A LINE from an Alanis Morissette song comes to mind: ‘and isn’t it ironic’. We live in an age where suicide bombing has become a global issue. Though it cannot be said with certainty whether half a century back some Karachiites preempted the problem, it would be interesting to know that they did manage to establish a society which could dissuade people, in a helpful way, from taking their own lives. Obviously, in those days psychology (read: psychoanalysis) had emerged as an important discipline courtesy Simgund Freud and Carl Jung, so a lot of theories related to the various psychological ailments were analysed through that prism.

On May 17, 1966 the then recently formed Suicide Prevention Society in the city announced in a press statement that it was thinking of publishing literature aimed at preventing suicide. The society had decided to scan the different national and international magazines and books to come up with a comprehensive campaign, and specifically mentioned in the statement that the literature, once printed, would be distributed among ‘frustrated people’.

Frustration is the word which aptly describes the goings-on in that particular week in the 50-year history of Karachi. Here are a few examples. On May 19, it was brought to the attention of the authorities concerned that, on average, 400 complaints were lodged every month by telephone subscribers in the city against high billing by the Telephone Department. The complaints pertained both to local and trunk calls. The billing rates shot up after the introduction of direct dialing between Karachi and Hyderabad, Lahore and Pindi.

Little did the phone subscribers know that in the 21st century, pre- and post-paid billing would have amicably resolved that issue! Similarly, the mushrooming of multiplexes today has given an entirely new and comfortable dimension to the movie-watching experience. But spare a thought for the cine-goers of the 1960s. On May 20, West Pakistan Minister for Law, Information and Parliamentary Affairs Ghulam Nabi Memon asked Karachi’s cinema owners to air-condition their cinema halls and provide other basic facilities to the citizens in compliance with basic requirements of the law.

The water shortage crisis that the residents of Karachi University’s staff town were facing (as mentioned in a couple of previous columns) for the past one month, too, continued that week despite the media highlighting it on a regular basis.

And then the perennial nuisance of power outage! On the night of May 19, a big electricity breakdown made the streetlights in the entire Block 2 of PECHS go kaput. The next day a short circuit caused another power failure, making the area residents’ life in the beginning of a torrid summer all the more difficult. Talk about frustration.

But let’s change the pessimistic tone of this roundup with a cheery story that signifies the culturally never-say-die spirit of Karachi. On May 16, an exhibition of 100 drawings of the iconic artist Sadequain opened at a hotel. As per a newspaper report, the show, organised by Aziz Sarfaraz, would also travel to Paris in July. Wow! One hundred drawings — few Pakistani artists would be as prolific as Sadequain sahib.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2016