We don’t realise how terrorist attacks affect our children indirectly. Have we ever stopped to think how it is changing our younger generation’s behaviour pattern?

I will never forget the conversation I had with my ten-year-old cousin when he came home from school a day after the attack on Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine. It was on this occasion that I understood the long-term impacts that these attacks have on children.

I couldn’t believe when he excitedly said to me, "Zawarah baji, you know what happened today? Two suicide bombers came into my friend’s brother’s school. All the children hid under the desks and Ayyan’s brother lay down on the floor pretending to be dead so that terrorists wouldn’t kill him. Then, the police came and took the terrorists away."

What he did not know was that this was a mock operation conducted by security forces to prepare and train children on how to react in case of an actual terrorist attack.

Read next: How to defuse a bomb, and other security training for Pakistani students

His naive enthusiasm transported me back to 2015 when he had returned from school on the day that marked the one-month anniversary of the tragic Army Public School massacre. I remember how proudly he told me, "You know what? Our teachers now have an app in their phones and if they tap it four times, the police will come in two minutes." Intrigued, I asked him to tell me more.

"Oh and before this, we had only four guards and now we have nine. Oh and you know what, before this we only had cameras inside the school but now we have cameras outside as well. The best part is that our windows are now bullet-proof and will only shatter if a bomb explodes. Our teacher told us that when we hear an alarm, we all have to duck and hide under our desks till our principal gives us more instructions using her special microphone."

I kept listening, till I finally gathered the courage to ask, "Why do you keep saying ‘before this’? Before what?" And then came his reply: "You don’t know what happened on 16th December? "No, what happened?" I asked him. "Terrorists killed so many innocent children in a school."

I wondered how a seven-year-old child knew all this since we have always tried to keep him away from television. Our news channels fail to understand the basic ethics of reporting and keep showing gruesome footage from different incidents, not taking into account how it affects the families of the victims as well as children who are exposed to such images.

He then continued telling me that terrorists did this. "Who is a terrorist?" I asked him. "Don’t you know? Terrorists are mad men. They are monsters. They are not Muslims or Christians, they are not even humans. They kill people for no reason because they are crazy," he angrily told me.

"Why did they attack children?" I asked him next. "Because, they strike for little meat first before targeting the big meat", was his unconventional reply.

Related: Tackling implications of enhanced security on schoolchildren

I was still marveling at his response when he added, "When I grow up, I will join the army and kill all these terrorists." "I thought you just said killing someone is a bad thing. If you kill them, wouldn’t that make you a bad person as well?"

That was the moment when he lost his calm and started arguing with me. "If I don’t kill these terrorists, they will kill more of us. They will strike our families. Do you want them to come after your family? Do you want them to kill all of us?" It took me a good five minutes and a chocolate bar to calm him down and change the subject.

Later after our conversation had ended, I sat down thinking about what had become of our country.

More than two years since the massacre in Peshawar, Pakistan is still in shambles. Instead of care-free morning assemblies, our younger generation has emergency drills.

The only thing I had to worry about when I was in school was whether my mother had packed Super Crisps and Frost juice or French toast for lunch.

Having French toast for lunch was my worst nightmare. But today, our kids face a different reality. Their worst nightmare is a terrorist attack. It breaks my heart.

We are a resilient nation, but how long will we keep suffering? I hope I live to see the day when we stop losing our people to war and terrorism.

Have your children or family members been affected by terrorist attacks in the country? Tell us about it at blog@dawn.com

As a doctor who has worked at sites of suicide bombings, I have realised that Pakistan is in a far more deplorable state in terms of emergency medical assistance than I had thought. Countless lives can be saved if we improve pre-hospital care in the country.

On February 13, 2017, a suicide bomber targeted a protest in Lahore, killing 13 people and injuring many more. A chilling video made by one of the eye-witnesses seconds after the blast shows bodies strewn across the road. The person recording the video focuses momentarily on a victim lying in a pool of blood with a visible neck wound.

The victim seems to be breathing and you can hear someone shout at the bystanders to help stop the bleeding. Someone does try to get close, but then suddenly everyone runs away from the scene.

We do not know whether the victim survived or not. But if his bleeding was controlled, his chances of survival and recovery would have increased.

In-depth: Six degrees of trauma

It is hard to filter the gut-wrenching and gory images from my mind, but it is imperative to share this example. With basic knowledge and training, we have the potential to help victims of trauma in the future.

As part of the an orthopedic surgery team, my colleagues and I analysed data from trauma victims over the last few years. We published the study in the Journal of Pakistan Medical Association, and also presented it to one of Pakistan's largest public sector Accident and Emergency Units (A&E), the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center in Karachi.

The Advanced Trauma Life Support guidelines, developed by the American College of Surgeons, prioritise trauma recognition and prompt resuscitation. But in Pakistan, our most recent data shows that victims of trauma hardly ever receive pre-hospital care during transport.

Many critical injuries that compromise the vital airway passage and shut off oxygen reaching the brain are actually treatable with simple to complex manoeuvres that should be attempted during transport of these victims to prevent death and disability. Lack of oxygen results in permanent loss of brain cell activity in as much as five to six minutes.

A few years ago, a young man, Sarfaraz Shah, was shot by a member of the paramilitary force in Karachi. The chilling video shows the victim awake, alert and sitting uncomfortably holding his injured thigh.

The haemorrhage, which was most likely from his femoral artery, eventually killed him. His death could have been prevented had some pressure been applied or a tourniquet tied to stop the bleeding before transferring him to the hospital.

In 2014, our group published an academic paper on the pattern of injuries sustained by police commandos attacked by an improvised explosive device in Razzakabad, Karachi.

Read more: Chitral quake survivors recover from trauma through online clinics

The most concerning details of the attack was the time taken for the first casualty to get medical attention. It was 35 minutes.

A victim of polytrauma due to road traffic accident, bomb blast or fall, has been shown by data to have what is called the 'golden hour' during which early detection and prompt resuscitation prevents death.

In the tragic event that took place at the Shah Noorani shrine last year, victims suffered for hours without medical assistance as there are no functioning hospitals in the area. Many victims must have succumbed to their injuries, some of which were treatable had they been attended to by trained paramedics or aware citizens who can play the role of first responders in such events.

Karachi, a city of over 20 million people, has no universal emergency number that citizens can dial for help. In the United States and other developed countries, a universal number like 911 routes all emergency calls to the Emergency Dispatch Operator. This operator stays on the phone and asks a series of questions (6 Ws: Who, What, Where, When, Why and Weapon) and activates the appropriate emergency response while staying on the phone and guiding the victim.

We have a number of ambulance networks with their individual emergency helplines but unfortunately, most of these ambulances are ill-equipped with medically untrained personnel.

Having responded to a suicide bombing in Karachi in 2010, I have personally witnessed the chaos that takes place at the site of disaster. Victims do not get medical attention at the site. Instead of resuscitating the victims on the spot, there are fights and scuffles as to which ambulance network will take the casualty to the hospital.

A collective approach needs to be taken by the government, who has the largest resources, authority and platform to bring all the charity-run organisations under one roof with a single emergency number accessible through phone, radio or internet.

Also read: doctHERs: Remote patient care with female doctors at the fore

The research we conducted showed more than twice the level of mortality in mass casualty events in Karachi as compared to the 7/7 bombings in London and the Madrid train bombings of 2004. A team of 14 British Medical Association doctors responded to the London bombings and saved many lives by intervening on site.

In the recent shootings in Quebec, swift response from doctors meant victims with serious injuries were in surgery inside 45 minutes, which prevented the death toll from rising above six.

The overall mortality in the London bombings was 7.2% compared to the 18.6% at the Police bus bombing in Razzakabad. This underlies the importance of on-site and in-transport trauma management and resuscitation, especially when the trauma centre is located several minutes away.

We have a habit of not preparing, mitigating and planning for disasters and their aftermath. We rarely conduct debriefings sessions and gather feedback to alter our response plans.

Although there are some organisations that have trained paramedics who respond to disasters, the country’s health care policy has neglected the importance of paramedics in the trauma-response system.

On the same topic: Need for effective emergency response again highlighted

At the First Response Initiative of Pakistan, we believe that training the general population in basic trauma care and life support can significantly reduce morbidity and mortality caused by trauma.

Training people in simple manoeuvres like applying pressure to bleeding wounds and using a tourniquet in severely injured or amputated limbs, which are common in blast injuries, can save lives before emergency medical help arrives.

All that is needed is government support and intervention.

Have you or someone you know suffered at the site of a disaster or bomb blast due to the negligence of pre-hospital care? Share it with us at blog@dawn.com

Wife: Puppu pass hogaya.

Husband: Really?

