celebration

In a sharp contrast to its image as a city of disruptions, Karachi has become a center of festivity in the past few months. First it was Kara, then the Eid and now it is Hamara Karachi. City District Government Karachi's late but nonetheless welcome realization of providing Karachiites with quality entertainment has not gone unnoticed.

The festivities started on January 6 and will run till the 18th. The venues for the event are spread across Karachi to include as diverse a cross-section of society as possible. The best thing about the event is its inclusiveness and it features a diversity of national and international artists. Included in the event are theatrical performances, an opera, several concerts, a film festival and ferry rides amongst other activities. The performances will take place simultaneously throughout the two weeks.

According to public addresses by the Nazim, Naib Nazim, Governor and Chief Minister, this was the first time that the people of Karachi were given the opportunity to come together in a peaceful manner for a joyous occasion. They emphasized that the need for such events is great and hoped that such events will become a regular feature for the citizens of Karachi.

The 230 year-old Hyderabad Fort, popularly known as the Pakka Qila, is like many other neglected historical and cultural sites in the country whose conditions is growing worse by the day. While the relevant authorities continue to pay a lip service to these problems no material improvement has been seen in terms of Fort's maintenance or renovation.

Hyderabad Fort has a rich history and is of great significance for the people of Sindh. Hyderabad became the capital of Sindh when the Indus changed its course from Khudaabad, during the reign of the Ghulam Shah Kalhoro, who is considered to be the father of Hyderabad. In 1766 Kalhoro constructed a fort half a square km in area, which was later taken over by the British in 1843 when they defeated the Talpurs and completed their conquest of Sindh. The massive half-a-square kilometer garrison was completed by 1768 and since then, it stands in place.

However the attitude of successive governments has never shown any apprehension over issues concerning the maintenance of this site. The wall of this fort has collapsed and rains have wreaked havoc on the fort. Besides this, there have been no efforts to restore the fort from its inhabitants as a large number of people who migrated from India had started living inside the fort.

These inhabitants have constructed houses inside the fort and have badly damaged the structure. In addition, they have also made alterations to the actual elevation and exterior of the fort. There has been no action from the authorities or the officials of archaeological department.

It must be mentioned that those who have settled here were provided with alternative land but at such a distant place that these families were forced to return. Their comeback not only affected the fort and deteriorated its condition but resulted in the collapse of the fort wall killing dozens of residents who were residing on either of its sides.

The families residing in the fort says that they are aware of the fact the fort is on the verge of collapse but they cannot leave their ancestral place in absence of an alternative.

According to Haji Moenuddin Sheikh, former city Nazim of Hyderabad, President General Pervez Musharraf had approved his proposal for sanctioning 50 million rupees for relocation of fort residents and its preservation. However, the proposal became the victim of red-tapism.

'The proposal for the preservation of ancient heritage is not implemented and those who are living inside and living by the wall of fort continue to hear alarm bells whenever it is the rainy season,' Moenuddin Sheikh remarked.

There was once a museum inside the fort premises as well, which was destroyed during ethnic riots in Hyderabad. Since then, no one bothered to take the initiative for restoration and renovation of the museum. Later, the building was occupied by law enforcement agencies. The museum is in bad shape and even the main doors and entrances of the fort are in dilapidated condition.

District Nazim of Hyderabad Kanwar Naveed Jameel told Kolachi that he formed a taskforce for preservation and restoration of historical sites in the district and initially held meeting with officials of the archaeological department to prepare a plan. He said that the department later informed that they had submitted a proposal to federal government for provision of funds up to 2 billion rupees for restoration of this ancient fort of Hyderabad but it is yet to be approved.

'I assured that the district government despite its meagre resources would provide 30 million rupees for the preservation of heritage in the district,' Kanwar Naveed said and added that the resources of district government are limited. However, District Nazim says district government is planning to renovate and rehabilitate the fort, as it is especially its exterior and is looking towards the federal as well as provincial government support in this regard.

Every dignitary who visits Hyderabad talks about this fort but never finds time to pay a visit to the fort which at present is nearing its death.

Time for void promises has passed. What needs to be done for preservation and restoration of this ancient and symbolic fort of Hyderabad should be immediate and result-oriented. In times like today when people look to extremist causes to give them a sense of identity and direction, reviving Sindh's rich historical legacy will be a practical step towards enlightenment and moderation.

Like virtually everything else, cricket, too, is not what it used to be. Back in the old days in Karachi, for example, top cricketers were produced by the harum-scarum brand of cricket played in galli-koochas across the city. Nowadays, however, our cricketing establishment seems to think that good cricketers can only be produced by highly paid foreign coaches. Indeed, the expression "from koochas to coaches" could be used as a metaphor to describe the descent of the game into the pits of crass commercialism.

This is true not only of the cricket being played in Pakistan today but of cricket throughout the world. There was a time, however, when cricket was regarded as not just another game but as the greatest game in the world.

The first full description of a cricket match was of a game in 1744 between Kent and All England. "Cricket: An Heroic Poem" was written by a young poet named James Dance using the pseudonym of Love and goes with a rare swing from the opening lines: "Hail Cricket! Manly British game! / First of all sports! Be first alike in fame!"

