THE fog that had enveloped Karachi on the morning of Nov 10, 1968 continued to make Karachiites feel a bit like people from up north for a couple of more days. On Nov 12, it was reported that the hazy atmosphere caused vehicular traffic to move at a snail’s pace and the air traffic was disrupted till the fog melted away in the afternoon. Just as experts had predicted, the fog delayed the arrival of winter, and the weather, both at night and in the daytime, was hot. While the climate seemed to make citizens recall the summer of October, it was expected to bring cold winds in its wake within two to three days.

It was not the mist that was bothering the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) that week. Rather, on Nov 12, the KMC expressed grave concern over the alarming increase in air pollution caused by smoke-emitting vehicles. It had requested the police department to revitalise its campaign against such cars, buses and motorbikes by giving specific instruction to its traffic staff. The KMC’s chairman also wrote to the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) to consider appropriate measures to resolve the issue, including a periodic check-up of public and private vehicles and withdrawing road permits of defective buses and trucks. The corporation offered to the police all possible help in that regard.

But poor KMC, it did not have a moment of respite in those days. On Nov 13, the Anti-Corruption Police arrested a KMC building inspector for allegedly accepting a bribe from the owner of a house in Paposhnagar. The inspector was caught red-handed taking Rs500 from Ghulam Murtaza. The trap to nab him was laid under the supervision of a magistrate following a piece of information given by Murtaza that the suspect had asked for illegal money. The police said the inspector had demanded the amount for not demolishing an unauthorised work of construction built by Murtaza.

Staying on the subject related to the police, on Nov 16, a foreigner was found dead in his apartment in the commercial area of PECHS. He was identified as Joseph Edward Montgomery (77), a British national. As per info that investigators got from his passport, he was a lecturer and author. He had not been well for quite some time and was twice operated upon for hernia at the Civil Hospital Karachi.

The mystery surrounding the death of the British citizen, though, was not as intense as one gets to see in movies. Speaking of movies, eminent producer and director of Pakistan Ehtisham was in Karachi on Nov 17. Film star Nadeem hosted a reception at a restaurant in his honour. Speaking on the occasion, Ehtisham –– who originally hailed from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) –– advised film journalists to evaluate the drawbacks of the national film industry and come up with healthy criticism for their removal. “Without constructive criticism the film industry cannot progress,” he remarked and then dwelt on various problems confronting the East Pakistani filmmakers. “The present rates for eight-hour indoor shifts for Urdu and Bengali films at the Studio of Dacca are the highest in the country,” Ehtisham said, adding that such handicaps were compelling certain producers of Bengali films to shift to Lahore because the Punjab capital was comparatively more “economical”.

Wow! How times change. Today, Lahore is no longer the filmmaking centre of the country. Or is it?

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2018