Yes. Please congratulate him when he comes back from school.

How do you know that?

Know what?

Pappu pass hogaya.

I have his report card. Here, see.

Hmm. Are you sure it’s his report card?

What you mean? Of course, it’s his. His name is on it. And his teacher gave it to me.

Hmm. Are you sure it was his teacher?

Of course she was his teacher!

Hmm. I was looking at his school’s logo. If you look close enough you can make out an eye bordered by a triangle. See.

All I can see is a pen, a hand and a flower.

Look closely.

I did. Can’t see any eye or triangle.

Has Puppu been behaving strangely?

No. He is behaving just like any eight-year-old kid would.

He’s eight?

Yes! You ought to know. You’re his father!

I am?

Oh, for heaven’s sake. At least stop being a nutcase about your own son!

Truth-seekers and speakers are often labeled as nuts in the beginning. But …

Truth-seekers don’t seek the truth by watching silly documentaries on YouTube.

You are always putting me down. No wonder you can’t notice the eye and the triangle in the school’s logo.

There’s no eye or triangle. And even if there were, so what?

Aha! So you do see them!

No I don’t.

Aha! Now you are contradicting yourself.

I just said even if there were, so what?

Aha!

Shut up.

See. Always putting me down.

I don’t care if there’s an eye, triangle or a flying rat’s backside in the logo. It’s a good school.

Hmm. How do you know it’s a school?

What?

I mean, it could just be a place where they brainwash children to hate their country, faith and culture.

You put him there.

I did?

Actually, no, the Illuminati did.

Aha!

Now that you have heard what you wanted to, can you get off Twitter and Facebook for a moment and go pick up your son from the brainwashing centre. He must be hungry.

We must put him in a proper school. But are there any proper schools left?

Please tell me you are joking.

Life is not a joke.

That was very profound. What school did you go to?

Thank you. You know which school I went to.

Yes. The same as your son is in. The one with the eye and the octagon in its logo.

Triangle.

Yes, that one. Were you brainwashed?

No. In those days it was a proper school. It began to change when the Americans started to fund it.

They are funding it?

Of course! Didn’t you notice how his teacher has used American English in his report card?

No. Actually, it’s British English that they use. I know, because I help him do his homework.

British English is even worse!

So, what English should they use?

None!

Oh, so you want him to be taught in his mother tongue?

Yes. Arabic.

That’s not our language!

That’s what we have been led to believe.

No we haven’t. Urdu is our national language. Then we have regional languages and then English. One can learn Arabic if they want to, but …

Ahlan wa sahlan marhaba, marhaba …!

Excuse me?

It’s our mother tongue.

I see. What does it mean?

I was saying ‘revolution is coming to destroy the eye and the triangle.’

Hmm. How does one say, ‘please pick your son up from school?’

Ahlan wa sahlan marhaba, marhaba …!

You are repeating yourself.

See. Always putting me down. Always running away from the truth.

Well, it seems I will have to go pick him up myself.

Yes, please. I have a lot of work to do.

Like what? Sit here and post rants on Twitter and Facebook? Then visit various stupid TV channels as a guest and talk nonsense?

It’s not nonsense. I am a warner. I warn my countrymen of all the conspiracies that are afoot to destroy our motherland.

But you don’t get paid for it!

Have you seen the ‘likes’ my videos get on YouTube?

‘Likes’? Likes didn’t pay for that computer. I got it from my savings. Even your clothes, the rent of this apartment, school fee …

Enough! Ahlan wa sahlan marhaba, marhaba …!

What the heck is wrong with you? You have really lost it.

Smack!

What the …? Why did you slap me? What are you doing …? Hey, don’t throw my computer out … stop! Stop!

Smash!

What have you done? What will I do now?

Frankly, my dear, Ahlan wa sahlan marhaba, marhaba …!

Disclaimer: This article is categorised as satire.

Wars have a way of creating false or incomplete histories. The tales of heroes and victories often obscure the plight of the common person caught in the war zone.

The suffering of those living in Umerkot, Sindh during the 1965 and the 1971 wars fought between India and Pakistan finds no mention in the history books taught in our schools. I learnt about these unwritten stories by word of mouth during a recent visit to this small, dusty town.

Umerkot is located in the east of Sindh, about 60 kilometres from the Indian border. It is famous for the Umerkot Fort that dates back to the 11th century. Mughal emperor Akbar was born at the Fort in 1542, after the Hindu Raja Rana Parasad gave refuge to his father Humayun, who was fleeing the armies of Sher Shah Suri. The Fort is also the setting of the famous Sindhi tragic romance of Umar Marvi.

I, and a group of friends, had travelled to Umerkot to record Shafi Faqir, a very fine singer of Sufi poetry. We were all set to record the singer in the morning when we got the news that he was going to be late since a relative of his had passed away and he had to be at the funeral. He requested a friend of his, Mohammed Jumman, to attend to us while we were waiting.

This sad and unexpected situation turned out to be a blessing in disguise for us as we found out, much to our delight, that Mohammed Jumman, who was about 70 years old, was a wonderful Sindhi poet and a scholar of the area's history. He had been close to the famous Sindhi intellectual and nationalist, the late G.M. Syed.

Recounting the recent history of Umerkot, Jumman told us that in 1965, Umerkot’s population was 80% Hindu and 20% Muslim. Most of the large landowners of the area, known as Thakurs, were high-caste Hindus.

The Thakurs employed tradesmen like shoemakers, carpenters, and musicians. They provided housing, education, and health care for these tradesmen as well. Faqir’s family was also in the employ of a Thakur.

Then came the 1965 war and a major upheaval took place in the lives of the residents. Fearing reprisals by Muslims, most Hindus crossed over to India. The majority of those who left Pakistan were the rich Thakurs.

The lower-caste Hindus — Bheels, Kolhis and Meghwars — stayed back as they were poor and discriminated against on both sides of the borders. It did not matter to them whether they earned their living in India or Pakistan.

The migration of the Thakurs left their employees without a place to live or any source of income. Faqir's father and Jumman had to move to larger towns and take up jobs as tea boys or truck cleaners to survive. Jumman told us that the period between 1965 and 1968 were the worst in his life.

The war came to haunt the residents of Umerkot again in 1971, when the Indian army crossed the border and occupied parts of Tharparkar. This is something that is not common knowledge in Pakistan.

Many fled Umerkot to its adjoining areas as fear of the advancing Indian army grew. They left their houses and cattle behind as they rushed out of the war zone.

When the ceasefire came into effect and the Indian army retreated, the residents came back to find a lot of their houses destroyed and their cattle stolen. This meant another struggle to rebuild their lives.

The religious composition of Umerkot has now changed and the majority of the population is Muslim. Jumman told me that while generally there is peace between the two communities, the relations are on an edge and a small incident can trigger violence.

He also lamented that before the wars, it was very easy to cross the border to meet relatives. All that was needed was a small tip to the border guards. Now, it is not possible to do so without taking the risk of being shot.

It is telling that Jumman's nom de plume is Dar Badar (of no fixed abode). There could not have been a more appropriate word for the displacements he had been forced to endure.

The sadness of this history was alleviated somewhat when Faqir arrived and sang the songs of love of the native soil, of peace, and of the impermanence of all things worldly.

All photos and video are by the author.

Have you ever visited any historical or unexplored places in Pakistan? Share it with us at blog@dawn.com

Vaqar Ahmed is an engineer turned part-time journalist who likes to hang out at unfashionable places like shrines, railway stations and bus stops.

This article was originally published on March 13, 2015.

An Italian national flew 5,157 kilometers to Pakistan, travelled 234 miles north to Gilgit-Baltistan, trekked through the mountainous terrain to a secluded wildlife conservatory near the Pak-China border, and paid $8000 to fatally shoot a sheep.

Verily, man’s place at the top of the food chain is finally secure.

Making rounds on social media, is news of the record set by Boieti Gian Carlo for hunting a blue sheep with 32-inch horns – the largest in Pakistan, and the second-largest in the world.

I admit that my snark-laden review of this incident is clearly tainted by my bias against the general concept of hunting animals for sport. I wouldn’t want to single out any hunter in my tirade against the greater culture of hunting, and glorification of men and women who partake in this “sport”.

I believe the significance of elaborate hunts such as these cannot be overstated in limning what’s become the grand philosophy of the human species. From the highest mountain to the deepest ocean, wherever our noble relatives of the animal kingdom may hide; with the unfaltering determination of Liam Neeson, we will find them, and we will kill them.

Why? Just ‘cause.

In fact, as this blog is being penned, I’m receiving word of a raiding party en route to the Mariana’s Trench, to search and destroy that last non-human species rumored to have been spared by poachers, man-made climate change, floating islands of ocean garbage, and our voracious appetite for meat.

