Why I am joining the PML (Qabza Group)
I WRITE these lines in the afternoon of Saturday, October 26, and they will not appear in print until Monday morning so I really don’t know who the next prime minister would be. Not Mian Naraz Sharif, nor even Ms Benazir Bhutto, certainly, but there is (or was) a wide choice in the field with everyone more likely than the other.
I am not a pundit. I only read what the pundits have to say in the papers the next morning. For instance, there were these reports on Friday: finance minister Shaukat Aziz had applied for a Muslim League (Q) ticket for the Senate and 18 independents (out of 29) had joined the Q League, which means that its strength had risen from 77 to an awesome 95 or perhaps even 96.
On Saturday morning, I found that yet another independent MNA-elect, the famous Sheikh Rashid of Rawalpindi, had also joined the PML(Q) together with “his followers, councillors and Nazims”.
Federal and provincial ministers had also “started filing applications to get their nominations for the Senate elections (Dawn, Oct 26). Among the supplicants were Shaukat Aziz, and Javed Ashraf Qazi of the federal cabinet plus Khalid Ranjha and Punjab law minister Rana Ejaz Ahmad with Syed Fakhr Imam and Ms Abida Husain thrown in for good measure. Goodness me, this is the old gold rush!
For all I know, Gen Pervez Musharraf may himself be joining the PML(Q) and becoming its president — of course unanimously elected. Hold it, why shouldn’t I join the PML(Q) — the same as everyone else is doing? And do you know what? The ‘Q’ in the PML(Q) stands for Qabza Group. Of course, you remember the old PPP stalwart from Faisalabad whose followers used to chant the slogan, “Mukhtar Rana! Qabza Karana! in the heady days of the PML agitation in Lahore.
Between you and me, I already belong to a private qabza group where we have been grabbing that which does not belong to us. By joining the PML (Qabza Group) I shall have the full protection of the law and everything I do will be perfectly legit. I may not be a pundit but I know how to put my money on sure winners — winners while the General is around.
RICHARD HUGHES — I don’t know exactly who he was — once wrote:
“... if I were asked who seems to me at the moment (1930) the most interesting novelist in America, I should not hesitate in naming one who is not only unknown in England but practically unknown in America also — William Faulkner. He is a Southerner, from Mississippi; and young, prolific, and unsuccessful.” Hughes then goes on to say that Faulkner avoided literary people and followed “the solid calling of a house-painter. Author of Soldiers’ Pay, Faulkner also wrote Mosquitoes, a “pure satirical comedy” and The Sound and Fury, “more ambitious ... and more impressive than even Soldiers’ Pay.” Among his published works were Light in August and Sanctuary. The following lines appear in Soldiers’ Pay:
“... turning to the divine (a rector in this case), graceful and insincere as a French sonnet ...” Now, who could have thought of that except Faulkner? I don’t know any French and, therefore, can’t tell you whether they (the French sonnets) are graceful and insincere. But a friend insists that if we are looking for something which is graceful and insincere at the same time, we must look closer home. Much of Urdu poetry, he says, fits this description to a nicety.
And how about these lines?
“... Afternoon lay in a coma in the street, like a woman recently loved. Quiet and warm: nothing now that the lover has gone away. Leaves were like green liquid arrested in mid-flow, flattened and spread. Leaves were as though cut with scissors from green paper and pasted flat on the afternoon: someone dreamed them and then forget his dream ...”
I HAVE a pen friend, Dr Khalid Khan, who works in a Karachi hospital as an anaesthesiologist. He is also a poet. He sent me a collection of his verse from London long ago but it never reached me. In July this year, he sent me his second collection together with some new poems. I am awfully sorry to be responding so late but then I often am lazy. Nevertheless, I seldom lose my mail. I only misplace it to find it eventually when I am really looking for something else.
