IT was that very important week of year when Karachiites celebrate their country’s Independence Day. Yes, on Aug 14, 1968 an estimated 100,000 citizens visited the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. They kept trickling into the arena till late in the evening to place wreaths and offer Fateha. Among those who came to the mazar were the Quaid’s sister Shirin Bai, commissioner of Karachi Syed Darbar Ali Shah and vice chairman of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Ziaullah. In the afternoon, the commissioner took the salute at a march past by 4,000 boys and girls of various schools. Apart from that, the KMC had directed all the 94 union committees within its jurisdiction to celebrate the day by hoisting the national flag on top of their office buildings and by distributing sweets among children.
Two days later, on Aug 16, tributes were paid to a man who was not from the world of politics. It was Baba-i-Urdu Maulvi Abdul Haq’s seventh death anniversary. Noted academics, literary figures and journalists spoke on the life and work of the scholar at a meeting organised at the Urdu College. Qudratullah Shahab, Central Education Secretary, who was also a man of letters, was the chief guest at the event. He said Maulvi Abdul Haq was one of the brightest stars of the Muslim literary world; his death had brought to an end an era of Muslim literary, educational, social and cultural history. It was a busy week in Karachi for Mr Shahab. The next day, Aug 17, inaugurating the Kitab Mela –– an exhibition of books –– at Mehboob Department Store in Saddar, he remarked that at the moment there was very little scope for publication of books of high academic level. Conceding that trading such books could not be very lucrative, he argued that only books were any country’s literary and cultural treasure. The week-long exhibition had been jointly sponsored by the National Book Centre of Pakistan and the Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association Karachi –– the latter, by the way, exists to date.
The entire city, though, wasn’t particularly in a celebratory mood that week. One locality, especially, had found itself in a spot of bother. On Aug 16, it was announced that the provincial government had authorised the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) to disconnect water supply to Muhammad Ali Memorial Society if its management failed to pay the water tax arrears of Rs211,695. The KDA had earlier notified the residents and the management of the society that water supply to the entire area would be cut off from the morning of Aug 1 unless the arrears were cleared. According to the authority, the amount totalled Rs211,695 by the end of June, and during the last two months the figures had reached the Rs225,000 mark. Besides Mohammad Ali Memorial Society, the authority had also decided to discontinue water connection to Baba and Bhit islands for the same reason. But the connection to the islands had been restored once they paid the first instalment of the total amount that they owed to the KDA.
And not just water, food supply too had become a bit of an issue for some Karachiites. On Aug 15, the media reported that the Regional Food Directorate cancelled 7,000 bogus ration cards in the last seven months. Through the cancellation, the directorate was able to save over 26,000 maunds of wheat flour sold at the control rate of 47 paisa per seer. Ah, that phrase: ‘ration card’. Not too many millennials would even be familiar with it.
Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2018