It was different when our ancestors went spear-hunting to acquire resources necessary to sustain life. To some degree, I can even understand (though not happily condone) the animal deaths caused either directly for meat and fur, or through negligence in the pursuit of some other human goal.

What I’m particularly intrigued by, is the psychology behind killing an animal to savour the act of killing itself.

There is no real resource to be acquired, but rather, a staggering amount of resource to be spent on attaining the satisfaction of shooting a harmless beast as it insouciantly grazes grass atop a serene mountain. The only physical prize to come out of it is a severed part of its anatomy to be mounted on the wall, as a reminder of the blissful day one shot something dead.

When I say there’s resource to be spent, I mean it. The prized markhor – a rare wild goat with majestic spiral horns – costs a hunter a whopping $62,000 to shoot at.

And note that according to the rules, the hunting license is valid for a single shot only.

Saudi royals have been known to spend lavishly on Pakistani conservatories and affiliated towns to curry favour with locals, for their love of hunting houbara bustards.

Also read: Saudi Royal on Houbara Bustard hunting spree in Balochistan

There’s dark humor to be found in the fact that 80 per cent of the money made from selling hunting licenses, goes back into preserving biodiversity and maintaining our conservatories.

I wonder, if this utilitarian approach can be applied to impoverished human communities; to allow wealthy hunters to fire non-lethal darts at the Congolese people as they innocently work on their farms. But not to worry! The money from this cruel exercise would go back to providing food and clean-water to the good people of Congo.

Jeremy Bentham famously argued that it’s not a creature’s identicalness to the human species which determines the morality of harming it; it’s a matter of whether that animal can suffer.

The activities we enjoy and applaud make a statement about who we are, just as it did for the ancient Romans who cheered on grizzly, deathly combats at the Coliseum.

For those of us who venerate the sport of killing animals, that statement isn’t very comforting.

Correction: The article erroneously stated that 20 per cent of the money made from selling hunting licenses went to wildlife development. The correct figure is 80 per cent. The error is regretted and has been fixed.

50 years ago, 4th March, 1967 marked a watershed event in the post-Partition history of Sindh. It was the day when 207 students were arrested en masse at the G.M. Barrage between Jamshoro and Hyderabad as they staged a rally against the One Unit scheme that had been in place in the country since 1955.

The protests were a culmination of the unrest among Sindhi students that had been simmering beneath the surface for a long time against One Unit. Its causes went deep into the humiliations suffered by Sindh and its people on cultural, political, administrative and economic levels.

Sindhi, a 2,500 year-old language, had no official status in what became the province of West Pakistan. It was stripped of all its rights as a medium of instruction, except in primary schools in the rural areas of Sindh. Sindhis were thus deprived of all opportunities of promoting their culture and language.

Politically and administratively, One Unit meant that Sindh disappeared as an entity and was reduced to looking to the capital Lahore for the pettiest matters.

On the economic level – and this situation continues to this day – it had to concede much of the lands rendered cultivable by the construction of barrages to the higher bureaucracy and military.

Last but not the least, the demographic changes due to Partition, which saw mass influx of Muslim migrants from India and an outflow of Sindhi Hindus, meant that the major cities of the province, including Karachi, became virtual no-go areas for Sindhis as far as jobs and economic opportunities were concerned.

Final straw

The movement itself was sparked when the Vice Chancellor of Sindh University, Hasan Ali Abdur Rehman, was dismissed in February 1967 by the Governor of West Pakistan, Nawab Amir Mohammad Khan Kalabagh.

Rehman, the first Sindhi Vice Chancellor of the university, was dismissed for his efforts for facilitating the admission of Sindhi students in professional colleges by allotting quotas for the far-flung districts of Sindh. The students agitated and demanded Rehman to be reinstated.

On March 4, a general-body meeting of students of Sindh University, Liaquat Medical College, and Engineering College was planned in Sindh University’s City Campus in Hyderabad. Students were proceeding to the venue in university buses when the police encircled them near the G.M. Barrage. The students were beaten up and all 207 of them were arrested.

The police brutality resulted in mass protests all over the province. Although the dismissal order against the Vice Chancellor was not taken back, this moment, which came to be known as the 4th March Movement and is commemorated every year, gave rise to wide-scale political awakening in Sindh.

My contribution

I was a first-year student at the university's Hyderabad campus. I remember it was another pleasant evening when the news of the mass arrest spread.

This development was grave not only because students had been targeted, but because the authorities had been trying to divide the students on linguistic basis. In order to counter the unrest against the dismissal of the Vice Chancellor, the Commissioner of Hyderabad, Masroor Ahsan, had attempted to rally those who were regarded as leaders of Urdu-speaking students behind him.

The outrage felt by the students against the victimisation of the first Sindhi Vice Chancellor of Sindh University, who had dared resist the attempts by the West Pakistan government to undermine the autonomy of the university, was given a parochial colour.

Given that most Urdu-speaking students seemed to be supportive of government action, a few of us decided that something had to be done, even symbolically, to prevent the cleavage between the students on parochial lines. This could only be done by showing solidarity with the arrested students. A minimum would be to write slogans on walls against the police action.

So me and my comrade Inayat Kashmiri took up a brush to paint slogans against the police and the Ayub dictatorship in the area around Tilak Charri, where most of the education institutions of Hyderabad were located at the time.

While writing on the walls, we had our eyes fixed on the on-coming traffic on the one-way road, ready to slip into the side streets if a police van came. We were too naïve to know that police in this country does not observe basic traffic rules.

A police van came full-speed from the opposite direction and before we could do anything, we received the full brunt of lathis on our backs, were lifted up and thrown inside the van. Direction: Market Thana. There ensued salvos of invectives in Punjabi centred on one's lower anatomy.

We were handcuffed and remained tied between two chairs in the SHO’s office for four days and nights. This made of us far greater rebels than the books we had lately become fond of: Maxim Gorky’s Mother and, of course, the Communist Manifesto.

Market Thana was located just near the red light area of Chakla. A large part of police activity in this thana consisted of rounding up prostitutes from the bazaar and bringing them in for extortion and entertainment.

The language of communication in the thana was Punjabi – not its Heer of Waris Shah variant but an outpouring of its filthiest variety. This made us understand all the more the resentment in Sindh against One Unit, the suppression of the smaller provinces and their merger into West Pakistan with its capital in Lahore.

During this time, we were hardly given any food and we avoided drinking water as we did not want to beg our unworldly hosts to take us to toilet. After four days, Hafeez Qureshi, one of the leading advocates of Hyderabad and a nationalist leader, came looking for us. He asked the SHO for a copy of the FIR so that he could engage legal procedures for our release. But an FIR there was none.

Apparently the SHO hadn’t even cared to inform his higher authorities of our arrest. He panicked and handed us over to the lawyer and even excused himself, saying that if he knew we were students, he would have let us go after admonition. Luckily for us, it was not yet the era of missing persons and kill and dump.

The discovery of Sindh

This small act of solidarity earned us lot of recognition and friends in the university. I already knew Jam Saqi, the great Sindhi nationalist leader whom I held in awe for his dedication and selflessness. He came from a far-off village in Tharparkar. I was a frequent visitor to his small kholi in a building on Tilak Charri.

He used to cook his only meal of the day late in the evening on a small stove. Even then, he used to insist on sharing it with me. I had never come across such a man in my family environment. I realised that life was much deeper and vaster than what family confines could offer. The real human beings were found where I was taught not to look for inspiration.

4th March served me as initiation into the soul of the province that had offered refuge to thousands of Urdu-speaking families like mine when they migrated to this country after Partition. With time, on becoming proficient in Sindhi language and going to the various cities and rural areas of Sindh as an activist, I impregnated myself with the deeply humanistic substrate of the Sindhi civilisation. With Jam Saqi, I came to meet luminaries like Hyder Bakhsh Jatoi, Ibrahim Joyo, Sobho Gianchandani, Usman Diplai and others.

What struck me the most in these people was their simplicity and total absence of pretension of any kind. I became more and more repulsed by the type of hostility that the great majority of educated Urdu-speakers maintained against the people of Sindh at the time.

The importance of 4th March

It will not be wrong to say that 4th March crystallised the defiance of the people of Sindh against the treatment meted out to them by the dominant players of the country. Ground was prepared for it first of all by an unprecedented flourishing of Sindhi literature in all of its genres, especially poetry. Poets like Shaikh Ayaz felt and mirrored the pain of Sindh in their poetry.

No wonder that after 4th March, a recurrent event Sindhi Sham became the main form of assertion of Sindhi identity and pride. Behind an innocuous cultural façade, Sindhi Sham was a forum for voicing dissent against the unjust policies perpetrated in the name of one nation.