So a couple of days ago, I found Dr Khalid Khan’s letter and the accompanying new (presumably unprinted) poems. I am no critic and can’t therefore, sit in judgment on Dr Khan but there was a poem among the new ones which I reproduce here for whatever it is worth. It is titled, Rona-gana and runs thus:
Jinnah made Pakistan and said before he died,
discipline aur faith se mil-jul ke rehna,
Liaquat tried to work for welfare of the State,
but a mad man made him goli ka nishana,
After him, no one stayed long in power,
there was a continuous aana aur jana,
Ayub tried to rule with basic democracy,
but after a decade he returned to Rehana,
Yahya was responsible for making Bangladesh,
he destroyed everything with peena and pilana,
Bhutto tried to give roti, kapda and makan,
because of his misdeeds, he landed in jail-khana,
Zia used religion to maintain his control,
but did nothing concrete to build this aashiana,
Nawaz was fond of kebabs, cars and motorways,
he is lucky to have escaped to Makkah and Madina,
Benazir promised much but did not deliver the goods,
she will not succeed with any more bahana,
Musharraf has promised to produce a revolution,
let us see if he can perform this karnama,
Many Third World countries are no better than us,
We should work together and stop this rona-gana.
Well, how do you like Dr Khan’s English (or is it Urdish?) poem? For comments, you can write to him at C-45, Block A, KDA Officers’ Society, Karachi-12 (75260). Or you can call him at 4982759 or 4978715.
MRS Batool Rizvi has sent me a letter. It is being reproduced here. I have, however, held back proper names to ensure that I remain on the right side of the law. Mrs Rizvi writes:
“I refer to a news item about the death of a person in police custody at Nawankot police station recently.
“It has been given out that an inspector of the Investigation Cell, police station Nawankot, filed an FIR against his subordinates for causing the death of a man who was in police custody. However, the relatives of the deceased have alleged that the person, who was actually responsible for his death was none other than the inspector concerned himself, who passed the buck on to his subordinates only to save his skin.
“I have had an unpleasant experience with the inspector, when he was in charge of the Gulberg police station (Liberty) in Lahore.
“In December, 2000, FIR No. 352/2000 was registered at police station Liberty, Gulberg, against two persons who tried to forcibly occupy my land and the plots of four other citizens in a private housing scheme in Gulberg III. The inspector who was adamant in registering our complaint, got annoyed over our audacity to contact the SP, Model Town Circle, who ordered the registration of an FIR against the accused persons. For reasons not too difficult to fathom, the inspector bore a grudge against us and showed his inclination to favour the accused.
He deputed a sub-inspector to investigate, ordering him verbally to favour the accused. Understandably, the sub-inspector obliged his boss by stating in writing that FIR No. 352/2000 should be discharged as it was not based on facts. Consequently, the said FIR was discharged on February 10, 2001. It was on an appeal filed by us that the then SP, Model Town Circle, asked a DSP to reinvestigate the case. The DSP in his report upset the “findings” of the sub-inspector and recommended that action be taken against the accused nominated in the FIR. It was the recommendation of the DSP that prevented my land from going into the jaws of land-grabbers.
“I have stated these facts to expose the chicanery of a police officer, who has earned notoriety for blaming his subordinates for his own misdeeds.”
Mrs Rizvi says that she is a retired professor and is the rightful owner of Plot No 31, Old FCC Scheme, Gulberg-III, Lahore.
Kaun Banega Wazir-i-Azam?
Who is going to get the coveted slot of the PM? That is the 64,000 dollar question whose answer every Pakistani, and for that matter, even Bush and Powell, as well as Vajpayee and Advani would like to know. But then they will all have to wait for Musharraf to produce the rabbit out of his presidential cap. And it is precisely for this reason that the man, who has been saying since October 10 that he has neither any interest nor any inclination to influence the formation of the next government or in the selection process of the PM, is issuing one ordinance after the other by the scores to make it impossible for the yet-to-be-convened House to come up with its own choice in these respects. The new ordinances read like the SROs that used to be issued by the political governments of the immediate past to oblige individual businessmen with tax concessions and incentives enabling them to make a killing at the cost of the national exchequer.
