the quality of the human bondage remains questionable. Individuals don’t matter. Individually, they don’t care. There is much to be desired in what is happening to our neighbourhoods -- and the state of the community. Not just flyovers and underpasses, but all the shopping malls and elite retail outlets for fashionable personal goods, reflective of a maddening consumerism -- have enhanced the degrees of materialism in Pakistani society. And urban centres like Karachi lead the rate race.

Anyway, it is the season to bid goodbye to 2006, and it is time to bid farewell to the readers of this column. It is time to look ahead, at 2007 and beyond, with the more than fond hope that Karachi fares better than what our fears are telling us. At an inner level, the citizen is losing out on patience. Anyway, until another time and space, thank you readers, -- and, here's wishing even those who are downcast, a very Happy New Year!

RECORD breaking feats are rare and when some one is able to get to achieve them, comparisons are always made. The question then often asked is whether the record breaker is better than the one whose record has been eclipsed. One would hear varied explanations on such occasions, based on the knowledge and data that is either acquired or available. I remember that when Brian Charles Lara pulverised the English attack to hit 375 in the 1994 Antigua Test to go past the 36-year-old record of Sir Garfield Sobers made against Pakistan in the 1957-58 Jamaica Test, the analysts immediately sprung into action to find similarities in their style of play.

Having watched them both at international level and having followed their respective careers for Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire, I can easily say that the only similarity between the two was they batted left-handed and that they were both from the West Indies. In style, elegance and in poise Sobers was unquestionably the supreme and Lara to this day would not get anywhere near it. That, however, does not mean that Lara is a lesser mortal.

Now that our own batsman Mohammad Yousuf has gone past the great Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards’ record-breaking 1710 runs in a calendar year, similar questions come to mind; whether Yousuf in quality or in class is anywhere near what Richards used to be.

Once again, having watched them both from the beginning of their careers I can easily submit that to draw any comparison between the two will be a folly. And I find it rather disdainful to be drawn into it. I find them both markedly at opposite poles in style, in attitude and in their approach to batting.

Richards was incomparable, infallible and unshakeable in any period of time – whether he was facing the fearsome at their fastest or negotiating a spinner of class. Arguably the best that ever was. In the year he managed to make 1710 runs – and that was in 1976 – I had the privilege of covering his 291 at The Oval and another double century at the Trent Bridge. They were both breathtaking innings – of awesome power and swashbuckling stroke-play.

Yousuf's career, since his Test debut at Durban against South Africa to his first fifty in a Test to now, is like a mirror to my mind. Having covered most of the Test matches that he has played and all the 23 Test centuries he scored including those nine in a calendar year, I can tell you by my experience that watching him in the present mode does remind of Richards’ early years. And Yousuf himself is the first to admit that he is nowhere what Richards used to be. Nice of him to say that.

Richards confidence and belief in his ability oozed out of him as he stepped out of the dressing room. It was like a lion appearing from his den or a matador entering the bullring to gore his victim. His presence was so strong and his personality so imposing. His swaggering walk to the wicket and his unflappable stay at the crease painted a thousand pictures as he chewed his gum and offered an asserting smile after every enchanting stroke. A 'smiling assassin' as once described by a cricket writer of repute.

Yousuf is a lot sublime in nature and in disposition has always been a cool customer and workman-like professional once he drops anchor in the middle. In comparison to Richards whose strength was a quick pair of eyes and brute force, Yousuf always remained a picture of style and grace.

I remember that on the 1993 tour of the West Indies by Pakistan, Richards had kindly arranged for me to talk to his father Malcolm Richards, a former prison warden and a groundsman at St John's Test ground in Antigua. The senior Richards lived in the same house where Viv was born.

At the appointed time I was greeted in the Viv Richards Street's house by a maid servant who took me to the front room where the senior Richards greeted me with a smile and a handshake. He was resting on a sofa with his one leg placed on the table in front and with a huge towel covering his legs.

Having apologised for not being able to greet me at the door he told me that his right leg has been amputated because of gangrene and the left is about to fall down too. I was shocked and felt sad for the man. During the interview I enquired if Viv was as gifted when he was a schoolboy.

The face immediately turned brighter and with a glint in his eyes he raised himself in the chair despite his handicap and shouted at the top of his voice. “Gifted, what do you mean gifted? He is gift from the gods man, gift from the gods,” he repeated. I could very well gauge his exuberance and excitement in describing his famous son.

When I see Yousuf, the word ‘gifted’ always comes to my mind. A natural ball player who when not recognised for his talent by Lahore, his home town, made his first-class debut for Bahawalpur. A mistake which surely the people in-charge of Lahore cricket now regret. But Lahore 's loss was Pakistan's gain.

Few weeks after his Test debut at Durban in 1998 he made his first fifty in a Test. I was then in the team of ESPN commentators. It was an enchanting, controlled innings. On the evening of that match he walked into the commentary box to introduce himself to me and to request if I could organise a video tape of his first fifty in Test.

Having acquired the footage I presented him that tape as a gift on a Christmas day because he was then Yousuf Youhana. From that day on till now he remains a marked man; not only for me but also for his opponents who watch him bat with awe and delight.