Kent won the match by 1 wicket due to a dropped catch by one "W...k." Poor Waymark! Has the missing of a sitter ever been better described: "The erring ball amazing to be told! / Slipped thro' his outstretched hand and mocked his hold."

John Nyren's "The Young Cricketer's Tutor" was first published in 1833. In his book, the author talks of the "many thousands" who would come to watch matches at Hambledon, a small Hampshire village that was miles from anywhere, even in those days. This is how Nyren describes those crowds:

"Oh! It was a heart-stirring sight to witness the multitude forming a complete and dense circle round that noble green. Half the county would be present, and all their hearts are with us - Little Hambledon pitted against All England was a proud thought for the Hampshire men. Defeat was glory in such a struggle - victory, indeed, made us only 'a little lower than angels'."

"Only a little lower than angels" - that, in essence, was the true spirit of the game. And nowhere was that spirit more wonderfully evident than in cricket's eccentrics.

Here is the English writer Benny Green on the subject: "Although there is no question that the patron saint of eccentricity resides somewhere in the Grace family, it is not easy to decide on whose shoulders the mantle falls, on Edward Mills the Coroner, or William Gilbert the Doctor. Which of these two astonishing originals embodies the more succulent absurdities, E.M., whose irascible romanticism was reflected not only in his persistent pulling of balls outside the off-stump to the leg boundary but also of his pursuit of barrackers in the crowd, or W.G., who contradicted the classical orthodoxy of his own batting technique with his slyly comic bending of the rules?"

The secret of both brothers, according to Green, was a simplicity of approach amounting to pure genius, a slapstick pragmatism harking back to the Georgians. In a wonderful passage, Green notes: "In this regard it is much to the point that their maternal grandfather George Pocock, whose favourite mode of transport was kite carriage, was the sometime organist at Portland Wesleyan Church at Kingsdown near Bristol, and that, after a skirmish between organists and deacons, he left for ever, taking the organ with him; years later E.M., as a schoolboy at Long Ashton, was given out lbw by a dubious decision and applied the family precedent by walking off the field with the stumps under his arm."

So now you know. It all went back to Pocock walking off with the church organ. The most delightful part of this account is the bit about the "skirmish between organists and deacons." One can imagine the scene: Ladies and Gentlemen, in the right-hand corner, dressed in black, the organists. And in the left-hand corner, in sombre grey, the deacons...

F.A. Leeston-Smith, playing for Weston-super-Mare against Thornbury, once hit E.M. for 4 successive sixes, an event which the Coroner later recalled as follows: "F.L. Cole made one off my first ball, Leeston-Smith six off my second, six off third, six off fourth, six off fifth, when the umpire said, 'I'm afraid it's over, Doctor'. I said, 'Shut up. I am going to have another, and off this one he was stumped'."

It was hardly likely that such a man, when appointed to the secretaryship of a country club, would bother with the conventional proprieties; the minutes of a Gloucestershire session of 1873 read as follows: "Committee meeting held at the White Lion Hotel, Bristol, on Thursday, November 25 at 3 o'clock. Present: E.M. Grace and that's all."

As for W.G., says Green, "His place as the champion of sporting perversity is too secure to require further documentation, but it is worth saying that he remains the only published author of the 19th century who believed that no good could come of reading books, that he once raided the Lord's pavilion and kidnapped William Midwinter for a match at the Oval, that among his sporting accomplishments was the ability to empty a magnum of champagne and then balance the bottle on his head, and that A.J. Webbe remembered at his mother's home in Eaton Square, 'W.G. marching round the drawing room after dinner bearing the coal scuttle on his head for a helmet, with the poker carried as a sword'."

According to Green, eccentrics generally may be sub-divided into the Expert-Technical, the Inept-Aspiring, and the Dotty-Idolatrous. In the first category falls Charles Burgess Fry (better known as C.B. Fry), who, on being no-balled for throwing, tied his bowling arm in a splint, buttoned down his shirt-sleeve and was only frustrated in his plan to reduce the umpires to absurdity through the refusal of his captain, W.L. Murdoch, to put the plan into operation.

Later Fry, the only opening batsman ever to be offered the throne of Albania, summed up his own technique by saying that he had only one shot but could make it to 9 different parts of the field.

Eccentricity of a somewhat differing kind must be attributed to the aforesaid Midwinter, who not only indulged in willful dissimulation himself, but, as Green notes, "induced the administrators of two hemispheres to indulge in it also, which explains how he found himself playing for Australia against England in 1876, for England against Australia in 1881, and for Australia against England in 1882."

Midwinter, the first inter-continental cricketer, is also famous for a miraculous metamorphosis achieved in his travels, having embarked for Australia in 1880 as "W. Midwinter" and returned the following April as "W. Midwinter; Gent". This elevation, however, Green notes, pales before the bewildering social fluctuations of Grace's cousin, W.R. Gilbert, who was listed by Wisden as an amateur until 1886, as a professional 1887-1923; as an amateur again in 1924; as a professional again posthumously from 1925-34; as an amateur again 1934-40; and subsequently as nothing at all.