Within two weeks of its coming into being the three-headed bizarre beauty, midwifed on October 10 by Musharraf, has turned into an intractable imp. But what else could have come out from the political engineering that has been going on in this country over the last three years other than this grotesque combination? So, the onus is squarely on Musharraf and Musharraf alone now to see that the ‘baby’ he has so painstakingly engineered delivers the goods. He simply cannot pass the blame for the emerging political mess on to the politicians any more. One can easily see that he is buying time to enable the PML(Q) to engineer a comfortable majority in the National Assembly. But the time is running out fast. We are only four days from the deadline of November 1, he himself had announced for transfer of power. By Friday he will have to show his hand. As of today the PML(Q) is, perhaps, still short of even a precarious one vote majority of 172 in a House of 342. Of course, if the MMA with its 45 or so votes goes with the PML(Q), a coalition government of comfortable majority could be formed. It would be the same if the PPP were to go with the King’s party with its 64 votes. And if both, the MMA and the PPP together were to join the King’s bandwagon then there would be what some like to call a government of national unity at the centre which would have no worries for the next five years. But Musharraf would not like such a government to be formed because then the possibility of the ruling coalition collecting, at some opportune point in time in the future, the magical number of 228 votes (two-third majority) to overturn his LFO applecart cannot be ruled out. Therefore, Musharraf would like either the MMA or PPP to join up with the PML(Q). Preferably the PPP because the Americans would, perhaps, not feel comfortable with fundamentalists forming even a small part of a government in a nuclear weapon country. Still, why would either the MMA or the PPP consent to clean up the mess created by Musharraf by joining the government? What would they get in return?
But let us see what is the minimum these two parties are aiming to get in return in the first place. Well, for one thing they would like immediate restoration of the 1973 Constitution in its October 1999 shape. But that would upset Musharraf’s game. So what? Those making this demand have a mandate from nearly 15 million voters out of the 30 million which voted on October 10, whereas the LFO carries the mandate of just one institution whose members are paid their monthly salaries from taxes contributed by most of these 15 million voters. The attempts to give the LFO legitimacy through the referendum has already failed miserably. And when Musharraf advises those who do not like the LFO to go to the courts he does so with the knowledge that the judges, who have taken oath to protect and defend the PCO under which the LFO was issued, cannot violate their oath!! By undermining the independence of the judiciary every military ruler in the past and the present one as well has only helped give birth to the mother of all corruption — the rule of the gun! This is worse than financial corruption to stop which the government has been making all kinds of laws and rules since 1999. But without the rule of law itself, nothing is going to work.
If finally, Musharraf fails to help the PML(Q) acquire what is called ‘comfortable’ majority in the House without the help of either of the other two major political parties, he will then have to weigh his options with an eye on the reaction of the world community as well as his own institution to his choice. He can prolong the transfer of power say for another month or so and try to break up both the MMA and PPP. But then, things would become messier in the process. As it is the PML(Q) which is already wilting under the pressure. The leaderless party is being guided by its invisible handlers. And since there are as many handlers as there are groups in the King’s party, every one of these handlers is pulling and pushing his favourites creating a kind of total anarchy in the party. The party knows that Musharraf would ultimately name the prime minister and it also knows that at least half of Musharraf’s cabinet members would continue in the next government. This has already disheartened many of them who had sold their souls to join the PML(Q).
