THE refugee versus son-of-the-soil debate, if not tussle, is not a recent phenomenon. Even if you were not born at the time when Gen Ayub Khan ruled this country, you would know about his famous comment that he made on the refugee situation if any harm was caused to Pakistan. His words were, ‘Refugees face the Arabian Sea’.

This hurt a reasonable number of people, including Z. H. Lari, president of the Karachi Zonal Muslim League. On Dec 4, 1964 he, at a meeting, argued that the refugees were rooted to the soil and shared the fate of all other citizens of Pakistan, irrespective of their origin, both in terms of glory and discomfiture. Responding to Gen Ayub’s remark with reference to the Arabian Sea, he said if Pakistan was destroyed, what else there would be in front of the local population. He wondered about the occasion of discrimination between locals and refugees.

But the week began on a pleasant note with the arrival of Prince Karim Aga Khan in the city. On Nov 29 he spent a very busy day starting with a visit to the Jamaat Khana at Kharadar followed by visits to Jamaat Khanas at Lassi, Ranchhor Lines, Garden and Karimabad.

There are many other pleasant things about Karachi, one of which is the fact that no matter what the sociopolitical situation is, it never loses touch with its spiritual self. The city has its fair share of Sufi saints in different areas. On Dec 1, the three-day urs of Baba Wilayat Ali Shah began at his shrine in Malir. It’s natural to think about the present-day state of the shrine, because now we don’t hear about it much.

On the science front, on Dec 2, the provincial education minister, Muhammad Yasin Khan Wattoo, was invited to the University of Karachi campus which was then about 10 miles away from the main city. The purpose of his visit was to have a look at the newly built museum in the department of zoology. He was accompanied by the vice chancellor of the university, Dr Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi.

From the spiritual to the scientific, let’s now get a cultural feel of the megapolis. On Dec 2, renowned German guitarist Sigfried Behrend enthralled music lovers at the German Cultural Centre. The centre had not been named after the great philosopher Goethe yet. Not only did the musician play pieces from compositions of masters like Bach and Dowland, but he also presented some of his own material, which was equally well-received.

From Dec 4, the Arts Council Karachi ran an Urdu adaptation of the celebrated Samuel Beckett play Waiting for Godot for three days. Ali Ahmed was the man behind the production who also translated the absurdist drama into Urdu.

Hector Bolitho was an eminent biographer and novelist from New Zealand. He was an ardent admirer of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It is said that he used to keep a portrait of Mr Jinnah in his study and even talked to it when found himself in trouble. In the first week of December he was in Karachi, on his way to Ceylon, after 12 years.

In an interview to Dawn published on Dec 5, he said of all the people he had written about, the Quaid impressed him most. He said he had a deep admiration for the great leader. Sure, he did. The question is: do we admire the Quaid as much as Mr Bolitho?

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2014