NOT many of us would know that Hollywood star Donna Reed, who won the Academy Award in the best supporting actress category in 1953 for her portrayal of Lorene Burke in the film From Here to Eternity, visited Pakistan and flew back to the United States from Karachi. This happened in 1969 at a time when the entire country was in political turmoil. In fact, the last week of March was marked by activities unrelated to politics. First, let’s talk about the Hollywood star.

On the evening of March 27, 1969 a 26-member Los Angeles Country Museum Art Group, which was on a visit to Pakistan, arrived in Karachi from Moenjodaro after a day’s trip to the archaeological site. The group included famous TV and films actress Donna Reed, well-known movie producer/director Delmer Daves, renowned movie actress Marian Nixon and Margaret Pereira, wife of eminent architect William Pereira. Talking to the media, the vivacious Ms Reed described her trip to Moenjodaro as “most wonderful and educative, worth coming all the way from any place”. Daves, who was accompanied by his wife, said: “One has to go to Moenjodaro to really discover it,” adding that the visit to the abode of the ancient civilisation was “one of the most memorable”. During their four-day stay, the group, which had touched down in Pakistan from Kabul, went to Peshawar, Swat, Taxila, Rawalpindi and Lahore.

The same day walls in Karachi were being scrubbed by some young people. One would have thought that it was happening because of the American showbiz delegation. No, that wasn’t the case. The deputy commissioner’s directive was being followed for another reason — the walls of buildings in the city were being cleared of (political) posters and other writings. Many of the landlords got their buildings whitewashed from outside and some of them employed the younger lot and labourers to remove all the posters and writings from their premises. Most of the things written on the walls were to do with the demands of students, labourers and other political organisations. This was for a second time in the post-independence history of Karachi when walls were being cleaned of slogans. Earlier, in the first martial law, a decade back, all the city buildings were cleaned in a similar manner.

By the way, keeping the Sindh capital saaf, in general, in order to maintain a hygienic atmosphere was always at the top of the priority list of city administrators. On March 28, fewer buses ran on the roads after the district magistrate ordered to immediately withdraw all smoke-emitting buses from service. Although the bus operators’ association could not give any figure, it was estimated that over 100 buses had been affected by the order. Consequently, a transport problem was created for the office-goers early in the day. Taxis and auto-rickshaws were in a fairly good demand.

Now here’s something that has always been an inalienable part of Karachi’s cultural life. On March 26, new attractions for the visitors at the Karachi Zoo were the eight cubs born in the facility two months back. But the visitors had been advised not to harass the cubs as zoo officials warned, “Their stomachs are still delicate.” The cubs, however, were yet to adjust themselves to the zoo environment. They did not usually come out of their cages and avoided visitors because they easily got ‘panicky’. There were three African lionesses and two lions at the Zoo at the time. This was for the first time that eight lion cubs were born in a single breeding year. Of the eight, two were to be sent to the Hyderabad Zoo.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2019