So, Musharraf’s final choice could fall on PPP’s Makhdoom Amin Fahim to deliver the goods. But can Makhdoom do this without Benazir’s permission? This looks impossible as of today. But anything can happen in this country. The pressure on Makhdoom is increasing by the day. If he can break away from BB without breaking his parliamentary party, he can then become the PM without much trouble. But if in his attempt to breakaway, he breaks the party itself then, perhaps, nothing would be gained and Makhdoom would be doomed for ever like Jatoi and Leghari in the process. This Makhdoom knows, perhaps, better than anybody. That is, perhaps, why the US assistant-secretary of state, Christina Rocca, has invited Benazir Bhutto to Washington. She, perhaps, wants to know BB’s conditions for joining the coalition government with the PML(Q). And that is again, perhaps, the reason why Musharraf is going to Saudi Arabia on Monday. The Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Pakistan has been very active since October 10. He has already hosted at least three dinners for the MNAs-elect since the elections and is also said to have confided to his friends that his country would not be averse to playing the mediator between the warring political factions, including between the government and the opposition. Perhaps, Musharraf is going to Saudi Arabia to tell the rulers how far can he go to obtain BB’s cooperation in government formation. And BB is said to have told her friends that she wants credible guarantors to guarantee that whatever is promised is delivered also.—Onlooker
All that the better half is after
To be honest women write with greater sensitivity and quite often achieve vicinity to truth than men in general with their baggage of profundity, idealism and high romance. Their strong gut sense of reality saves their work from flippancy and irrelevance which men doodling on broader canvases find hard to escape from. Women remain firmly earth-bound even when chasing shadowy knights of their dreams. Their purpose is not duplicity but faith. Their surrender is total if the bargain is honest. All that the better half is after is a little love and some respect. You will attest to this impression if you sample the writings of over 200 women from nearly three quarters of the world that the Academy of Letters has published in its voluminous 900-page special edition of Adbiyat.
It is a work of grand magnitude and very truly a labour of love. Kishwar Nahid’s contribution as one of the three compilers is stupendous. Her translations in all six sections of the volume form the bulk of the monumental selection.
Iftikhar Arif is very supportive of the cause of women and acknowledges the important role women’s awakening has played in the evolution of human thought and refinement of mankind’s sensibility. It has been a hard struggle all along for women to emerge from the long dark night of their suffering and helplessness to attain self-awareness and to experience for the first time the weakening hold on their world of men who find their own days of glory and power coming to an end with the increasing trend towards plurality in society and changes in value systems during the turbulent years of the last century. Paradoxically this weakening hold on power of men also owes much to the growing popularity as role models of hybrid males sporting pony tails, earrings and other female accoutrements.
From the varied angles that the compilers have used to survey the scene of women’s creative endeavour it is evident that this work does not look up to men for approval. Khalida Hussain is singularly blunt. Women have a vision of their own and how successfully this finds expression in art is something they do not need any grace marks for. What would the world of literature be like without women’s work, she asks. Dull, dry and dour, I would say. There’s a world outside the common world of men and women that a woman alone knows about and alone can express. Yet, feminine sensibility was not some kind of a formula that could be used to translate that world into literature. With that contention one could not differ. Smutty stuff written by men under assumed female names has failed to arouse the required response for this very reason. They were using a formula based on notions of female sensibility. Khalida Hussain has used two measures in her selection: one of creative importance of the writing at world level and the common bond of feminine fellow feeling that ties womankind. She is not, however, oblivious of the fact that gender-based division of literary work is merely a superficial categorization. Even men write equally well when they allow their anima the liberty to play its role in their creative work.
Stop looking for femininity in women’s work is Kishwar Nahid’s stern proposal in her foreword. The days of reformative didactic literature were over. Women’s concerns now transcended life beneath the bedcovers. She could see beyond the soot and grime of the family kitchen. She writes about the composite world as a person, exactly as men claim to do as neuter beings. Or shall we start looking for masculinity in their writings? This dangerous question Kishwar Nahid does not ask for fear of causing embarrassment to quite a few male contemporaries.
In Asif Farrukhi’s view, the difference between feminist and feminine writings apart, the latter being wider in scope, the central emphasis should be on woman’s consciousness and experience, that unique sense of life which her special circumstances, gender position and her inherent tendencies knead together. It does not mean exclusivity of themes considered specific to women but a vision with its own depth and dimension. You may see these writings from whatever angle you like but what must strike you as important more than their literary or ideological structure would be the way things are seen and felt in a woman’s world.
