On a Monday morning earlier this year, the United States of America struck a major blow in the battle for equal rights among all men (and women). However, contrary to popular spin doctory, said blow was not struck through the storming of a compound in Abbotabad, and subsequent killing of a certain Mr. Bin Laden (or capture of his cryogenically frozen body, if certain conspiracy bloggers are to be believed). Instead, it was a true stealth action, and took place in the coastal city of Karachi, in two stages.
I was driving down the Abdullah Haroon Road a few Sundays ago, and saw an amazing sight. A family was having a picnic on the grounds of the Frere Hall, complete with bedsheet, thermos of tea, and plastic bag of fruit. A child was doing laps of the bedsheet while his parents sat discussing whatever it is that parents of toddlers discuss when said toddler doesn’t need their immediate attention; probably the toddler (it’s sad how one dimensional most parents’ conversations are). I was gobsmacked, and nearly dropped my bag of chips, mobile phone, Coke and iPod. Good thing I had a pinky finger on the wheel, or the War on Terror would have claimed another to its list of victims in the shape of a lamppost.
To those readers not familiar with Karachi and its various vagaries, this entire scene may not sound all that remarkable; after all, people hold impromptu picnics everywhere, and Karachi is no exception. I have myself seen dastarkhwan’s laid in locations as diverse as the grounds of the Karachi Zoo, the central reservation on Khayaban-e-Ittehad, and even the westbound carriageway of the Lyari Expressway and the General Ward aisle at Jinnah Hospital. It seems that as a city we are liable to break out the biryani ka pateela at the merest sign of greenery or a cool breeze.
The remarkable fact, then, is not the act of the picnic, but the location. For years, since people decided that blowing up fellow citizens in the general vicinity of the consulate of what they consider to be the Imperialist Oppressor was a good way of spending their Monday morning, the grounds of the Frere Hall had been off limits to all except groundskeepers, security ehelkaars and sharpshooters.
Long gone are the queues of US visa hopefuls that snaked around the said consultate, around the then Holiday Inn Hotel, across the road trampling over the verdant lawns that is now the Japanese Consulate and into Frere Park. The respect of orderliness and general discipline then on show by Pakistanis vying to shun their country for more disciplined and law-abiding pastures has always been an interesting study in the economic concept of incentives, and a stark contrast to their base state of fist-fights over jalebis at iftar food stalls and the jump-as-many-traffic-lights-as-you-can contests at Khayaban-e-Shamsheer.
In a city where green space per capita is already in immensely short supply, especially for those who cannot afford the price of entrance into any of the exclusive “members only” green spaces dotted around, any such space which suddenly becomes inaccessible is a blow the magnitude of which cannot accurately be measured. That, coupled with the fact that for years the Frere Hall Sunday book market had been a happy hunting ground for that notoriously shrinking population, the person to whom reading is more than surfing the net for juicy Veena Malik / Rehman Malik tidbits, meant that the lack of access to this great Gothic edifice (apparently built by the same chap who also did the Merewether Tower) had rankled amongst a significant part of the population. However, with time, this too became the norm, and people adjusted to yet another infringement. Insidious, isn’t it?
So why the change of heart? The fact of the matter was that the Uncle had moved house, meaning the security levels of this part of the world could be brought down a notch or two (one guesses that Japanese consular lives are a few billion yens cheaper than comparable US citizenry). As a result, a great blow was cast for eaters of aaloo qeema on picnic bedsheets all over the world, and another cut-price dating venue added back to the list of possibilities – these were innocent times, remember, before the scourge of Maya Khan was unleashed upon the green spaces of this fair city, and couples were free to walk, talk, and even (Shock! Horror!) hold hands in public spaces without fear of a flock of camera-carrying vigilantes descending upon them.
This, in itself, though, is not the entire extent of the blow that was struck by the You Ess of Eh. Their new location, the exact contents and facilities wherein were a cause of great speculation in the early days (They have their own branch of Aghas! There is a cinema in there! A discotheque! A Starbucks! A Disneyworld!), is bang on the Mai Kolachi bypass. “So what?” I hear you say. At least it is no longer next door to KGS and the kiddies of the influential are not threatened by their manhoos saaya. Not to mention we can now drive to and from Sind Club in relative peace.
All of this is true; however, there is on not-so-insignificant fact which needs to be considered here. A large part of the Karachi workforce, and almost all of those who work in the Financial Services industry, commute daily to and from the I.I. Chundrigar Road area, and large parts of the business community to and from SITE and Boulton Market areas. If you live on “this” side of the bridge, Mai Kolachi is the main route to get to and from work. For those on “that” side of the bridge, the equivalent route is a mix of Shahrah-e-Faisal, M.A. Jinnah Road, and now the Lyari Expressway.
In the olden days, almost all anti-USA protests used to cluster around the Numaish – Tibet Center – Regal areas (and aspire to be hosted by the venerable Nishtar Park one day). This would result in traffic chaos all along the latter routes, with commuters being routinely stuck for 3-4 hours at a time, running rapidly out of both patience and CNG. Now, however, the tables have been well and truly turned. One side of the carriageway been truncated by over a lane thanks to blast protection barriers the likes of which have not been seen before, slowing down traffic on the homebound commute on a permanent basis.
Not only that, the daily commute is now a permanent surprise. You never know which morning one side of the carriageway will be closed for no apparent reason, putting you in a tailback with nothing but inane radio presenters for company. And Fridays have become a complete lottery. All may be milk and honey in the morning, and chaos may ensue at lunchtime, or in the early evening. Many an executive has been held up for an hour or more on their way back from a Godless lunch, thanks to a sudden and catastrophic road closure just this side of Boat Basin. Verily, the shoe doth be on the other foot. Some have even been forced in to a detour that takes them through the mean streets of Shireen Jinnah Colony, a journey many of the ivory tower brigade are not quite prepared for.
And there it is, the circle is complete. In one fell swoop, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Braves set free a major recreational center for the middle classes, made enormous strides in promoting reading among one of the world’s largest youth population, and also corrected the imbalance between commute times of those who live in Gulshan-e-Iqbal and those who live in Gulshan-e-Faisal. You can’t tell me all this was not meticulously planned and are just innocent by-products of a powerful nation selfishly annexing the best piece of land available to further its internal security agenda…
The road to Freedom can take many an unexpected turn. In the case of Karachi, it was a right turn from MT Khan Road.
A truncated version of the same (edited for length) was published in Dawn in September 2012. The link to the published version:
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