DOESN’T the headline remind you of a Ghulam Abbas story Anandi? It does. Let’s keep that for the latter part of this write-up. First: another kind of traffic.

In the 1960s there were not enough public transport buses in Karachi. So on July 27, 1964 a subcommittee appointed by the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) for realignment of bus routes suggested that 470 more buses were required to ease the transport situation in the city. Try doing that today, and the word logjam will lose its meaning.

But then, it had just been 17 years since Pakistan came into being. The teething period hadn’t quite ended. On July 28 a report suggested that the Chemistry Department of the University of Karachi might increase the number of seats in view of a large number of students seeking admission. Yes, even chemistry used to be a subject in vogue. This means a demographic change was taking place in the city and the public transport system was not equipped to deal with it.

On July 29, the West Pakistan Government asked all the daily newspapers to get their circulation checked by the audit bureau of circulation of the Central Ministry of Information because some newspapers were supplying unreliable circulation certificates from chartered and registered accountants. Now that’s a bit of a surprise!

Literature buffs got excited on July 30 when the media broke the news that a chair used by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib would soon be displayed at the National Museum of Pakistan. The historic piece of furniture was donated from New Delhi to the museum by an archaeology professor, Dr Iftikhar Ahmed. You wonder: does the National Museum still have it?

The same day, a meeting held at the KMC, presided over by its chairman Sardar Ahmed, by a majority vote decided to shift the old red light area in the heart of the city to outside municipal limits near Korangi. The resolution was moved by Umer Yousuf and seconded by E. S. Mayet, a municipal councillor. The individuals who took part in the meeting were referred to in the newspapers as ‘city fathers’. Well, it appears that the decision-makers didn’t have a high opinion of the Korangi area.

You don’t know whether writer Ghulam Abbas wrote a story on the subject inspired by the KMC’s decision (some might argue he penned it much earlier) what you do know is that when the ‘city fathers’ were busy trying to cleanse an old neighbourhood, Pakistan’s ambassador-designate to Morocco, Begum Shaista Ikramullah, was delivering a lecture at the Pak American Cultural Centre on ‘Form and Content in Urdu Poetry’.

In her talk she said that Allama Iqbal, Altaf Husain Hali and Akbar Alahbadi were great reformers and constructive poets who helped the nation realise the importance and value of its own culture.

Pakistan has always been plagued by the illiteracy problem. On Aug 1, a statement of Dr Mahbubul Haq, who was an important member of the government’s planning section, rang alarm bells for everybody who thought the country was on the right path. Speaking at a gathering at NIPA, Dr Haq said 80 per cent children gave up studies after class V. It was a big hurdle in the way of literacy, he argued. Well Dr Haq, 50 years on, nothing has been done to allay your anxiety.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2014