Interestingly this selection of women’s writings starts with Shamsur Rahman Faruqui’s essay on the meaning of Feminism, that the creed itself, he admits, claims to be beyond the ability of men to comprehend. Mercifully this is followed by an array of key essays on the subject by prominent women thinkers of our time, Mumtaz Shirin among them.
Autobiographical pieces, works of Nobel laureates, chapters from novels, short fiction and poetry comprise the other sections of this rich and rewarding edition of Adbiyat. Priced economically at Rs300 a copy, it is a genuine collector’s item. Whether it does or does not make any change in the collective consciousness of our society, as Iftikhar Arif fondly hopes, it is a feather in the Academy’s cap.
A lesson in democracy
IF democracy is about tolerance, Saturday’s march against a potential US attack on Iraq was a lesson in democracy. About 20 pro-war demonstrators stood at the entrance of Washington’s Vietnam War Memorial where an estimated 150,000 people were protesting a potential war with Iraq. They chanted pro-war slogans, distributed pamphlets supporting the war and called the anti-war protestors “cowards” and “communists”. Yet there was no clash.
Separated by five policemen, the two groups also made fiery speeches against each other but not a single blow was exchanged, not a single stone was thrown.
The pro-war demonstrators held a huge banner that depicted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan and DC’s suspected sniper John Muhammad as the axis of evil. Another banner hailed President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as “heroes of the American people”.
Inside, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were the evil ones while civil rights activists like Jesse Jackson were the heroes.
On the stage, Jesse Jackson — his voice amplified across several acres of Constitution Gardens — declared: “We do not want this ugly, unnecessary war. Most of the world is saying ‘no’ to it.”
“War is necessary to oust Saddam. We must attack Iraq,” said one of the speakers at the pro-war rally of less than 20 people.
And yet no one from the larger crowd was offended, not even when the war-lovers began to march ahead of the anti-war rally.
There was no love lost between the two groups. They disagreed on almost every possible issue. The anti-war demonstrators espoused causes like the right to abortion, more rights for religious and ethnic minorities, banning guns, environment before development and free medicines for the poor; issues that America’s religious right-wingers oppose.
The anti-war protesters also wanted the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to waive the loans given to the developing nations and urged America to stop interfering in the internal affairs of smaller countries.
The pro-war demonstrators opposed waiving the loans and demanded a stronger US role in world affairs. Yet no one tried to settle the disputes in the rally. They marched peacefully and went home without attacking each other.
It was a big day for the anti-war protesters. People arrived in Washington by the thousands in buses, vans and cars packed with students, parents, families, and senior citizens. There were Muslim women wearing headscarves, Catholic priests carrying placards, and children with peace signs on their T-shirts. And the numbers were as large, if not larger, than the organizers predicted.
“Sometimes wars are necessary,” Jackson said. “The Civil War to end racism was necessary. World War II to end fascism was necessary. Even the war to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait was necessary. But now, we can do it a better way.”
The umbrella organization planning the protest was Act Now to Stop the War and End Racism. The demonstrators paraded along streets near the White House, and participants represented a number of groups, including the Muslim American Society, Freedom Foundation and the International Action Center.
In preparation for the march, a number of streets were blocked off and there was a significant police presence. Many officers were on horses or motorcycles; some were in full riot gear. But the police stressed that their presence was only a precaution and that they did not expect any disruptions.
“They are a peaceful group,” one officer said.
More than 30 people spoke against the war at the rally, including former US attorney-general Ramsey Clark, the Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.
Actress Susan Sarandon spoke as well. “I am here as a mother because I am afraid for my children,” she shouted. “I’m afraid for our children. I’m afraid for the Iraqi children.”
