IS it believable? If it is not, try and go along with it. Things, after all, were a little different half a century back; a little, because even Pakistan Railways used to observe a ‘courtesy week’ every year. And 1965 was no exception.

On March 25, 1965 the divisional superintendent of Pakistan West Railway (PWR) Karachi, Abdul Qadir, inaugurated the courtesy week at the PWR divisional office. It wasn’t just a showy, ceremonious event. It was observed throughout Karachi division with an equal degree of politeness. This meant from March 25 to March 31 those who issued tickets, those who checked them, and those whose duty it was to look after passengers travelling by train did not misbehave at all. Okay, perhaps a hundred per cent civility is not possible, so let’s just appreciate the fact that at least they did think about such a thing, something that needs to be replicated today.

But then it’s all about the image, isn’t it? Much that you would like to think that it’s only recently Pakistanis are trying to project their ‘soft’ side to the rest of the world, the situation in the 1960s was not overly dissimilar. In those days there used to be an annual event called the Pakistan International Fair.

On March 26, an appeal was made by the Pakistan Businessmen Council to the businessmen and industrialists of the country to make the Pakistan International Fair to take place next year (1966) a proud occasion in order to create a new image of the country.

Imagine this was being done despite the fact that at the time the western world was reasonably satisfied with our progress, both in the fields of socio-politics and economy. This could be gauged from the news item that on March 28 the Department of Investment Promotion and Supplies’ Vice-Chairman S. S. Jafri, on his return from the UK and the US, expressed the hope that foreign investment targets of Rs770 million would be achieved. He said American banking and businessmen were greatly impressed by Pakistan’s policy of free enterprise, adding that in Britain there was a great upsurge about investment in Pakistan.

On the literary front, though ‘front’ sounds a loaded word when it comes to literature, things were as smooth as ever, which meant that our literary world never needed an image-improvement exercise (some might argue against it in 2015).

On March 27, vice chancellor of Karachi University Dr Ishtiaq Hussain Quraishi inaugurated the English Literary Society at the KU’s Teacher-Student Centre. The one significant thing that he mentioned in his speech was that among all the universities of Pakistan, the KU had the best English Department. In that regard, he lauded the efforts of its chairman, Dr Ali Ashraf. It would be difficult to take issue with Dr Quraishi’s claim, because a great many Karachi University alumni believe that in the ‘60s, the department was thought to be the best in the country.

The other department which was in the news that week relates to the subject of archaeology. On March 25, the media reported that the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) had asked the Archaeology Department to vacate the Frere Hall building. Frere Hall at the time housed the National Museum exhibits which were shortly to be shifted to its new facility in Burnes Garden. The KMC in a letter requested the department to immediately hand over the building to the corporation so that it could establish a public library there for which the KMC had been providing funds. Does this sound a 50-year-old story?

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play