It was a memorable week in terms of art-related activities. This shouldn’t surprise anyone because Karachi has always been a culturally vibrant city. But first, some civic issues.

On July 18, 1971 a news item highlighted the fact that despite its threat of disconnecting water supply given to the bulk water consumers, the Karachi Development Authority (KDA) had received only Rs3.1m against an enormous sum of Rs7,00,00,000 as water dues. Out of the amount cleared, the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) topped the list by paying Rs2m against a sum of Rs20m. A minimum had been paid by chairman of the BD Unions who had returned Rs1,560 out of Rs13,41,289. The displaced persons colonies owed the authority more than Rs30m but in the absence of a strict dues realisation cell in the KDA the money was treated as ‘bad debts’.

Speaking of displaced persons, on July 12 it was reported that the joint KDA-KMC operation of shifting of hut dwellers from Garden West to North Karachi had begun amidst protests. The protests were staged by residents of the locality who wanted to postpone their shifting for a few months in view of the coming rainy season and lack of facilities in North Karachi which had been turned down. The KDA, though, maintained that the facilities were being provided to the residents.

The shifting from one piece of land was happening in other parts of the city as well because on July 15 the 200-odd families from Chittagong Colony spent their fifth day in Orangi under the open sky, fighting the elements and building new abodes. They were the first batch of the 1,700 families being moved from the colony on University Road to Orangi Township by the KDA. All families had been allotted land by the authority but some of them had refused to accept it as a result of which many men, women and children were lying in the open. The reason for their refusal: the land allotted was either on a dried canal or on hillocks full of stones.

While all of this was making the city authorities’ lives difficult, two very important art events happened that week. First, on July 14, an exhibition of cartoons made by Jamshad Ansarie based on the verses of Ghalib opened at the Arts Council. The young cartoonist had attempted to capture the wit and satire of the great Urdu poet through contemporary characters. Jamshad had been drawing for a vernacular paper for some time until he went freelancing. Eminent poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who inaugurated the show, described his work as unique being the first ever organised attempt of its kind.

And on July 16, an exhibition of four renowned artists’ artworks commenced at the Indus Gallery. Out of them, Ali Imam, Bashir Mirza and Gulgee contributed five paintings each to the display while Maqsood Ali put seven canvases on view. However, a critic writing for this newspaper had an opinion on the show which might not have gone down well with the curators or the four creative souls. He wrote, “The gallery has done well by bringing together artists of such diverse talent. But the result is that the collection makes a bizarre scene with conflicting styles creating a quirk reaction.”

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2021