IT is extremely hard to believe that there was a time when the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (now K-Electric) genuinely tried to keep Karachiites’ lives illuminated and was also willing to render its services to other nations. Check out this news item published on Sept 1, 1964: the KESC offers services to Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan to train its young men in management of electric utility in the countries. It sounds like a line from an absurdist play. But then stranger things have happened in this city.

The less strange thing that took place that week was Nazrul Academy’s attempt at popularising the Bengali language in the western wing of the country. It was the need of the hour, as could be gauged by the events that unfolded six years later. It didn’t surprise anyone on Sept 3 that the academy began a three-month Bengali elementary course from Aug 31 for which 100 aspirants, including a large number of girls, signed up. You wonder, where those people today are who learned that beautiful language.

Sometimes the phrase ‘frozen in time’ doesn’t have a nostalgic ring to it. Rather, it hurts you to think that the dreadful disease that caused society so much pain in the past still has not been eradicated. On Sept 4, a child by the name of Syed Majid Husanie, son of a Pakistani Fulbright student teaching at Washington State University, was to reach Washington where he would receive medical treatment for polio. His trip was facilitated by a US senator, Henry Jackson. It’s been 50 years since, and the crippling ailment hasn’t been removed from the face of our society, and it’s a difficult task only because of the mulish attitude of some of us.

But in the ‘60s things were dealt with a tad differently. At least the authorities showed their concern for serious issues and didn’t act all smug about them. They even cared for animals. On Sept 4 it was announced that the West Pakistan government had sanctioned Rs320,000 for the construction of two new veterinary hospitals in Karachi division: one in Gadap, and the other at Uthal, Lasbela district. Well, come to think of it, these days we need at least 50 of those.

Sept 6, 1964 is a very important date as far as the field of telecommunication is concerned. Why? Because that day the first six-digit telephone system began in the city. The director general Pakistan Telegraph and Telephone (the word telegraph has such a nice auditory value to it) Haji Abdul Hamid formerly opened the new exchange located on McLeod Road — now I. I. Chundrigar Road. It was reported that in the first phase alone, work on 10,000 lines was completed. Even the pre-smart phone era of communications was not sluggish.

But then, numbers have never been an issue with Karachi’s bosses. The same day (Sept 6) it was claimed that the Karachi Port Trust had set a record. It was for brining in S. S. Manhattan, the world’s largest twin screw ship of bulk carrier type, a tanker of 108,000 tons dead weight. It came to Karachi that week with 78,000 tons of wheat.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2014