STORY OF KARACHI

STORY OF KARACHI There was nothing much at Karachi until the Mirs of Talpur seized it from the  Khan of Kalat in 1795 and constructed a mud fort at Manora. Under its  protection, a small town grew up, whose population had reached 13,000 by 1818.  Not much happened thereafter until 1st February 1839, when a British ship - the  Wellesley - anchored off Manora. Two days later the little fort surrendered  without a shot being fired on either side. The fickle finger of fate had  suddenly shoved the sleepy back-water towards becoming a megalopolis, a world  city.  WRESTED FROM THE SWAMPS: The settlement was remote and swampy, isolated by  hundreds of miles of bleak desert in every direction but the sea. Nonetheless,  within four years, the capital of Sind was transferred there and building began  in earnest. By 1847 the Napier Barracks (now governinent offices) were  completed. A census next year showed that the population had already reached  50,000. The filth and squalor proliferated, everything became plastered with  smelly black mud from the mangrove swamps, so a Municipal Committee was formed  to levy funds and provide public utilities. In 1848 the municipality's income  was Rs.6,000; in 1849 it was Rs.18,000 and in 1850, Rs.27,000 - an increase  reflecting the mind-boggling population explosion.  The committee laid out a whole network of roads, named after itselt; in what is  now Central Karachi. Preedy Street was named after the Revenue Commissioner;  MeLeod Road after the Collector of Customs and so on. Even in those days  Karachi had a traffic problem. There were so many carts and carriages that the  roads had to be paved with gravel chippings (an unheard of refinement, way  ahead of London.) The streets were watered daily by municipal bullock carts, to  damp down the dust. As revenues increased, public works were undertaken on a  grand scale. Frere Hall (a museum and library) was finished in 1865,  Mereweather Clock Tower in 1867, Boulton Market in 1883, Empress Market in  1889... The town turned into a city.  As people poured in, the drinking water problem, always difficult, became  acute. There is no natural source of water in Karachi; all water consumed there  must be fetched from somewhere else. Last century, water drawn from the Indus  was brought by camel train to the cantonment. The wealthier merchants sent mule  carts to the sweetwater springs in nearby Clifton. Less fortunate people bought  drinking water from municipal watercarriers until household pipes could be  laid. Though provision proceeded apace, demand has always been ahead of supply.  Karachi's poor, in places like Korangi, are still waiting for safe drinking  water.  At the turn of the century a public tram service commenced from Saddar (the  cantonment) to the new harbour at Kiamari. The horses wore straw hats to avoid  sunstroke and water for them was provided by the philanthropic "Drinking Trough  Society of Karachi." The troughs can still be seen here and there in the city.  Modernising the harbour commenced in 1860, proceeding by fits and starts. By  1882 the Mereweather Pier was completed and pilgrims for Mecca no longer had to  embark at Manora. By 1900, Karachi was one of the the biggest and best  outfitted ports in the world. Nonetheless, it continued to be troubled by the  ague and the plague until the sanitation system was completed, just after the  first World War. The war itself brought immense prosperity to Karachi's  merchants. Clifton's promenade, pier and park were gifted to the city by Sir  Jehangir H. Kothari OBE in 1919. The complex Cost Rs.300,000 to build, an  absolute fortune in those days. Other public parks, including the Zoological  Gardens on Garden Road were laid out at this time. Even more new roads and  buildings were constructed in the interwar period. As the population approached  the quarter million mark, those who could moved out to the suburbs, building  houses in a style best described as "South Asian Hollywood." commuting arrived  with a vengeance and one of the world's first rapid transit systems was  inaugurated.  MELTING POT: The building of Karachi attracted Goan cooks, Anglo-Indian  bartenders, Sikh bricklayers, and Chinese washermen. Parsi, Hindu and Jain  merchants came from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Until Partition, their camel  caravans regularly crossed the Thar. The Parsis built a Tower of Death out at  Korangi. A few of the merchants' big mansions still remain downtown. The  Lebanese community became sizeable. People of African descent can also be seem  in and around Karachi. Tradition has it, they escaped from a shipwrecked Arab  slaver at the mouth of the Hub River (hence their nickname 'hubshi").  At Partition, Hindus, Armenians and Jews left the city en masse. Muslim  refugees from India, calling themselves Mohajir, migrated in by train, boat,  air, truck, even on foot. It is not known how many millions arrived. Karachi,  new capital of a new country, was so pushed for space that its government  servants had to sleep in the public parks and gardens in tents! The Mohajir  further diversify the ethnic mix of the city. Many English stayed on, their  ranks now depleted by age. Vintage couples can be spotted at their usual  watering holes, the Metropole Hotel and the statelier clubs in the early  evening.  Subsequent decades have seen the influx unabated. The Karachi Development  Authority instituted the upgrading of amenities on a massive scale: new housing  colonies, public buildings, roads, schools, colleges, markets, bazaars,  business centres, to keep pace with development needs. Cycle rickshaws have now  been replaced by thousands of scooter-rickshaws.  After Pakistan's civil war in 1971, thousands of Biharis (Urdu-speaking Muslims  from Bangladesh) arrived by boat. In the 1980s Afghan refugees joined migrant  workers from the Frontier who have laboured as dockworkers and porters for  decades. Meanwhile, "economic refugees" from Pakistan's less developed areas,  like Gilgit, Chitral and Hunza head for Karachi in search of jobs. The original  Sindhi speaking population is now a minority in the city.  Gas supply lines from Sui in Baluchistan were laid, the Hub Dam Scheme extended  the Greater Karachi Water Project and the Circular Railway was completed. In  the 1960s, two huge industrial areas were built, at Sind Industrial Estate and  Landhi and in the 1970s three more: the Export Processing Zone, Pakistan Steel  Mills Complex and Muhammad Bin Qasim Container Port. In the following decade,  work on KANUPP, Karachi's nuclear power station, was inaugurated. Industrial  growth has been spectacular.  RICH AND POOR: Original home of Pakistan's film and music industries, Karachi  in the 1980s made more films and exported them to more countries than  Hollywood. It houses the very latest in modern technology. The city works and  sleeps in a haze of brick dust as buildings barely 30 years old are  relentlessly torn down and replaced with something more up to date. The  population of seven, maybe eight, million now extends over several hundred  square kilometres along the coast and into the desert, residing in modern  apartment blocks, prestigious cooperative housing societies called "Colonies",  seaside mansions and sprawling shanty towns on the outskirts, areas of such  appalling poverty that it is difficult to see how residents will ever be  extricated from their plight. Working 16 hours a day, poor youths toil like  slaves, earning a pittance to produce elegant costume for the city's elite.  Piles of rubble surround new homes, hotels and condominiums. Limousines and  rickshaws alike must pick their way through scaffolding jungles as artisans  with age old skills produce ever more new buildings. Sometimes these are  exquisite, and Karachi's modern architecture is the showcase of Asia.  .......to be continued