Countless literary periodicals burgeoned in Sindh after 4th March. To this day, the most vibrant daily press of the country, closest to the ordinary citizens, is the Sindhi press.

Unfortunately, most historians and political specialists in and outside Pakistani, with some honourable exceptions like Dr Tanvir Ahmed who wrote the Political Dynamics of Sindh, have failed to take due account of the landmark nature of the 4th March Movement.

The Movement was an important component of the overall democratic upsurge in Pakistan that led to the falling of Ayub Khan’s dictatorship and dismemberment of One Unit. Even the books written on student movements in Pakistan seem to overlook the fact that Sindh, after having been wiped out from the country’s map by virtue of One Unit, struck back hard and reentered the political frame due to the defiance and courage of its students.

It is 50 years since that fateful evening of 4th March, 1967. It is long ago but so near that it is impossible to forget it. Time has not erased the deep pride I have always felt in making a very small contribution to that great event.

I will finish with a prayer by the inimitable Latif Sain:

Saim sadaein karein mathan Sindh Sukar
Dost mitha dildar Alam sub abad karein

My Lord keep Sindh always on top
Dear Friend also make prosperous the entire world

Have you been part of student movements in Pakistan? Tell us about your contributions at blog@dawn.com

The Indus is a mainstay of the Indian civilisation. For the people of Sindh especially, its mythical status penetrates each and every aspect of Sindhi life. The mention of River Indus, or Sindhu, goes as far back as we can go in recorded history.

K.R. Malkani, a Sindhi Hindu who had to leave his homeland during the mayhem of Partition, notes in his book The Sindh Story:

In the beginning was the word. The first recorded word was the Veda. And Veda is just ecstatic about Sindhu, the cradle of Indian civilisation:

"Sindhu in might surpasses all the streams that flow,
His roar is lifted upto heaven above the earth."

It is on the banks of this mighty river that rishis and sages have spent endless time contemplating the secrets of life and the universe.

Gradually, a cult of river worship developed in some of the areas where the Indus flows. The devotees personified their beliefs: Muslims would call him Khawaja Khizar, Zinda Pir, and Sheikh Tahir, while Hindus would evoke him by the names like Uderolal, Amar Lal, Uday Chand, and Jhulay Lal.

The people who follow the cult of river Indus are called Daryapanthis and their main centre is at Uderolal city, some 30km away from Hyderabad. The axis of the city is the shrine-temple complex; wherever you may go, it forms a skyline and reassuringly looms over the horizon. It embodies the spirit of Sindhudesh: the sharing of everything that is sacred, be it a Sufi shrine, a Sikh gurdwara, a Hindu temple, or a river deity.

The principle ritual is Chaiti Chand, which is both the birthday of Jhulay Lal and the celebration of the Hindu New Year. Chait is the first month of the Hindu calendar.

It sets in when the winter has gone and spring has also come to an end but the hot, gusty winds have not yet arrived. It is the time when wheat is harvested and fields are being prepared for cotton or paddy crop in the south of Sindh.

Even though most of Sindh's Hindus have migrated to India, Chaiti Chand is still celebrated with religious fervour and a growing spirit of community. In fact, after Partition, when Sindhis in India became a de-territorialised community, Sindhi singer Ram Panjwani tried to bind them together in a sense of Sindhiyyat by projecting the image of Uderolal as the patron saint or Ishtdev of Sindhi Hindus.

The main rituals commence in the evening and a stage is set for people to participate. The mela starts with jyot jagayan, or lighting the sacred lamp.

The proceedings continue with a pooja just before sunset, performed at the sacred well of Balanbho sahib. Its water is believed to have healing properties. After the prayer, chhando is performed in which the water is sprinkled on the face. It is supposed to enlighten the spirit.

An integral part of the mela is the behrano parwan karan, or floating the behrano. Behrano is a huge brass plate that is decorated with flour, sweets, dried fruits, lamps, and rose petals. It is an offering to the river and the Daryapanthis believe that fish and other aquatic organisms eat the behrano and bestow blessings upon the devotees.

People bring the behrano to Uderolal from various cities like Mirpurkhas, Shahdadapur, Sanghar, Nawabshah, Sakrand and others. Traditionally, the behrano was floated into the Indus, but now it is offered to any water body or canal because whatever water there is in Sindh, it comes from the Indus.

Another ritual that takes place during the mela is called pallao payan. It is when devotees hold the hems of their shirts or dupattas and pray to Uderolal to solve their problems and deliver them from the ordeals of the world.

The proceedings end with the chhej dance performed by energetic men wielding dandia. The swaying movements resemble the waves of the Indus. The chhej starts with a low rhythm and gradually moves to a frantic pace.

As time passes, the air gets thick with the fragrance of rose petals and incense, and the men passionately chant:

Ayo ayo, jhulay lal
Jeko chawando jhulay lal, tehnja theenda bera paar

Jhulay Lal has arrived
One who would say Jhulay Lal's name, his boat will safely reach the shores

It is followed by Jiay jhulay lal chants from the crowd.

For someone who knows that spaces for such activities are shrinking, the sight is at once exhilarating and a poignant reminder that perhaps all is not lost – at least not yet.

All photos are by the author.

What is the most grand festival or place of religious significance that you have visited? What did it teach you? Share it with us at blog@dawn.com

I quickly got up from my chair as I heard a loud thud and a door slamming shut across the hallway from my apartment. I looked out and saw my neighbour sitting in the corridor, bursting into tears.

As she clenched her fists and rolled up into a foetal position, it looked like she was ready to pass out any second. It was obvious that her boyfriend had assaulted her.

“Why don’t you give her some water? Make her feel like someone cares. Everyone is so selfish in Dubai as you know!” my husband suggested to me.

My hands shaking, I reached the shelf for a glass and hurriedly filled it with water. I hesitantly opened the door of the apartment just a crack, carefully trying not to make my neighbour feel as though I was intruding.

“Are you alright, do you need something?” I asked her. She shook her head as I motioned at her to drink some water. As I shut the door of my apartment, I noticed her boyfriend come out and pull her up by her arm, forcing her to leave the building even though she could barely walk.

I vividly remember the conversation I had after the nerve-wracking incident with my husband, who I had married only a few months ago. We were both concerned and couldn’t believe what we had just witnessed.

“How can anyone do something like this to their partner and intentionally inflict harm upon them?” He nodded in agreement and the rest of our night carried on quite uncomfortably since we were both worried about the fate of our neighbour.

Little did I know that the man I had married was going to do something much worse to me.

What she had gone through was physical abuse, which is apparent. Everyone can see it. But what I was about to go through was emotional abuse, which is much more subtle. I didn’t even realise what was happening until much later.

We all think we are hopelessly in love at the beginning of a relationship and nothing in the world can stop us from being together. But as time went by, it became clear to me that my ex-husband had extreme narcissistic personality traits.

The worst part is that he didn’t and will most likely never realise what he did wrong.

Idealise, devalue, discard. These are the three most common traits that a narcissist has. And that’s exactly what my ex-husband did in an extremely twisted, clever way.

When we first met in my last year of university, things were very different. He impressed me with how intelligent but down to earth he was. After I graduated, he proposed. Things were shaky at first since my parents weren’t welcoming to the idea of meeting someone I had chosen to be my partner. They were reacting like many Pakistani parents would.

They reluctantly agreed to meet him, and eventually things went smoothly. Both families were happy and on good terms. My parents were eager for me to get married as early as possible, as typical Pakistani parents prefer.

Right after the wedding, we flew to Dubai where he was living. The small, studio apartment wasn’t what I had dreamed of, but I shoved that thought aside. The most important thing for me was having an understanding with my husband and a supportive relationship in every possible way.

Things were fairytale-like in the beginning, as the ‘honeymoon’ phase usually is. But a few months later, they started to go downhill.

Suddenly, his interest in me began to fade. Our physical relationship and even the slightest things like the conversations we used to have began to take a sharp turn. Some days would pass by normally but most were nightmares.

The biggest problem was that he had an explanation for everything. For instance, I would ask him why he would frequently go on walks alone, sometimes late at night. He would give me long explanations as to how all intelligent people like Einstein, Newton, and even prophets used to spend solitary time to think about the world and why we are here.

I used to think it was a Pakistani norm that having alone time after marriage is considered odd and every single activity has to be done together, so I would just nod in agreement to his answers.

Since his passion for photography suddenly reignited, I encouraged him to pursue it. But I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he would spend weekends meeting random women who he was in contact with online to photograph them for free.