Intermittent idiosyncracy must be ascribed to Robert Peel, the Yorkshire bowler (not to be confused with Robert Peel, the founder of the London Metropolitan Police), who could on occasion drink himself into a condition more or less indistinguishable from eccentricity. Peel was once described in one Wisden match report as "having to go away". He was eventually ushered out of the first-class game by Lord Hawke, for a nameless misdemeanour often said to have been his running the wrong way and bowling at the pavilion in the mistaken belief that it was a batsman.

Then, there was George Gunn, one of the most brilliant of batsmen (according to contemporary accounts), whose great century for England against Australia at Sydney in 1908 was marred, he always said, by the congenital inability of the cornetist in the orchestra on the ground to play in tune.

His successor at Trent Bridge, Charlie Harris, often expressed the sterner tendencies of a more utilitarian age by remarking to the fielders as he walked in to bat, "Good morning, fellow-workers".

For eccentricity above and beyond the call of duty, however, an 18th-century Duke of Dorset remains in a class of his own. In 1754 he sacked his mistress, the ravishing Elena Bacelli, for running him out.

Kolachi: Sarwar, where are you originally from?

Ghulam Sarwar: I am from the Muzzafarabad area up north. I moved to Karachi in search of a job. I reached here in 1984 and since then am settled here. Some of my family is still in the northern areas. I miss them immensely; however I have become accustomed to Karachi's lifestyle now. I go once every three months to visit my family.

Kolachi: Who all is part of your family?

GS: I am married with two children, both of whom are currently studying at a school in Muzzafarabad. They also love Karachi as a city, although I don't get a chance to call them down here often enough. My wife does not work - as she takes care of the children. My mother was unfortunately a victim of the recent earthquake and passed away in that. My brother works with me in Karachi.

Kolachi: Where do you live?

GS: Well I spend the better part of the day in Clifton. My house is also situated nearby, so commuting is not arduous. I use the bus or cycle to get to work everyday. My duty here is at night, so my sleep cycle is reversed

Kolachi: How do you like working in Karachi?

GS: The tediousness of the job stems from its monotony; it is the same duty repeatedly, but I suppose such is the nature of most jobs. I have grown used to it also. Plus the people around are very nice and friendly. That is the one thing I immediately felt about people in Karachi; they extend courtesy to outsiders. I remember when I first joined this place one particular Balochi family ensured that I was given meals day and night. Nobody turned a blind eye. Actually I think Karachi was more affable earlier; that phenomenon is slightly changing with modernity. Nowadays, nobody has the time. I rarely speak to anyone the entire day.

Kolachi: What do you like about most about Karachi?

GS: Well, I like the restaurants, more so, perhaps, because I have worked at one before; I thoroughly enjoy visiting new places to eat, not because of the culinary aspect, but because of the ambience and people. I often visit Sea View, at the beach and eat outs are concentrated there. They are building a new structure there. I am not sure what it will be like but am looking forward to seeing it.

Kolachi: Where else do you go for food?

GS: Well, I have been to the Highway. The karhai was not bad, but I have had better. I also go to Afridi Inn. I enjoy desi food, but Karachi's cuisine can become bland sometimes. I manage nevertheless. Anyway Karachi nights I immensely enjoy, because almost all of mine are spent outdoors; this year we have had great weather. My wife and children are freezing in the north though.

Kolachi: What do you dislike most about Karachi?

GS: Well, one of the places I always wish to avoid is the Zamzama Street, near Defence. First of all, it is too overcrowded and narrow. There is hardly space for cars; people should begin to learn how to walk in this country. Plus the people you see there are so different from Karachi - the city, itself. They dress differently, they look differently, they speak entirely differently; I mean I have never been inside the several restaurants lined on both sides of the street, but somehow I don't even want to. I feel the same way about the shops. From what I have seen and heard, they are overpriced and too fancy for the likes of us.

Kolachi: How well do you know Karachi, in terms of road maps?

GS: Well, I have been as far as the Highway and Mango Pir; Mango Pir is a great place to visit. I spent hours there one Saturday weekend. The people there will tell you all about the legends associated with the shrine and the saint Mango Pir himself. And the part I liked most was the crocodiles and the myths associated with them. Most people do not visit it as it is too far from the city center.

Kolachi: How does Karachi compare to Muzzzafarabad?

GS: They are two entirely different places, with a completely divergent set of people; the folks back home are way simpler. They have easier lifestyles, a simpler mindset and less tension. Muzzafarabad's people and their hospitality cannot compare. There, the young girls are not allowed to stay out till midnight. The family remains their main unit of interaction. Plus the earthquake has just brought everyone closer together - the dependency, if anything has increased, tightening the kinship network.

Despite no proximal interaction with Ghulam Sarwar, his perspective in the post-earthquake scenario seems to have radically transformed; although one would expect a more disillusioned outlook, the impact of the tragedy seems to have geared Sarwar in an entirely opposite direction. His inclination towards religion has enhanced even further, his demeanor is no less cheery and he doesn't seem to be avenging the world. Indeed, such is Karachi's character.