WE have The Bomb. Its maker is in our safe custody. We have the means to bombard the other side of the world. We are impregnable.
Right now, in this greatest city of this great Republic, I am marooned as was McCullogh of MacMurchada who had that famous engraving on the imposing archway leading into his castle : ‘Ye shall die before I do.’ My house is my castle. I am surrounded by Moat Mary, by Moat Bogra and by Moat Feroze Nana. These moats are filled with sewage water. A little donkey lay dead yesterday morning at the side of Moat Nana, electrocuted by a fallen wire installed by the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation.
We have had three inches of rain last week and the muck and the grit of this great city lies like flotsam on the lakes that have sprung up all over — from one end to another. All hell has broken loose upon what were our roads which have now been converted into an interesting puzzle game of sorts, full of unexpected booby traps as no one knows what lies beneath the lakes. I have armed myself by re-reading Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’ and am now prepared to face all that may follow.
This column is short and pithy of necessity. The auxiliary power generator is spluttering and the UPS about to fail. I must hurry and transmit.
In 1940, when Winston Spencer Churchill took over the premiership of the United Kingdom, of its empire and its dominions beyond the seas, all he could promise his people was blood, toil and tears. Each of his cabinet ministers recited his tale of woe and sorrow. When it came to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simon, Churchill cut him off by asking ‘Are the courts working?’ He was told that may of the Temples had been bombed, a good number of the law chambers had been burned, but yes, the High Court is functioning normally. ‘Good, then all is well’, was Churchill’s relieved response — and that was the end of that.
Karachi, 2006. On August 11, a previous Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mohammed Haleem, having died, the High Court of Sindh went into mourning and work was suspended at 0845. All in it moved out and away to mourn in privacy.
On August 12, the SHC was closed, it being a Saturday. It was closed the next day, it being a Sunday. On August 14, the country, and thus the SHC, indulged in mass celebrations with guns firing, trumpets blaring, silencerless motorcycles thundering, and all that could be lit up was lit up. It was a public holiday. The court did not work. This brought us to Day Four.
On August 15, Advocate Akhtar Mahiood having died, the judges again decided it was a fit time to mourn and the court suspended all activity at 1100 hours. On August 16, an ex-additional advocate-general of Sindh, K. A. Nadeem, having sadly died, the men of law and letters once again put on their mourning robes and retired at 1200 hours.
August 17 was normal — as normal as could be, with some coming to court, others staying away for reasons multiple. That evening it rained. After a meeting Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed, Senior Puisne Judge Rabbani and ex-chief justice of the SHC Nasir Aslam Zahid departed from the SHC premises for their respective homes in a formidable vehicle. It managed to get as far as the PIDC House where it came to a sudden and permanent halt in a lake. Exercising their majesty, they managed to requisition a rescue wagon from the Sindh Governor’s House and reached home, drenched to the skin, at 2230 hours that night.
On Friday, August 18, the sides of whatever it was that could be seen of the roads were littered with abandoned vehicles, a cocktail of garbage and sewage covered the city.
Those who had managed to get home the previous night were exhausted. The court was ordered to be shut. Saturday, August 19 is a normal closed holiday as is August 20, a Sunday.
On this day, no doubt the sagacious trustees of the Karachi Port Trust (‘sagacious’ as the good Chairman of the KPT refers to them) will have time to repent for their past deeds. The City Nazim, his Naib Nazim, and the others concerned will not resign and the real blame game meetings will start in earnest next week — that is, if the prayers are heeded and it does not rain again. Otherwise, they will have to be postponed.
Poor old Karachi, once called the ‘city of lights’.
E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk
