It was an eventful week which started on a competitive note for the journalist community. On March 14, 1971 Hasan Abidi and Abdul Hameed Chhapra were elected as president and general secretary, respectively, of the Karachi Union of Journalists (KUJ) for the year 1971-72. Out of the 191 KUJ members at the time, 145 cast their vote. Mr Abidi bagged 95 votes while his opponent Hazoor Ahmed Shah secured 47. Mr Chhapra got 114 votes and his rival, A.T. Nizami, was able to get 28. Zafar Rizvi (107) and Ashfaq Bukhari (86) were elected senior and junior vice-president of the union while Ashraf Shad (87) and Vali Rizvi (76) became senior and junior joint secretary. Abdul Quddus had already been elected treasurer of the KUJ, unopposed.
This was about the mediamen whose job it is to disseminate information. For them, arguably, one of the important news items in those days as far as the Sindh capital was concerned got published on March 19. It said, almost all the localities of the city came under attack from millions of mosquitoes. The attack came from hundreds of thousands of ponds, ditches, draining pipes and small ponds “silted with stagnant water”. The news went on to claim that there’s literally a population explosion of mosquitoes, adding no effective operation was carried out to control the mosquito bulge by the agencies responsible for protecting residents from health hazards. The worst affected areas were: Shershah Colony, Lyari, Nazimabad, Azizabad, PECHS, Defence Housing Society, Malir, Liaquatabad and Saudabad.
A day later, on March 20, experts at a combined session of the Institute of Health and Tibbi Research and the National Health Committee described malaria as one of the major threats to public health in Karachi and called for measures for its eradication. Renowned philanthropist Hakim Said, on the occasion, emphasised the need for creating mass awareness about public health.
But in terms of art and culture, it was not an unhealthy time. On March 15, a review of East Pakistani artist M.A. Rahi, an exhibition of whose paintings was taking place at The Gallery, printed in Dawn attracted attention of art buffs. As per the review, “Rahi is a painter of varied talents and his works project a panoramic view of life in all its beauty and agony — the trouble of mankind and the sweeping charm and peace of the country’s colourful landscape.” The exhibition was the artist’s study of nature after a visit to Balochistan. He painted the people and places around the rugged terrain of the province with pleasing results. Prior to the exhibition, Rahi had displayed on television 20 of his powerful drawings depicting the recent cyclone in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in all its horror and misery.
And on March 20, a stage production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest produced by the New Theatre Group (NTG) became the talk of the town. NTG was the only amateur group in the city credit for whose existence was given to its members belonging to the foreign community. The director of the play, David Cunningham, tried hard to make best use of the amateur actors that he had to work with, and succeeded. The actors were: Scheherazade Masood, Keleem Haque, Roshni Irani and John van Somerset.
Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2021