The group criticized Congress for not representing the people when it authorized Bush to use force if Iraq refuses to allow inspections and removal of weapons of mass destruction. They shouted in protest against the Bush administration’s foreign policy, which many of them said was imperialist.
A man in a black suit, smoking a pipe, passed out leaflets that read: “Are you ready for a perma-war?” A young girl with a ponytail, probably four years old, held a placard saying: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Two shirtless women, walking arm-in-arm, pasted stickers on their chests that read: “Stop the Iraq war.”
A river of protesters flowed behind Jackson, as he led the march to the White House. “George Bush, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide!”, they shouted.
“Let us resist this war,” actress Sarandon told the cheering crowd. “Let us hate war in all its forms, whether the weapon used is a missile or an airplane.”
The protesters brandished signs reading: “No Proof, No War,” “Bush Sucks” and “Pre-emptive Impeachment.” Some protesters carried Iraqi flags. “No war, no way,” shouted a protester wearing a mask of Bush with horns and a pitchfork.
Another 40,000 marched in San Francisco, with thousands more demonstrating in Berlin, Amsterdam and other cities.
In San Francisco, known for its liberal politics and history of activism, a group of about 20 children led the parade as protesters carried signs bearing pictures of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld beneath the words “weapons of mass destruction.”
In Germany, anti-war demonstrations were held in about 70 towns and cities. The largest was in Berlin, where almost 10,000 people marched. In Amsterdam, some 4,000 people rallied in heavy rain to protest against US policy.
Wanted a film industry: KARACHI FILE
MOST newspapers in the city last week carried a rather innocent headline that said something like “Artists demand film industry in Karachi”. This was actually a chorus in which the voices ranged from the formidable to the awesome. Those chiming were gentlemen and ladies of the highest stature among our performing artists. Each one of them would be a world in her or his self. Fascinating achievements stand to their names.
All of us in this city would be justified in demanding something that is imperative to keep the body and soul together. For instance, millions out of the 14 million who live here are demanding clean water - and not getting it at all, or not getting it in sufficient or reliable supply. They demand water because they are unable to procure it entirely on their own. It is beyond their reach.
So many of us demand constant supply of electricity. Most individual citizens cannot generate it, though some indeed can if they are able to afford a generator at home. Such facility is beyond the reach and means of most in this city. So they must demand it from some agency or authority or company or institution like the KESC or WAPDA.
It is not the same situation when some of the tallest among the performing artists get together and “demand” the setting up of a film industry in a city like Karachi. Who is this extraordinary “demand” addressed to? What is it that is needed to set up or promote a film industry and is not available in abundance right here?
The artists ‘demanding’ a film industry are themselves the best assurance that this city can have a sustainable and flourishing film industry that should be second to none in Pakistan. If anything, there is a surfeit of the human resource in Karachi. The artists know it, or should know this much. Of technical know-how, too, Karachi has more than anywhere else in the country. You don’t have to extend your hand too far to have it in place.
No doubt a properly-organized film industry would need cash. Karachi is awash with cash. There is a great deal more of cash here than in any city in the whole of Pakistan. One should safely assume that the artists we are talking about had, consciously or otherwise, Lahore in mind; quite properly so. Lahore has a huge film industry.
But it has more than a film industry. It has a tradition of making films. It is in its air, as one might say, or in the blood of Lahore. That is what is most probably missing out here in Karachi. But you cannot have a tradition served to you on a silver platter. This reminds of the wonderment of an American tourist marvelling at some lawns in a London park. He asked the gardener how you can have such a lawn. Simple, said the gardener. You level the ground, plant the grass, water it, mow it. Then he coolly added: for four hundred years.
Developing a tradition of anything worthwhile takes a lot of work - over many, many years. But you have to begin somewhere. And then it has to be work, work and more work without counting the years. The artists who are “demanding” a film industry have evidently not thought of a film industry in these terms. They are most unlikely to have this “demand” supplied or fulfilled unless they themselves get up and get cracking.