His answer was that photography was his passion and he wanted to continue pursuing it, even without being compensated. He would say that it was just to get him back on track since he felt he had lost the skill. “Why are you only photographing women who are barely wearing anything?” I asked him. Because he didn't know how to photograph men, he would tell me. Once again, I let it go.

He even had an excuse ready for why our physical relationship was in shambles. He claimed that he used to be alone as an only child. It was challenging for him to even share the same bathroom as someone else.

Being private with his phone and laptop came with another set of answers. These gadgets were the siblings he never had and felt a close attachment with since there was nobody else to hang out with during the long, lonely days at home in Karachi.

That’s how I was sucked into his manipulative world.

He even managed to convince the therapist I somehow talked him into going to. When I talked to her individually, it seemed that she understood my situation perfectly. But after a one-on-one session with him, she concluded that things would be fine and seemed very satisfied with how he is as a person.

And that is the most odd thing about people like him. They are so convincing and likeable that if you only know them superficially, you can never pinpoint exactly what is wrong. People around them don’t realise they have a problem because of how well they carry themselves in front of others. And this is a lot more common than one would think.

When I first met him, I saw a confident, dedicated and passionate individual. But now I feel I had actually confused his superiority complex and self-obsession with healthy confidence.

His obsession with being successful and undermining others were warning signs that our relationship won't be very different. Another red flag was that there was a serious problem with how he responded to criticism of his work. For him, his work in communication design and photography was sublime.

One day, I merely pointed out that one of his photographs was excessively saturated and the editing could have been better. He blew up on me, saying I didn’t know what I was talking about since I was not a professional in the field.

He had strung me along the entire time till I realised what was going on. It took me some excessive stalking through Instagram – not surprisingly the same platform we had first connected on – to realise he was being flirtatious with other women and even seriously involved with one of them.

When I started realising what was going on and questioned him, he started to lose interest in me. An entire week went by with us living apart because I was suddenly not willing to listen to his excuses. After a major fight, he told me to leave, which I did. He refused to allow me back into what was our home because he needed “time to process everything”.

The game was over for him since I wouldn’t consent to or entertain his control over me. So, he went out to fulfill his ego with a new victim who he had started seeing while we were still married. The pictures and videos I found of him with his girlfriend were proof enough for me.

When I confronted him, he had yet another list of excuses ready.

That’s when I decided to leave him because I knew the situation would only get worse. But it didn’t go according to how I had planned. Instead, he forced me to leave because he thought we needed a “break from our relationship.” It was just another trick out of his mind-games playbook.

I had to debate a thousand times in my mind if I wanted to leave him or not. I was still too scared to take this step because a part of me still loved him. As difficult as it was, I knew in my heart that I had to do it. No matter what opinions the rest of the world had, they would never fully understand the misery I was being put through and the constant conflicts going through my mind on a daily basis. I finally decided I didn't have a future with this man.

While he was at work, I packed all my things and walked out the door without ever looking back. It was the most rattling, nerve-wracking and stomach-wrenching decision I have ever taken in my entire life. But it had to be done because I knew my life would only get worse had I stayed in this marriage.

I had fully trusted my ex-husband with my entire being and I couldn't comprehend why he would lie and manipulate me. It took me a long time to process what had happened and why. I would constantly be questioning why he had gotten married to me if he only wanted to play these mind games.

Once I realised who he truly was, I felt as though I was going through a roller-coaster ride of emotions. I went through phases of anger, hurt, and resentment. Eventually, I had to accept that this is how he was as a person and it wasn't going to change.

For the women who are in abusive relationships, just know that it’s never too late to end it. You are entitled to your own happiness, and nobody else is in charge of that or can understand it better than yourself.

We live in a patriarchal society that doesn’t accept divorce with open arms. People also tend to think there isn’t an actual issue if there is no physical abuse involved. Emotional abuse is not taken seriously enough. So many women out there are living in misery because they are either afraid to confront the situation or their families refuse to see the abuse.

But really, ask yourself: is it worth suffering your entire life because log kya kehngay? I don't think so.

Were you or are you in an abusive relationship and want to share how it has affected you? Tell us at blog@dawn.com

Gaddafi Stadium

City: Lahore (Punjab)

Constructed: 1959

First Test Match: 1959 (Pakistan vs. Australia)

Original Name: Lahore Stadium. Changed to Gaddafi Stadium in 1974.

Seating Capacity: 27,000

Home Ground of Lahore Qalandars; Lahore Eagles; Lahore Lions.

• The headquarters of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and cricket’s main training academy in the country are both situated at Gaddafi Stadium.

• A Test match here against England was affected by rioting in 1968. In 1977 another Test (also against England) witnessed a riot between police and spectators.

• Three matches were held at Gaddafi Stadium during the 1987 Cricket World Cup in India and Pakistan. This included one of the tournament’s semi-finals.

• The stadium was expanded and renovated just before the 1996 Cricket World Cup. It held three matches during the event, including the 1996 World Cup final.

• The last Test match to be played in Pakistan was at Gaddafi Stadium in 2009. It was abandoned midway after the bus carrying the visiting Sri Lankan squad was attacked by terrorists.

• Pitches at the stadium have largely been batting-friendly, except during a Test match against India in 1978 and a Test (also against India) in 2004 when green-top tracks were prepared to help fast bowlers.

• The first ODI was played here in 1978 against England.

• The first T-20 international was played here in 2015 against Zimbabwe.

• The final of the second edition of Pakistan’s premier cricket tournament, the Pakistan Super League (PSL) was held at the Gaddafi Stadium in March, 2017.

National Stadium

City: Karachi (Sindh)

Constructed: 1955

First Test Match: 1955 (Pakistan vs. India)

Seating Capacity: 40,000

Home Ground of Karachi Kings; Karachi Dolphins; Karachi Zebras.

• The National Stadium is Pakistan’s largest cricket stadium.

• The first Test match at the stadium was played in 1955 (Pakistan vs. India).

• The first ODI here was played in 1980.

• Pakistan has played more than half of its Tests in Pakistan on this ground. It has lost just two. Once the National Stadium was known as ‘Pakistan’s cricket fortress.’

• The stadium has witnessed some of the most thrilling Tests and ODIs played in Pakistan.

• Despite National Stadium being the most successful home ground of the Pakistan cricket team, and famous for producing some of the most exciting Tests and ODIs, it also has a history of experiencing the largest number of riots and disturbances during matches.

• Tests here were badly affected by rioting in 1968 (against England) and 1969 (against New Zealand). Rioting also took place here during a Test (against West Indies) in 1981 and an ODI (against Australia) in 1983. The ODI was eventually abandoned. Things began to improve from the late 1980s onward.

• The stadium was expanded for the 1987 Cricket World Cup. It hosted three games during the tournament.

• Further improvements were made for the 1996 World Cup. The National Stadium hosted three matches during the 1996 tournament.

• The National Stadium had a matting wicket (jute) between 1955 and late 1950s which helped seam bowling. Its pitches were flat and batting-friendly after matting was removed. They remained this way till the mid-1970s. The groundsmen then began to prepare square turners, but from 1982, the pitches at the stadium became more sporting. They would offer seam and bounce to fast bowlers at the start of the Test, become stable in the middle, and offer some spin at the tail-end of the match. ODI strips remained batting-friendly, though.

• National Stadium is also famous for offering swing to quick bowlers. Experts believe this is due to the steady sea-breeze which often blows across the stadium.

• The last international match to be played here was in 2009.

Iqbal Stadium

City: Faisalabad (Punjab)

Constructed: 1970s

First Test Match: 1978 (Pakistan vs. India)

Seating Capacity: 18,000

Home Ground of Faisalabad Wolves.

• Once known as Layallpur Stadium (the old name of Faisalabad), Iqbal Stadium was renovated and given the status of a frontline cricket stadium in 1978.

• Traditionally, Iqbal Stadium pitches have been flat. Out of the 24 Tests held here, 14 have ended in a draw.

• It was at this stadium that the infamous spat between former England captain Mike Getting, and Pakistani umpire, Shakoor Rana, took place in 1988. The incident became a diplomatic nightmare for the governments of both the countries.

• The last Test held at this stadium was in 2006. The last ODI played here was in 2008.

Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium

City: Rawalpindi/Islamabad

Constructed: 1992

First Test Match: 1993 (Pakistan vs. Zimbabwe)

Seating Capacity: 25,000

Home Ground of Islamabad United; Rawalpindi Rams; Islamabad Leopards.

• Situated in the suburbs of Rawalpindi and very close to Pakistan’s capital city, Islamabad, the stadium first emerged as a Test venue in 1993.

• It was a busy venue during the 1996 Cricket World Cup.

• It was a regular Test venue till early 2000s.

