Ah, the good old days when Pakistan had a beautiful eastern wing! Only if wishes were horses… on May 12, 1964 the then president of Pakistan, Gen Ayub Khan, laid the foundation stone for the Urdu College building. He also delivered a speech on the occasion the gist of which was that the Naskh script should be adopted for Bengali and Urdu languages to facilitate Bengali for West Pakistanis and Urdu for those who lived in the eastern part of the country in order to have better national integration. He, however, warned that the proposal needed a careful examination. Sad, nothing was examined carefully in the years to come.

A day earlier, on May 11, the inaugural Karachi-Moscow flight returned to Karachi at 2.55pm. Yes, the same flight that carried journalists and travel agents. They deemed the journey a successful one, and the route worth taking.

Long before the invention known as television came into our lives, preparation to welcome it had already begun. On May 13, A H Begg, Managing Director Thompson Television International arrived in Karachi to call on the information secretary to discuss the training of personnel in TV technology. It would be interesting to know Mr Begg’s opinion on satellite television networks, especially the ones that disseminate news these days.

Not many people believe that Nazimabad was once a culturally robust neighbourhood of the city. There were venues in the locality which regularly held programmes related to art, music and films. On May 14 an exhibition of sculptures and paintings, which was also a competition of sorts, was organised in the area under the auspices of Minart Institute in which no fewer than 300 artworks were put on display.

Zahida Kazmi won the prize for creating the best sculpture and Lubna Nilofer for making the best painting. Come to think of it, we need cultural centres in every densely populated neighborhood.

The notion that our society in the 1960s was less insular than it is today needs to be revisited. The reason is that going through the newspapers published at the time gives an idea that certain sections in the country had kept pressing issues like gender equality pretty much alive.

On May 15, 1964 the Commissioner of Karachi, Roedad Khan, who moved around in the city with great frequency to see which areas needed his attention, addressed a gathering comprising members of the fish canning industry and said there should be no night jobs for female workers. Since what prompted him to say that is not known, no comments.

The next day, May 16, a harrowing incident saddened the whole city. Two brothers, Khurshid and Laiq, drowned in Hawks Bay beach while hunting ducks. It was a torrid time for their family and friends.

Speaking of time, on May 17 it was reported that Pakistan and Switzerland would soon sign a contract to set up a watch repairing workshop at the Karachi Polytechnic Institute. It would be far better if they had thought of setting up an institution where the value of ‘time’ could be taught.