IT was an eventful week, beginning with heavy monsoon showers disturbing city life. On July 6, 1970 the media reported that unexpected rains ruined the festivities at many a city wedding on July 4. The downpour upset plans of a number of marriage receptions and dinners. In most cases, guests simply failed to show up. On July 5, cloudy skies and intermittent drizzle added to the usual problems such weather conditions bring. The next day, Commissioner of Karachi Masud Nabi Nur with Abrar Hasan Khan, chairman of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Ilahi Bux Soomro, DG of the Karachi Development Authority (KDA), visited several areas of the city to assess how much damage had been done.

On the night of July 9, large areas of Karachi were hit by a series of power breakdowns. The breakdown added to the post-rain misery and left neighbourhoods to face unbearable humidity and heat without electricity. The worst affected segments included a big number of students preparing for their examination. At some places streets plunged into darkness. The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) maintenance staff was barely able to restore power to some localities.

Interestingly, in the daytime, KESC chairman and MD Brig S. A. Kermani had said the company was now in a position to meet all power generation requirements for Karachi and Hyderabad. Speaking at a lunch meeting held by Rotary Club at a hotel, he claimed the generating capacity at present was 392 megwatts, which he figured was greater than that of the East Pakistan Wapda.

Although journalists were busy keeping the public informed about all these goings-on, July 5 had them tied up with an activity that had to do just with their community.

Anwar Husain of Dawn was elected president of the Karachi Press Club (KPC) for the year 1970-71 at the annual election held to pick the office-bearers of the club. S. M. Fazal of Daily News won the vice president’s seat. Hamdan Amjad Ali of Dawn was elected to the post of general secretary and Mirza Ismail of Dawn to joint secretary, unopposed. I. A. Khan of APP was now treasurer of the club. The following were seven members of the governing body: IH Burney, AH Chapra, Daud Subhani, Eqbal Effendi, Mohammad Iqbal Qureshi, Fida Husain and SM Naqi.

Journalists may not have had a tough time dealing with the polls, but the student community was not happy when they were put to the test that week. On July 11, more than 1,000 students who had gone in for their BSc second-year examination in physics in the morning stormed out of examination halls protesting against ‘the toughest paper ever given to them to answer’. The walkout protest started from the Government College of Commerce centre, where students of the Jinnah College were preparing for exams. The protest then took place at the SM Arts College centre, where the students of DJ College were taking the test. The centre at Urdu College with the SM Science College students was also deserted by the examinees as soon as some boys from other institutions took the word of protest there.

Now to lighten things up, let’s talk about art. On July 7, sparkling colours dominated the works of G. Mustafa, whose exhibitions of paintings and prints opened at the Arts Council. He had painted a large number of Eid greeting cards and his art aptly conveyed the jovial festive mood of the season.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2020