• The pitches here have been largely sporting.

• The last Test played here was in 2004.

Arbab Niaz Stadium

City: Peshawar (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa)

Constructed: 1984

First Test Match: 1995 (Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka)

Seating Capacity: 20,000

Home Ground of Peshawar Zalmi and Peshawar Panthers.

• Arbab Niaz Stadium emerged as a frontline cricket ground in the early 1980s, but it did not host a Test match till 1995. It was mostly used for ODI games.

• The pitches here have largely aided spinners.

• The last Test played here was in 2003.

Multan Cricket Stadium

City: Multan (Punjab)

Last Test Played Here: 2001 (Pakistan vs. Bangladesh)

Seating Capacity: 35,000

Home Ground of Multan Tigers

• The Multan Cricket Stadium hosted its first Test in 1981 and last in 2006.

• The pitch here has traditionally aided seam bowlers.

• During a Pakistan-West Indies Test here in 1981, West Indian fast bowler, Sylvester Clarke, hurled a brick in the stands at a spectator who was throwing oranges at him. The brick hit the spectator on the head and he was hospitalised.

• Pakistan downed a strong England side here in 2005 after England had defeated Australia in that year’s Ashes series.

Jinnah Stadium Sialkot

City: Sialkot (Punjab)

Constructed: 1920s.

First Test Match: 1985 (Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka)

Seating Capacity: 18,000

Home Ground of Sialkot Stallions

• This stadium was first constructed in the 1920s by the British. In the 1950s it was named Jinnah Park. In 1979 it was upgraded and renamed Jinnah Stadium.

• The first Test here was played in 1985 and the last in 1995.

• Pakistan played its first ever ODI at home on this ground in 1976. It was against New Zealand. It was also New Zealand’s first ODI against Pakistan.

• Jinnah Stadium is known for its green-top pitches that help fast bowlers.

• A 1984 Pakistan-India ODI here was stopped midway and abandoned after news of the assassination of the then Indian PM, Indira Gandhi, reached the ground. India were batting.

Niaz Stadium

City: Hyderabad (Sindh)

Constructed: 1962.

First Test Match: 1973 (Pakistan vs. England)

Seating Capacity: 15,000

Home Ground of Hyderabad Hawks

• The world’s 1000th Test match was played at Niaz Stadium (Pakistan vs. New Zealand) in 1984.

• Swing bowler, Jalaluddin, took the first hat-trick for Pakistan in ODIs. He did it during an ODI against Australia in 1983 at Niaz Stadium.

• The last time a Test was played here was in 1984, even though Niaz Stadium continued to host ODIs till 2008.

• The Niaz Stadium pitch has traditionally been placid and batting-friendly.

Gujranwala Jinnah Stadium

City: Gujranwala (Punjab)

First Test Match: 1991 (Pakistan vs. Sri Lanka)

Seating Capacity: 20,000

• The first (and only) Test match held here was in 1991.

• The last ODI played at the stadium was in 2000.

• One match was held here during the 1987 Cricket World Cup (West Indies vs. England).

• The current World number one umpire, Pakistan’s Aleem Dar, made his international umpiring debut at this stadium during a Pakistan-Sri Lanka ODI in 2000.

Sheikhupura Stadium

City: Sheikhupura (Punjab)

Construction: 1995

First Test Match: 1996 (Pakistan vs. Zimbabwe)

Seating Capacity: 15,000

• The Stadium has hosted two Tests and two ODIs.

Zaffar Ali Stadium

City: Sahiwal (Punjab)

Construction: 1955

Seating Capacity: 35,000

• Only two ODIs have been held at this stadium. One (against England) in 1977; and the other (against India) in 1978.

• The ground is best known for the ODI match which India voluntarily forfeited to Pakistan in 1978 when Pakistan fast bowlers, Sarfaraz Nawaz and Imran Khan, began bowling bouncers hurled specifically to injure the batsman. There were no laws against such bowling in ODIs in those days.

Ayub National Stadium

City: Quetta (Balochistan)

Seating Capacity: 20,000

Home Ground of Quetta Gladiators and Quetta Bears.

• Though just two ODIs (and no Tests) have been played here, Ayub Stadium is best known for holding the first-ever ODI between Pakistan and India (1978).

Bagh-e-Jinnah

City: Lahore

Constructed: 1885

Capacity: 8,000

First Test: 1954 (Pakistan vs. India)

• Bagh-e-Jinnah is located within Lahore’s vast Lawrence Garden. It was built by the British.

• It was Pakistan’s first international cricket venue.

• It stopped being a Test venue after the construction of Gaddafi Stadium in 1959.

• It is now mostly used for club cricket games.

• It has Pakistan’s only cricket museum.

DHA Cricket Stadium

City: Karachi

Capacity: 8,000

First (and only) Test: 1993 (Pakistan vs. Zimbabwe)

This article was originally published on January 22, 2016.

This piece consists of snippets chronicling gender roles on the streets of Karachi through a male gaze, and also tells part of the story behind Girls at Dhabas — a group that consists of men, women, and every gender in between.

"LADIES HAI, LADIES HAI! Ruk!" [It's ladies! Stop!] yells the bus conductor. The bus driver screeches to a complete halt. This isn’t a usual event for the SUPER HASAN ZAI public coach in Karachi, unless a woman waits at the bus stop.

A woman donned in a simple shalwar kameez and a dupatta wrapped around her head makes her way inside. She briskly settles down on a seat in the ladies' section. The men occupying the ladies' section adjust to make room for her: they are being ‘respectable’ gentlemen.

In 15 years of traveling of buses, I have never seen men do that for other men. I often wonder if it is an action grounded in respectability, or one of misguided protection.

I instantly think back to the time my friend, S and I went to a dhaba. Out of concern and 'respect', the dhaba wala offered my friend a special spot: "Bibi," he had said, "Aap family area mein beth jayein." The family area was a table situated at the back of the room, draped with a curtain, where my friend would be out sight from the rest of the male customers.

On the surface, it might seem like a thoughtful act on the dhaba wala's part. But like the action of making room for a woman on the bus (while on other days 'accidentally' pinching her), these actions are rooted in misogyny: men in this country are not so much concerned with giving women their space, but rather defining it for them.

Even seemingly well-meaning acts of kindness, when analysed, betray the power dynamics that rule any male-female relationship in Karachi's public space. In fact, there are myriads of ways us men police women’s behaviour in public daily: when we tell them to wait inside cars while we go run an errand, when we tell our girl friends not to smoke in public, when we hear about our female friends hanging out at dhabas, and say: ‘That’s no place for a woman.’

2:30pm, Ziauddin Ahmed Road

I'm standing with Rafi the makai wala right outside the university gate. He's cooking corn for the kids from the neighboring schools; the square is occupied with a spectrum of individuals. Rickshaw drivers hoping to get a ride, kids in line waiting for junk they can put in their stomachs, a circle of men smoking surrounded by a larger circle of men who seem to have found comfort under the tree’s shade.

Looking around, I think about the male to female ratio in Pakistan, which is almost 1:1. But there isn’t a woman in sight.

A girl interrupts the scene, walking by in skinny jeans, a low cut top, and hair neatly parted to her side. I recognise her from my class. As she walks towards Rafi’s cart, I notice the heads of the rickshaw walas (men), passersby (men) and loiterers (men) turn, their gaze following her walk, much like my own.

I shift my eyes and look elsewhere.

6:30pm, Badar Commercial

It's nearly dusk. I'm at a dhaba with my friend, killing time. She's buried writing something in her journal, a cigarette (that needs to be ashed) in her other hand. As usual, I notice heads turning towards us.

A girl with a cigarette at a dhaba is entertainment for everyone; I’ve smoked countless cigarettes over cups and cups of tea at dhabas with my male friends, no one turns their head around. But with her, I have become used to winning staring competitions with other customers.

A masseuse walks across the parking lot filled with chairs and the smell of chai, the clink of his oil bottles echoing through the street. My friend asks me to call out to him: she wants a massage.

“Are you working right now?” “I am,” he replies, placing his oil on the table before me. He positions himself behind me, rolling his sleeves up.

“I don’t want a massage. Baji wants one."

He stares at me, his expression a mixture of confusion and ‘Are you joking?'. We tell him we are serious.

He moves behind my friend, placing his hand around her neck. She lets it down immediately, and the massage begins. Then men sitting around us are visibly uncomfortable. We overhear some of them gossiping. ‘A girl – getting a massage!’ It is absurd. Why isn’t it equally absurd when men get massages in public?

