Who was Ross Masood? Why was he given so much importance in the 1960s? The answer is simple: he was the grandson of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and a vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University in the late 1920s. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that there used to be a Syed Ross Masood Educational and Cultural Society in Karachi which on May 3, 1964 organised an event, presided over by Chairman of the National Press Trust Akhtar Husain, at Husain D’Silva town to remember his services to education. Tributes were paid to Mr Masood by the likes of Altaf Ali Barelvi, Mahirul Qadri and A B A Haleem, among others, who emphasised the need for establishing a residential educational institution in Pakistan on the pattern of Aligarh University. Of course, it didn’t happen. And of course, today we don’t commemorate any day related to Ross Masood. Why? The answer is not that simple.

If you think that the digital world was an alien concept in the ‘60s, nothing could be farther from the truth. On April 27, a two-day seminar on computer technology was held at the State Bank building. Inaugurating the moot, the deputy governor of SBP, Ghouse Mohiuddin, said data processing equipment and electronic computers were of immense value to the bank management to fully control its business. Indeed they were. Indeed they are.

Things on the sociological front were not dissimilar either. Joblessness was rife and urbanisation was taking place at a fair clip. On April 29, the first all Pakistan sociological conference was organised at the University of Karachi. There was a consensus among all the speakers that the main cause of urbanisation in West Pakistan was unemployment in rural areas. The consensus remains valid … to date.

Karachiites’ spirit has always been appreciated by anyone who has visited Karachi even once. There is something inexplicably beautiful about this city and its denizens.

On April 30, Abdullah Al Mahmood, Central Minister for Industries and Natural Resources, visited a cement factory. He lauded the pioneering spirit of the citizens for transforming what was once, according to him, a desert city into a prosperous industrial town. You might take issue with the word prosperous, though.

Dr N A Baloch was a scholar of high merit. When he spoke on a subject, his speech would be backed by solid arguments. On May 1, he, in the capacity of the Director of the Institution of Education Sindh University, attended a two-day convention on the quality of education at the historic N J V School. Dr Baloch stressed that the disparity of status between primary and secondary school teachers should be removed. If that could be done, the standard of education in the country would improve. Prescient!

In 1964, Karachi’s Sufi saint Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s annual urs began on May 3 and lasted till May 5. As is the norm, it was a big event and devotees from all across the country came to the shrine to offer fateha. The urs, by the way, was officially opened with the laying of the chador on the mazaar by the ambassador of Iraq in Pakistan, Al Syed Abdul Kadir Al Gaylani.