It is certainly very true that Karachi has plenty of talent and a lot even to spare. But why think of sparing. A film industry, if properly organized in this city of limitless promise, should have no end to work. Indeed there should be enough to keep all available talent creatively employed. and in the process provide openings to nurse potential talent. Sky should be the limit, if any limit at all.
Instead of making “demands” addressed to no one in particular, the artists of Karachi have only to get together and get organized. When you have a feasible proposition, money is never a problem. As it is, Karachi has as much cash as there are waves in the Arabian Sea nearby. It can be said that there was a time when Karachi did have a film industry - of sorts, if you insist. These artists, now “demanding” a film industry, had better look back if only to get wise about the errors that caused the film industry of Karachi to fade away.
As things stand today, there are more factors that one would need to make a fully-fledged film industry in Karachi to flourish to the full potential of this pulsating city. You have the artists, the urge to set up a film industry, finance and also ready market in the city, upcountry and the Gulf region, if not beyond. What is needed is the initiative. It must come from the artists. They have to be the pioneers.
If and when the artists of Karachi raise the flag and start the march, there would be no dearth of followers and financiers. It is as simple as that.
The magical book bazaar
After many weeks in remission, the weekly Sunday book bazaar at Frere Hall has finally started again. The bazaar was shut down after the bomb blast outside the American Consulate earlier this year. It’s precariously close location meant that the city’s book loving population was going to be disappointed for quite some time, waiting for the authorities to figure out a way to resume the bazaar. A friend says that book lovers and readers from all over Karachi were quite sore at the bazaar’s discontinuation and made this clear in their laments to various publications printed in the city.
A picturesque place with book-sellers from all over the city, Frere Hall’s book bazaar, the friend is happy to report, is as good as ever. Books are being sold at prices lower than usual to attract people to the fair. Two sellers that she spoke to said that the closing of the bazaar had caused them considerable hardship since the number of books they sold in a single day at Frere Hall amounted to sales of several weeks elsewhere.
People from all walks of life frequent the bazaar. Students are seen sitting on benches under trees in the back gardens eating chat and talking excitedly about the treasures they have managed to uncover for just a few hundred rupees. And elsewhere you can see professionals getting all excited at finding books in their particular area of interest at astonishingly low costs. One old man was seen bargaining over an old, termite eaten book quite a few times during the day. To see him walk off with the book and his walking stick with a big fat smile on his face was a pleasure, the friend said.
The books on sale are from all genres and in both English and Urdu. You can find Archie comics, Nancy Drew, E. M. Forster, Munshi Premchand, Reader’s Digest, MAD magazine, Paulo Coelho, Khushwant Singh, Marquez, Patras Bukhari, Zadie Smith, and TOEFL preparation books are just some of the thousands of books on sale.
As there are no fixed prices, haggling is a must and the stall owners are most flexible and accommodating. Some even throw in an extra book or two on a large purchase as a goodwill gesture and to build regular customers. There have been many instances of people coming across literary treasures of all sorts at the bazaar. A pre-Partition book on united India’s geography, a personally signed, moth-eaten book by Mushtaq Yusufi or Shakespeare’s collected works for Rs 50 are just some examples.
A lovely way to spend a Sunday evening, the city government has done Karachiites much good in restarting the bazaar. There is an almost magical feeling to an evening there. Hundreds of people browsing through books, haggling with shopkeepers, generally lazing and walking about — all soaking in the lovely feeling of being in the midst of so many books in such a lovely surrounding in the city of Karachi of all places. A magical feeling indeed.
A friend had a bad experience the last time she says she went shopping with a friend from out of town.
Her account: “I always knew that this lingerie shop at Clifton was very popular with people but had never actually been there. A couple of weeks back I accompanied a friend from Peshawar who had come to Karachi, shopping for her trousseau. Unfortunately for us, we went to this shop the way we would go to any other shop. Stepping down from the car and walking towards it, we noticed nothing unusual at first. When we were waiting for the door to be unlocked, I noticed that shopkeepers from surrounding stores had gathered in a corner near this particular shop and were staring at us, unblinking and snickering! I felt very uncomfortable and pretended not to notice. My friend shrank beneath her dupatta, trying to make herself invisible.