4:00pm, Sindhi Muslim

Needing a break from studying, I walk outside for fresh air: the cigarette/pan cabin at the end of my galli is a familiar spot. I light a cigarette as the traffic of people and cars pass by. A woman from my street – I recognise her – is walking with a heavy load of groceries in her hand. Some man offers to help. She abruptly refuses his offer, No thank you, and he cluelessly walks away.

Standing there, I notice the hordes of men all around the corner, where the woman had to make her way through. I can’t blame her for being edgy. No man has to walk around with the kind of constant paranoia women do in this city.

8:00pm, at home with my father

I tell my father how I’ve been frequenting dhabas with my friend – a girl. He thinks it's cool.

“It portrays our city as if it's not women friendly though,” he insists. In another breath, he doesn’t allow my sisters to walk till the corner of our street to fetch groceries.

He thinks the city’s security condition is to blame for the ratio of men and women out on the roads. “If a girl goes to a dhaba, there’s a 90 per cent chance something bad will happen to her,” he adds.

1:30am, late night thoughts

Whatever ‘security conditions’ there might be, my friend and I have started sitting at dhabas every day.

Harassment, so far, has been limited to the extent of stares. Some are curious. Some disapproving. Our culture claims to be welcoming and respectful towards women, but we have gotten used to its hypocrisies.

I think about how the common culprit is almost always a man, but it’s the women who has to make the difficult choices. Some are forced to live under the umbrella of misplaced, self-righteous ‘concern’ leveled by men who claim they know what is best for their wives, sisters and daughters.

Other men and women alike have become so conditioned that they continue protecting this system of thoughts: we say ‘men will be men’, we discourage women from being – just being – in public, and any time someone fights back, we shut them up, calling them unrealistic.

9:00pm, outside Shireen Jinnah Colony

Normally, my friend and I would not drive to Shireen Jinnah Colony at 9pm, but today we are feeling braver than usual. Nearing Khyaban-e-Bedil, I call Naeem who I am supposed to meet for a smoking session.

He instructs me to turn into a street without lights. Forcing paranoia to drift out the window, I drive in. Naeem is waiting for us when we reach.

“Naeem, this is my friend. She is very close to my heart. I hope she is welcome here,” I greet him.

“Ali bhai, your friend is my friend. Let’s go in the tanker parking lot. We have a seating arrangement there.”

I drive deeper into Shireen Jinnah, calm as the summer sea, and park where Naeem asks me to. We get out of the car and place ourselves in the car seats set out on the ground. It is pitch-black and I feel just as safe as I do in any other part of Karachi.

My friend lights a smoke, and Naeem responds with shock. But he doesn’t say anything. He simply smiles, and hands her some matches.

10:30pm, Cantt

After leaving Naeem, we impulsively decide to stop at a dhaba near the Cantt Station. We order some daal and roti, and of course, chai to wash it all down. As usual, her head is buried in her journal with the same unashed cigarette pose. I use her phone to browse through Instagram.

“I wish other girls came to dhabas too. It would really tone down the whole staring game,” I said.

“So let’s figure out a way to,” she replies. We cackle and snigger, scheming ways to fix the dismal gender-ratio at dhabas and public spaces in Pakistan. She suggests putting up a photo of herself on social media as an experiment first. We discuss if we should hashtag it. #SAtDhabas, I suggest, and she turns it down immediately.

“Wait. I know what we should do,” I reply, running off with the phone. I snap a picture of her (knowing she will hate it) and give it a more inclusive hashtag: #GirlsAtDhabas.

Perween Rahman, Director of the Orangi Pilot Project, was killed on this day in 2013.

She was a selfless and dedicated activist, a dear friend, a close comrade, a loving daughter and my younger sister.

Below is an account - largely imaginary, but also including factual details - of the chain of events leading to the moment Perween was shot.

That morning, she was up, as usual, at 7:30, greeted by birds chirping in her garden on bushes of red and yellow ixora, hibiscus flowers, swaying palms, clay figurines of ducks and elephants, vines and flowers, and butterflies and bees, for her bed was right alongside the window to the garden and the curtains were never drawn.

The cats who slept on her bed, one at her feet, the other by her head, began their call for food. She told them to be patient until she had washed her face and brushed her teeth. Telling them this was a complete waste of time for they never ever relented, so with her hair flowing, in her red linen nightgown, admonishing the cats, she headed to the kitchen to dole out their food. Added to the two permanent feline members of the family were three black kittens she had picked up on her way from office.

After feeding the cats, she made breakfast for Ammi and herself – one poached egg for herself, two toasts with butter for Ammi, and tea for both. They sat at the dining table in direct visual line with the dining room window which was abound with red, pink, and white fragrant jhumka flowers, yellow flowers of the radhachura, and trailing vines with heart-shaped leaves.

The table was surrounded by blue, rust and yellow pottery, vase, pitchers and plates, on the floor, on the sideboard, on the shelf with plants growing in bottles, brought from the numerous trips to towns and cities of Sindh and Punjab where she would go to meet her partners.

She was to go to Dadu in a couple of days to supervise the shelter program for those affected by the floods that submerged large swathes of Sindh and Punjab. She had told Anwar Rashid that they had to make time to go to Bhitshah to celebrate spring later in the month.

They had been there, as was their tradition, on new year's eve to pay homage to Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai whose songs to the seven queens of Sindh – Moomal, Sassui, Heer, Lila, Saroth, Marvi, and Sohni – spoke of their beauty and purity of heart through the ragas that bore their name. Anwar Rashid joked that if Perween had lived in the days of Bhitai Shah there would surely have been a raga for her, probably called sur muskurahat or the song of smiles!

Each time she went to the mazaar complex, she blithely climbed the steps to the main building of the blue and white floral embellished mausoleum. On the way, stopping by every vendor, sometimes to ask them how they were and always to buy something or the other from them, a ring, a set of glass bangles, discovered, as if for the first time, with accompanying trills of laughter, buying the umpteenth ring, the hundredth bangle, the thousandth cat figurine – all to be given to friends, team members and nieces.

This was her custom too in the bazaars of Uch Sharif, the lanes of Thatta, the bazaar in Bahawalpur, Thailand, Bandung, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, Switzerland, Japan and everywhere else she went to talk about the model of people-government partnership through which sanitation, housing, education, and health for the poor could be obtained.

Breakfast over her sola singaar or beauty ritual, as she called it, commenced. Massaging her neck and forehead with Oil of Ulay, combing and tucking in her hair with a a clip at the back, putting on her stone-encrusted silver rings and bangles, her looped earrings, her small, bead pendants, she carried on a running set of instructions for Ammi's caretaker, Mussarat.

“Give her Brufen. Her knees are painful today. Make her kebabs for lunch. Take her for a walk in the evening even if she protests…”

She wore a white chikan kurta and white shalwar with a maroon ajrak chadar over her shoulders and kohlapuri slippers on her slender feet.

“You look fresh today Baji,” Mussarat remarked, “At last you are wearing summer clothes…”

“I really feel colder than all of you especially in Orangi. The wind seems to tunnel there.”

That morning, her silver tiffin box in hand, bottle of water tucked under her arms, her turquoise and yellow cloth bag that she had recently purchased from Khaadi slung over her shoulders, she gave Ammi a kiss on the forehead, bent to pet Acchu who was waiting at the door, and got into the waiting car, sitting as usual on the back seat to the left. She rolled down the window and blew a kiss to the trio of Ammi, Musarrat and Acchu still lingering outside the door. They went in only when she was out of sight.

“Madam, today I could not get CNG for the car as the government has closed stations for the day. I bought some petrol instead,” Wali Dad told her as they set off.

“What can we do about this Wali Dad? It’s okay. Just that it will cost us a lot more. But, we will see …”

While talking to Wali Dad she was rummaging through her bag looking for her mobile phone.

“Wali Dad, I seem to have forgotten my phone at home. Can we turn back?”

By now, morning had unfurled itself upon the city. In the strong, generous sunlight, the city landscape looked like a field of houses, with diverse shapes, the sad roads reaching out to the commercial part of town not yet filled with the noisy bustle that fills it during the day. They had turned right onto Abul Hasan Ispahani Road, flanked on both sides by tall apartment buildings and had already crossed the back gates of the NED Engineering University.

“You never forget your phone Madam, what happened?”

“Today I was getting so many calls and I asked Ammi to put it off…she must have put it somewhere and I forgot to pick it up.”

“I was also wondering why you had not started calling. You do that every day…answer all your missed calls…We will lose at least 30 minutes in turning back…do you want to do it Madam?”

“Yes! Please let us hurry…”

They reached the house and entered the gate. The guards were surprised.

“How is it that you are back so soon? Is there trouble on the way?”

“No…no I forgot my phone…”

She rang the doorbell three times in her characteristic manner to signal that it was her.

