Patrick Suskind’s novel Perfume cannot do justice to this street. Nor can any of the stories in One Thousand and One Nights. For when you read stories, you travel in an unreal world with imaginary characters and strange situations. Not that they cannot be based on true stories. It’s that when you are reading them it is your imagination that’s at work, not your physical self. This is not the case with Perfume Gali or Botal Gali off Frere Road. It is there, right in the thick of things, in Saddar, Karachi’s heart. A half a century back, it could have been called Karachi’s soul as well. Not today. Still, you can visit it, smell the wide variety of itr or attar (fragrance obtained from rose petals) and see countless beautifully shaped bottles in which itr and perfumes are kept like the genie that is not allowed to move out of the bottle.

Botal, by the way, is an Urdu distortion (some might call it variant) of the English word bottle. There are two ways to reach Botal Gali: one from M.A. Jinnah Road (formerly Bunder Road) and the other from Shahrah-i-Liaquat (formerly Frere Road). It is a small, very narrow strip of a street which is part of Hassan Ali Effendi Road (discussed in these pages last week). It connects the two main thoroughfares in a rather unconvincing fashion. The thing is that when it comes to perfumes, scents and itr, there is nothing unconvincing about this road.

Before you get to the colonial buildings that stand on either side of Botal Gali, consider one important thing. According to the older people who have been doing business here or coming to this street for many a year, the street was previously called Parsi Gali. Why? For obvious reasons: members of the Parsi community lived here. Not anymore. “All of them have gone. Some abroad, some to different parts of the city,” says a septuagenarian who runs a perfumery.

Let’s move into Botal Gali from the Frere Road side now. The first building that you see immediately is on your right. It is Noor Manzil. Some of its old splendor remains, while most of it is shrouded in the dust of time (which means additions, lack of maintenance etc). However, the stone that is an integral part of its construction, inexplicably, still shines and can be noticed from afar. Perhaps the stone has refused to give in to time’s tyranny. And it goes without saying that Noor Manzil’s ground floor is occupied by perfume sellers.

A little ahead, on the same side, is Dawoodi Manzil. It is difficult to ascertain where it begins and where it ends. Do not be misled by this statement. The manzil is not a big structure by any stretch of the imagination. It’s the haphazardness of the buildings neighbouring it that make it a bit unclear. The most interesting name of an old piece of construction comes next. It is Sodawaterwala Building.

Sodawaterwala Building is a simple, uncomplicated, nothing-extraordinary kind of structure. The magic lies in its name. You do not hear such nouns being spoken or written anymore. The moment you hear ‘soda water’ it takes you to a world of black and white films or radio shows. But Noor Manzil, Dawoodi Manzil and Sodawater Building do not quite give away the age of these forgotten gems. For that you have to look in the opposite direction, the left side of the insular Perfume Gali.

Check out a building! Horizontally, it is perhaps the biggest work of colonial architecture in this area. It is too chock a block with itr and perfume vendors. What is striking about it is its name: Goverdandas Building. Naturally it is an early 20th century piece named after some Hindu gentleman who belonged to the affluent merchant class. The first storey of Goverdandas Building is quite protracted and has classical elements. The buildings mentioned above appear to be a later example of pre-independence construction.

Architect Arif Hasan says: “As long as I remember this street has always been known for bottles. Not just of perfumes and itr, I have seen empty bottles here as well. They used to be of every size and shape.”PS: Are you fond of perfumes? Many kinds of itr are popular among those who come to this market. Labbaik and Mazoma that come from Saudi Arabia are two of them. Aseel is another. Non-alcoholic French perfumes, according to one shopkeeper, also sell like hot cakes. So if you feel that your body constantly needs something to freshen up and make you smell good, Botal Gali is the place to visit. You can, if you want, look at the old stone buildings. They do not need any scent or perfume to smell good.

mohammad.salman@dawn.com