“Once inside the shop I breathed a sigh of relief. After my friend made her selection she told the saleswoman what she wanted. The latter in turn insisted that she take my friend’s size first. Now my friend, being of a conservative nature, said she knew what size she wanted and therefore did not feel the need to allow herself to be measured. The very efficient saleswoman however insisted that she knew what she was talking about and that the measurement had to be taken. The argument became heated, I stepped in, and tempers rose even further. As we were about to storm out of the shop, another saleswoman stepped in and gave my friend what she wanted. Without trying out anything and snatching the parcel from the counter we stepped out, only to be greeted by the very same shopkeepers. They stared longer at us this time, especially our bags, as we walked past them.
“I finally decided it was time, and turning around I told them off, making myself sound as cold and rude as possible. They stared back dumbly at me, and I knew my efforts had been futile because nothing would get across these louts. I felt I had embarrassed myself enough. With my face burning I sat back inside my car and sped off with my friend.”
Well, at least she had the courage and the guts to give it to these guys unlike so many other women I know who prefer to avoid any kind of confrontation with such men.
The newly-created Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has on and off given statements in newspapers warning cable operators not to show programmes that “do not reflect our cultural or moral values”. However, now we probably have the MMA to do this for us, and in any case it would be much better if PEMRA busied itself with remedying the actual problems cable subscribers face instead of telling us what is or isn’t part of our culture.
For example, it could look into the following particular case: A gentleman from Block 14 in Federal B Area sent in an email saying that his neighbourhood had had cable service since 1997. However, he said, the quality of the service leaves much to be desired. Shutdowns are common and given with no notice or indication of how long they will go on for.
The subscriber also said that the cable providers, called the ‘S. K. Cable Network’ has a complaint number which no one ever seems to answer so consumers don’t even have any recourse to filing a complaint. He said that complaints had been lodged with the PTA (which used to oversee cable operators prior to PEMRA’s creation) but nothing happened. Perhaps, PEMRA can now take this and many other similar cable operators in the city to task over the shoddy service they provide.
The sceptic though that I am, my advice to the subscriber — who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons — is to not expect much from PEMRA.
In this age of the rising power of wealth and the decline of values, it’s a rare sight to come across people who go through hard obstacles and still manage to earn an honest living. The friend behind this sentiment recently sent in a small write-up of people she says that exemplify this kind of ideal.
“One place is where Karachiwallahs frequently go when they want to eat, i.e. the city’s own Food Street, Boating Basin. One young man dressed in office clothes walks the entire length of the area with a plastic bag in hand asking people if they would like to buy his wares. Some people are rude and curt to him, some polite but he always replies with a smile and walks off to try his luck elsewhere. “Quite obviously well educated, this young man has decided to take things in his own hands and is trying to earn a living with his hard work in a time of much unemployment. He has not resorted to stealing or to committing suicide, and is a stark reminder of things most people in the city have long forgotten.
“There are other people like this man in the city for those who care to look. An elderly man at Hill Park waits on people who come there for chai paratha. This man’s teeth have fallen and he must be well above 70, yet he works with much speed and efficiency and is extremely courteous.
Then, she goes on to say: “Amid the more than 14 regular beggars at the main Saddar signal is another man who sells lighters, prize bond numbers and those fake dogs with wagging heads every day. In stifling heat where one feels like snapping at one’s own reflection, this man tirelessly sells one thing or the other with good humour and a smile.”
The friend says that all these men have a lot of self-respect and that this stops them from harassing people into buying their goods. “Everyone in this drowning city of Karachi can learn a lesson from them, but is anyone looking?”
— By Karachian
email: karachi_notebook@hotmail.com