Five decades back, Pakistani newspapers, especially the ones published in English, didn’t frequently carry news items that fell in the category of the ‘weird’. Those that did make it to the city pages weren’t accompanied by pictures. Take, for example, a small report published on April 23, 1964 (Shakespeare’s 400th birthday) in Dawn headlined ‘The man who eats razor blades’. Those days such headlines were not in vogue. So who was that man? Well, his name was Umer bin Rehman and he worked as a waiter at Saddar’s Gulzar Hotel . The razor-eating was recommended to him by a sadhu so that he could be cured of fever. Apparently, he was cured. Sad, there was no picture of Mr Rehman munching on and gulping down razor blades.

Back to the normal nuggets of information! One name that did the rounds in that week was of a sub-divisional magistrate by the name of Abrar Hasan Khan. On April 20 he headed an anti-adulteration drive committee and raided ghee shops in Ranchhor Lines , getting hold of 11 samples of ghee and vegetable oil, later sent for chemical analysis to the KMC’s food laboratory. During the drive, 475 samples were collected from different shopping districts out of which 151 samples of foodstuffs were found adulterated.

The next day, April 21, the commissioner of Karachi set up the first jirga in the city since the enactment of the West Pakistan Criminal Amendment Act 1963 to try a murder case pending in a local court. He made the same Abrar Hasan Khan (sub-divisional magistrate) president of the jirga.

On April 23 renowned American artist Robert K Gronendyke exhibited his sculptures at the PACC. The exhibits were welded non-ferrous metal studies, a group of bas reliefs, assemblages in wood and mixed media which, according to experts, hinted at pop art idiom. See, pop art is an old phenomenon.

From April 22 to 25, Shakespeare’s birthday was celebrated with fanfare. Lectures, talks and exhibitions were organised in different cultural centres of the city. A film show of Romeo and Juliet attracted a decent audience at the Arts Council on April 25. Later on Prof Ahmed Ali spoke on ‘Shakespeare and Pakistan’.

By the way, it was good that the film was shown on April 25 as the night before the entire Karachi plunged into darkness because of a short circuit that happened in the bus bar of the duel fuel station of the KESC at the Sindh industrial trading estate. It didn’t last long though.

April 25 was a day crammed with events. The two-day fifth annual Conference of the African Muslim Students began at the Jama Masjid, New Town. Inaugurating the moot, Nigerian high commissioner in Pakistan Al Haji A. A. Koguna urged the students to strive hard for the unity of Muslims.

And it was also April 25 when the famous jazz team of Johnny Lion and the Jumping Jewels from Holland performed at the KLM Midway House. It was a very well received show, as could be gauged by its reviews published in the newspapers on April 27.