Who hasn’t heard or read about the famous communist slogan ‘workers of the world, unite’? It is a simple line that brims with countless possibilities, which is why one does not see people trying to coin its (linguistic) variations. But wait.

There wouldn’t be many cities in the world whose citizens are more street-smart than Karachiites. Karachi wallahs come up with the most cutely weird slogans and catchphrases whenever they feel the need for it. Here’s an interesting little example.

In the 1960s, results for the city’s matriculation and intermediate exams were announced in the first two months of the year. Naturally, not everyone passed their exams. In 1967, too, there were students who flunked. This was the time when the student community was an assertive and boisterous lot (they would sometimes have the most unreasonable of demands). In the third week of February, the walls of some of Karachi’s colleges were smeared with an extremely interesting slogan, ‘Failures of matric and intermediate, unite!’ The call was stencilled in big and bold letters. The line was accompanied by an extra bit of information that the meeting of the failures would be held on the afternoon of Feb 20, 1967, to chalk out a plan to get their demand accepted. Their demand: re-examinations of those subjects which they had failed. Talk about being original!

Another original thing that grabbed the attention of Karachi’s art lovers round about the same time was an exhibition of artworks by an American artist Carolyn Graham. It commenced at the Pak-American Cultural Centre on Feb 20. Critics used the phrase ‘craving for originality’ to describe the 30 odd paintings on display. They, in their view, were also marked by a variety of moods and mediums brought into harmony by the intensity and eloquence of her colours that spoke in symbolic forms. The artist was also a schoolteacher, a linguist and a ‘serious student of literature’.

However, on the cultural front, no news seemed more important than the arrival in the city of arguably the greatest actor of all time Marlon Brando. He had come to Karachi in 1966 as well for a film project, but on this occasion he was here to recruit volunteers from among poets, singers, sportsmen and artists to put up an international variety gala programme at the UN General Assembly next year (1968) to raise funds for Unicef. He arrived in the Sindh capital on the night of Feb 22 from Beirut and was to leave for Far East in a few days on the same mission.

Talking to newsmen at a hurriedly called press conference on Feb 23, he explained the idea in a soft-spoken manner that was quite contrary to his reputation of being a haughty individual. Brando appealed to Pakistani artists to lend support in the humanitarian cause of helping the undernourished in the world either through efforts made locally or by sending a representative group to participate in the proposed show. The actor was to visit Lahore on Feb 24 to finalise Pakistan’s participation in the event. But the idea for the movie for which he had come to Pakistan the previous year had been dropped for ‘certain reasons’.

Thank heavens that the Landhi-Korangi Municipal Committee too dropped something that week. What was that? Well, on Feb 25, the committee at a meeting decided to invite public opinion on the proposal to change names of Landhi and Korangi. As the names are still the same, it’s clear that the opinions did not come in favour of the change.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2017