These taut quarters of Benaras Colony provide an immediate, stinging taste of Karachi’s duality. Life here represents an intricate web of shine and shadows much like their fabled Benarasi weaves.

Interestingly, time is the central element that separates the culture and ways of this vast settlement from the world that encircles it. Its people, with faraway gazes, still speak of the charms of the Ganges and Benaras; their lores, cuisine and customs have seeped into generations. Hence, this is easily one of the more culturally assured and articulate pockets of the metropolis.

As tradition remains scattered all over, fear lurks in most hearts. Shopkeepers and craftsmen betray constant suspicion; one shop owner is worried about his neighbour. “All eight members of the family are not here today. I hope there hasn’t been a murder or burglary.”

This district echoes with dread; it has watched vehicles and buildings turn into plumes of smoke, and lives lost to brutal conflict that spilt over from Kati Pahari and the nearby Orangi Ijtimagah.

And then we meet Ameer Hamza, 39, who has spent 15 years in the family craft of Benarasi looms, to emerge as one of the foremost pattern-makers of today.

“I went to Benaras to learn this art from Ustad Badruddin there. Until 1998, this was manual work, now technology has lent it speed but not perfection. We don’t have expensive software yet manage better work,” he says with a proud spread of his fine sketches.

Hamza, a bit of a philosopher at heart, also recalls the time when he would volunteer to impart his knowledge for free and was perpetually hard up. “Feudals don’t have to come with turbans or moustaches; it is a state of mind. Now, every stroke has a price and I have a name, income and respect. It takes me 15 to 20 days to complete a pattern.”

A father of three, he sits with a laptop on the floor of a small, dingy room, flanked by his crutches and a protégé, narrating his tale.

“I found livelihood and love in Benaras [now Varanasi]. My wife was a kaamdani expert there and we married in 2000 but I am glad that we are here as there poverty is frightening.”

In walks Mohammed Rizwan Chhipa, a printing expert, whose Jaisalmeri family has an 1,100-year-old history in this ancient métier. Rizwan and Hamza recount their prized moment; one that brought honour and prosperity to their community.

“In 1999, Pakistani technicians in the Saudi Auqaf department proposed that a design with ayats be crafted by Pakistan for the Ghilaf-i-Kaaba. We sent a pattern card which received high praise and our design adorned the Kaaba and the Prophet’s mausoleum for 12 consecutive years.”

Across the tight, unpaved lane is a handloom hall with some seven khaddis propped up with large sacks of sand and brick that hang in balance above deep cavities in the ground. Abdul Qayyum labours over a shimmering, old-world trellis pattern in Ganga-Jamni style with a rosary beside his hand. Frail, toothless with white locks and beard, he is the oldest surviving artisan at 90 whose workmanship springs from the confluence in his hometown.

“I am the only one who was swept by emotion at the partition of the subcontinent and migrated. My clan is in Benaras where we worked in droves with a dharki. The instrument is only found in India as its fashioned from a Ram’s horn. Sadly, I cannot visit my family anymore as these decades of working in a set position have left me with a numb hip,” is Qayyum’s lament.

Opposite him is an emaciated young man who is too poor to rest despite tuberculosis. Yet his condition does not keep from spinning beauty in dull gold zari.

The light now melts into another hue; restaurants sizzle with katchoris and Benarasi biryani and flower stalls burn with luscious shades of marigolds. But these people remain trapped in hard realities — Hamza rues the law and order situation: “Saturdays used to be packed but now people would rather pay more in Zamzama than risk their lives to venture our way” and Anis of Zahooria Fabrics, considered the leading retailer in the colony, says that each day is a gamble.

“We teach students at prestigious art schools in city but there is no one who can help us. The thread is smuggled, there is no power, taxes are debilitating and then we don’t know whether a buyer will cross our doorsills,” he says.

Therefore, the greatest blow to this timeless trade is that eyes of pioneers like Anis on the future of their brood are nervous.

A cradle of timeless art and a cauldron of blood and tears Benaras Colony holds a fascinating, but tragic, culture of life and profane death.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd , 2014