THE first day of the year mostly brings memories of the last one. For Karachiites, there are more sorrows with which 2017 comes than joys. Key individuals of the city, who rose to become national personalities, met with their eternal fate — some of them in a tragic and brutal way.

From celebrated Urdu playwright Fatima Surayya Bajia to veteran politician Mairaj Mohammad Khan, and from the country’s icon of charity and welfare work Abdul Sattar Edhi to renowned qawwal Amjad Sabri, many left for their final abode.

The same goes for the singer-turned-evangelist Junaid Jamshed, the chief of Karachi’s Jammaat Ahl-i-Sunnat Shah Turabul Haq Qadri, and cricketing legend Hanif Mohammad.

However, one of the most significant reasons for Karachiites to mark 2017 might escape the attention of hundreds of thousands: Jan 1, 2017, marks the 25th year of departure from the city and the country of Altaf Hussain, for decades the feared leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

His once-close aide and now a key leader of the party’s Pakistan faction (who requested anonymity) confirms the departure date of Jan 1, 1992, from Karachi.

Mr Hussain initially went to Saudi Arabia, where he spent more than three weeks before he finally arrived in London on Jan 27.

What could be a better place than Nine Zero, the party’s Karachi headquarters, to remember this event?

But when I get there, hardly anyone around recognises this historic day. It was almost impossible for me to debate the 25th anniversary of Mr Hussain’s departure from the country.

To move forward and utilise my visit to the once-sprawling and heavily guarded party headquarters, I opted for making related queries to his party’s men, forgetting the MQM Pakistan-London debate.

“What do you think, will he be returning ever?” I ask Shiraz Hasan, a third-year engineering student, as we meet at a roadside teahouse in Azizabad.

He looks towards his friend Yasir Ahmed Siddiqi and turns to me, smiling: “I don’t think so.”

The two diehard workers of the party’s student wing, the All-Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation, have never seen their leader personally.

Neither do they know anything substantial about why he left the country.

While spending a quarter of a century in self-exile, Mr Hussain has seen many highs and lows during his time at the helm of leadership of the party.

His worker Shamshad Ahmed agrees. “It’s not easy,” he says. “You need rock-solid nerves.

One day, as a result of a single phone call from 5,000 miles away, city life comes to a halt, business shuts down and you are even banned from watching television.

At one point your parliamentary mandate is seen as a powerbroker, and later you thirst after anyone to run the party.”

But my question remains unanswered. When I insist in my query about whether there can be any possibility about Mr Hussain’s return, his immediate reply is “no”.

“I wasn’t even aware that he has been away for 25 years,” he says. “But he will not be returning, and that’s for sure.”

Admired sometimes as ‘Pir Sahib’ and referred to as the ‘Mohajiron ka Superman’ [The Mohajirs’ Superman], the name of Altaf Hussain is fast disappearing from political debate and also from the list of national political leaders.

Even so, it can hardly be ignored.

While these days people rarely sound hopeful about his political future, one can still find signs of his presence in Karachi in random graffiti and pro-Altaf Hussain banners.

Even so, given the recent political and security circumstances of the country, this still seems a far cry from reality.

The reasons for this assessment are strengthened by my visit to Nine Zero, guarded as it is by armed Rangers troops. My photographer is not allowed to take pictures of the sealed party headquarters, but there is no restriction on people’s movement in Azizabad — once the centre of Karachi politics.

Business is as usual and no one has to go through security checks as was the case in the days of the MQM’s control.

Living in Karachi, one could not have imagined that Nine Zero would be sealed, but the city has functioned normally for over four months. I

t would appear that prospects are not bright for the London-based leader and his party right now.

No one was available for comments from Mr Hussain’s fast-shrinking core team in London, though Faisal Subzwari from the Pakistan faction came up with an interesting thought: “It’s still in his hands,” he said, when I asked him about Mr Hussain’s future after spending 25 years in self-exile.

“No one can deny his active and strong political role in the past but the situation changed altogether after Aug 22.

Now it depends on him. We are doing our job and after that incident we are struggling hard to unite all our workers, voters and supporters on one platform.”

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2017