VERY few cities in the world have expanded horizontally and vertically the way Karachi has, especially in the latter half of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st. Unfortunately, those who ran the city affairs didn’t realise the hazards of population explosion, as a result of which today the Sindh capital finds itself mired in myriads of problems.

Here’s a nugget of info indicating how it increasingly became a tough zone to keep demographic track of. On Aug 27, 1970 a report revealed that new hilltop townships were stealthily coming into existence on the low hills off North Nazimabad. Unauthorised and unannounced, the rising clusters of houses were scattered all over the area adjacent to Qasba Colony off Manghopir Road, and beyond Altaf Nagar graveyard. The migration to the hilltop had started a year or so back. Today, in 2020, we can see that the area is a densely populated one.

As the number of people living in the city was increasing, so were the infrastructural facilities to entertain them. But it was a pretty irksome week for Karachiites, especially for those who loved cinema. On Aug 28, a news item revealed that the day before about 110,000 people in the city went without their favourite recreation and pastime — watching films — due to the film industry’s strike throughout West Pakistan. (The strike was in protest against the government’s Capacity Tax formula.) At the time, there were a total of 63 cinema houses in Karachi with a total seating capacity of over 43700 per show.

This was the situation as far as the silver screen was concerned. Something weird, albeit not on a large scale, happened with respect to the smaller screen as well. On Aug 26, armed men raided a house in Golimar in broad daylight and took away the television set of the owner of the residence. Juma Khan, the victim, said he was manhandled and deprived of his TV by four men who forced their entry into his house. The police, on the other hand, told the media that the incident happened because there was a ‘debt’ dispute between the two parties.

Speaking of recreation, the city zoo, against the run of play, made the headlines for a good reason. On Aug 27, it was claimed that the Karachi zoo had the distinction of having the only pair of Royal Bengal tigers in West Pakistan. They were a rarity in both wings of the country. This was why the pair’s presence in the facility was a great attraction to visitors.

And what was happening in the art world? On Aug 29, an art critic wrote in this newspaper that a flourish of joyous colours marked the exhibition of young Mansur Aye (now a formidable name) whose works were on display at the Arts Council. Touching upon the artist’s growth in terms of his subject matter, he said: “Mansur has been very faithful to his faces, to the moon, the flute and the flowers. Only his colours have brightened up and there is a sense of movement in his compositions.”

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2020