IN Karachi, summer and the monsoon don’t necessarily announce their arrival together. More often than not (some might say always), every year, summer leaves the city only for a few months and comes back with all its (steamy) might for the rest of the months.

In 1967, the last two or three days of June were torridly hot. On June 29, the mercury rose to 103 degrees Fahrenheit, while humidity was 62 to 67 per cent. But according to the Met department, it was the ‘oppressive’ heat that attracted the monsoon active across the border down south; and Karachi had its first monsoon rains. As is the norm, to beat the heat Karachiites rushed to the seaside as a result of which the beaches got terribly crowded, especially in the evening. Despite the fact that the downpour was a welcome intervention, it caused inconvenience to the people who had gone to the beaches to escape the insufferable heat — they found it difficult to return to their homes.

Inconvenience was something that the city administrators at the time tried their best not to cause to the citizens, even if they (citizens, not the administrators) lived on the peripheries. On June 26, it was reported that the Karachi District Council was planning to develop a village colony in order to bring together two villages — Sohrab Goth and Feroz Goth. The colony would be formed by shifting the former closer to the latter, and the merger would have involved displacement of about 100 families in Sohrab Goth, beyond the Federal Areas. The report added, although 100 plots of 100 square yards had been allotted to the residents of Sohrab Goth, they were ‘too poor’ to build their houses on them.

Be it a poor chap or a rich bloke, in those days men in the Sindh capital preferred marrying girls much younger than them. How does one know that? Well, on July 1, a demographic study on marital statuses conducted by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics was released. The study revealed that men in Karachi married considerably younger girls. The study found many instances in which girls aged 15 to 19 years and 20 to 24 years were married to men of 40 years and over. In 98.22 per cent cases, the husband was found older than the wife, in 1.24 per cent cases the pair was of the same age, and only 0.54 per cent cases the wife was older than the husband.

Of course, back then things were in a state of flux because Pakistani society was barely 20 years old. Slowly but surely, women had begun taking active part in decision-making processes. For example, this was the time when the Arab-Israel war had shaken the whole world. On June 26, the Gujarati Women’s Association, comprising wives of the leading businessmen of Karachi, at a meeting decided to donate Rs500 to the Arab Relief Fund. The kitty was passed around immediately, and Rs94 was collected on the spot from the 34 members that attended the meeting. It was also decided to hold an executive body meeting to ascertain the formalities to be complied with in collecting funds for the Arab war victims.

Another association that was in the news that week was the Association of the Heads of Recognised Secondary Schools whose general body on June 28 discussed the possibility of initiating legal action against the directorate of education for making an 18 per cent cut in the annual grants for schools. The director of education had earlier explained that the cuts were made because of a shortage of funds. No surprises there: education has never been at the top of the priority list of those who call the shots.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2017