Who was the first Pakistani batsman to score a century in his very first Test match? Yes, we’re talking about cricket. The answer is Khalid Ibadullah, aka Billy Ibadullah, who achieved the feat on Oct 24, 1964 against Australia at Karachi’s National Stadium.

The news was flashed across the main pages of all the major newspapers of the country, and not just on sport pages. After him quite a few have gone on to make a hundred in their very first Test outing, but dear Billy remains the very first to do so. Alas, no cricket on Pakistani soil these days.

Numbers seemed to be ‘in’ that week, as things were heating up on the political front. On Oct 23, it was announced that 5,579 candidates would contest for 1,569 seats to the Electoral College in Karachi district from Oct 31 to Nov 9. Yes, this was the time when Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah was busy campaigning in different parts of the country for her presidential election and a day earlier, Oct 23, had just returned to Karachi from East Pakistan. Talking to the media she termed her visit to the eastern wing of the country ‘unprecedented’.

By the way, people were not battling for glory on the cricket field and in the political arena, but the Karachi Metropolitan’s Health Department too announced a war against mosquitoes. The news item that the KMC put out in the newspapers on Oct 20 declared it was waging an all-out war against mosquitoes. According to a spokesman for the corporation, it had enough insecticides to combat the menace provided other bodies (cantonment and housing societies) cooperated with the KMC. Well, guess what, these mosquitoes have proved to be a pretty tough lot. They are still here causing the citizens to go down with dengue and yellow fevers. Insecticides were clearly not enough.

Let’s not be overly unfair, though, and hand it to the KMC of that time. At least it kept coming up with one idea or another on a regular basis to, well largely, make its presence felt. The next day, Oct 21, the corporation’s chairman, Syed Sardar Ahmed, disclosed that the municipal limits of the city were being extended to include Azizabad in them. He said arrangement had already been completed to ‘take over’ the colony. Sounds eerie in today’s context!

Let’s change the mood a bit. On Oct 21, Reda Folklore Troupe of Dance and Music from the United Arab Republic performed for two hours at the Arts Council. It entertained the audience with the rich folklore of the Arab Fallahins presented in the semi-ballet style. Interesting, isn’t it? A dance troupe from the Arab world!

But then, dichotomies have always played a big role in Pakistani society. If on the one hand, ballet dance caught the attention of art lovers, on the other hand on Oct 25 the West Pakistan minister for law and parliamentary affairs, Ghulam Nabi Memon, attended an event at the Metropole hotel at which he appealed to the showbiz fraternity to pay more attention to building the film industry on sound, economic and patriotic lines rather than indulging in ‘undesirable tendencies’. Now this does not sound a 50-year-old request!

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2014