“Baji, what happened…?

“Nothing, Mussarrat I just left my phone...Where is it?”

“I just finished dusting the lounge. I did not find it. Look again in your bag, Baji. Maybe it is in the side pocket.”

She looked again and found the phone.

“Oho! If I had looked carefully, I would not have to turn back…Everyone must be waiting for me at the office…”

“Maybe it was so I could hug you again, my sweety…” Ammi embraced her.

She gave Ammi a tight hug and kissed her cheeks.

“I will be back early today, I promise…”

Ammi went up to the door to bid her a second goodbye and lingered at the door long after she had gone.

Along her route to the office, the city had taken on the aspect of its people who for the past year had become fearful, gaunt, and furtive. Karachi had always been a vast field in perpetual turmoil from a storm of interests beneath which whirled along a crop of human beings, more often than not, reaped by death and mayhem.

This city seemed to sit on the coals of the earth, at the mouth of hell, with smoke and fire where everything gleams, crackles, evaporates, dies out, then lights up again, with shooting sparks, and is consumed. Life had never been more ardent or acute, throwing up fire and flame from its eternal crater.

That Wednesday morning, on March 13th, she decided to ask her mapping team to start mapping a particular Goth in Gadap. With land value becoming high in Karachi, the city's development was fast expanding into peripheral towns, so the Goths in Gadap, Bin Qasim and Kemari were threatened with eviction. Eviction from their homes is something she knew about.

The walls that give shelter are brutally demolished and become heaps of rubble and everything is thrown to the mercy of the the open sky…just like she had been in February 1972 in Bangladesh. The soldiers of the newly-independent country had dispossessed her parents and three siblings and taken them to a field to be sorted out – the men sent to prison, the women to a camp way down the river Sitalakhya. Perhaps this is what made her react so strongly to any news of dispossession.

As usual, the first thing she did in her office was to discuss with her joint-Director, who sat in the same room as her, the progress of ongoing work and future plans.

“Did someone go to check out that hydrant outside Beach Luxury Hotel? I saw it when we left after the KLF. We were in the car driving out from the hotel when I saw it under a large old banyan tree.”

“How do you manage to spot these things?”

"It's uncanny, is it not? Also send someone to the one on the road to Malir Cantt…”

“How did you spot that? You never take that road…”

“We were trying to get to Apa's house through the way behind Safoora Goth as the roads were blocked by protestors demanding justice for the killings of Hazara Shias in Quetta…that was such a cruel, barbaric thing to do…”

“I know. Ashraf went to the one near Beach Luxury, but was spotted trying to photograph and he left…You know it is becoming riskier and riskier to document these illegal hydrants…”

“I know, especially after Kamran Khan aired his programme on our research. But he did not take our name, so maybe it is not so bad that people have become aware of the magnitude of the water problem and that it can be solved by stopping this illegal sale of water. It is incredible that this sale generates 50 crore rupees for the mafia while the budget of the water and sewerage board who own the water have a budget of five crore rupees…”

“Don't you think these people can find out who was behind the research…and now that militants have begun to take a share from the tankers supplied to the industries in Site and Baldia, it is even more dangerous…they are right outside our gate, you know…”

“Okay, let's just add the two hydrants to our list and not send the team to stake it out. You are right, we should become more discreet…”

“I think we should not document any more of the hydrants and concentrate on our housing program for the Goths…I was approached by the Goth elder to also map his village…”

“This is so great …we have secured housing for so many people… 1,000 villages have gotten their lease now…this will change the perception that these are empty tracts of land for anyone to lay claim on and sell for profit…”

“But the elders might want to sell it to people…”

“That is okay…it is their right to sell their land rather than be thrown out. At least they will get a good price for it. And you know how much money these land grabbers have. They seem to be the only ones with so much money.”

“Do you think they get it from selling drugs?”

“Yes, and also from extortion over the Nato trucks and the Afghan transit trade…all these are a continuation of the war economy. Anyway, let’s see what our latest figures on our secure housing program…you know, I am so proud that we were able to help so many people…”

“We will meet over lunch today, will we not?”

“Yes, yes…I told Musarrat to make extra vegetables today. We might have a couple of people joining us…”

If Mussarat asked Perween what she would like for lunch, Ammi would answer, “Why are you asking her, you know if she has her way she would only eat daal. Make her some bhindi bhaaji.”

“Baji, why don't you eat some chicken or kababs. I can quickly fry you some kababs.”

“No, no, don't do that. You know I don't eat meat. So stop trying!”

“Your mobile has been ringing constantly. Whoever is trying to contact you is getting desperate,” Ammi had said that morning.

“I saw the number…it is a strange one. Seems to be from a pay phone.”

“Why don't you answer?”

“I will if the person calls again once I am on my way…”

Her conversation with her joint-Director over, she pushed back the cane and wood chair that she had used as her office chair since she joined Orangi Pilot Project in 1982 first as an unpaid intern, within a year to becoming joint-Director and then Director, and picked up her beige and orange cloth bound notebook, took a gulp of water, and headed to the accounts section.

The accounts had to be meticulously handled and every rupee accounted for. After instructing the accounts officer to send funds to their partners in Shahdadkot for the shelter project, she crossed the sunny corridor again to the mapping rooms.

On the way, she stopped for a few minutes to look at the plants in the quadrangle in the centre of the building. This space with steps all around had been used in the past to put up plays and soirees where women and children of the community were invited to participate. There had not been an event for years now for fear of the extremists.

The mapping room always gave her spirits a special lift. As she stepped into that room, she looked, with great satisfaction, at the maps that plastered the walls of the room and rolled-up cartridges of maps, the drawing boards, the young man and woman at work. While presenting the mapping programme in Bangkok on the 26th of February, she had said that they were the Ninja Turtles of mapping.

“Really Madam, you actually said that.”

“Yes”

“Madam, ever since you got the Google map software for us, our work is so much easier.”

“Show me the last map you made for the flood areas….you did take into record the livestock did you not? This will help us with our village development project…”

“Are you going to link with Rashid bhai's partners who give credit to women for livestock?”

“Yes, that is our plan. Hope it works out. Ever since the floods, I feel that we have to do something for the uplift of the villages. Their misery is beyond acceptable…”

“Madam, please come and sit with us…” the portly Naheed popped into the mapping room and called out.

“You look so fresh today,” Naheed complimented her when she joined them.

“Spring is here and I love the smell in the air. Come to think of it, I do feel like new today...must be the white I am wearing…”

“Oh! We do love the clothes you wear, always so ethnic, beautiful, and so modern…”

“I have a private fashion consultant, you know…”

“We know, we know…your niece, but it cannot be just that. You have always worn such attractive clothes and always khadi and cotton. Maybe you got it from Doctor Saheb…the khadi I mean…”

“Maybe, but I am not so austere. I love colours and patterns and look, this chadar is made of the natural dyes that are traditionally used for ajrak.”

“It really suits you.”

After lunch, tea in ceramic cups was served from the small kitchen. Team members and staff used the kitchen to warm their food, and sometimes the girls from the health team cooked khichri for their lunch. Generally, everyone brought food from home.

“Madam, come and take a few bites with us.”

She got up and went over to the adjoining table and took a piece of naan and dipped it in the curry.

“Very tasty, Ashraf. Did your wife make it?”

“No Madam, she is in her mother's house for delivery…”

"Wow! Ashraf, I can't believe you are to become a father…hope everything goes well. Don't forget to bring chamchams for us when the baby arrives…”

“As if you eat sweets, Madam…”

“I will…for sure.”

On her way home that evening perhaps, she had contemplated as it deserves to be contemplated – the deserted street, a street that was full of people and yet deserted. Perhaps she felt the car slowing down to go over the bumps.

Perhaps, she looked over her shoulder as her blue Corolla entered the narrow lane outside her office to be sure no one was following her. It was time for dusk to cast its shadows on the streets of Orangi.

Perhaps, she saw the young man, sitting in the platform at the tea stall, with long curly black hair under a grey cap, free flowing beard, short, dark-grey qameez, and voluminous shalwar. Perhaps she saw him take his mobile phone from the pocket of his waistcoat and click on the buttons to make a call.

Perhaps, she heard him say, “The bird has left the nest…” Perhaps she thought “Why is he talking about birds?” and then perhaps she thought of the bulbul pair that nested in her garden of fragrant blossoms and wondered if Acchu, her black cat, had not upset them too much.

Perhaps, she saw the birds that flock at dusk before darkness seals their way and gazed at the few clouds already scattered by the wind that had come to carry off the day.

The lane was not well lit, and silhouettes of the leafless trees against the sky, lit by lines and specks of shades of orange of the setting sun seemed ghostly, but nothing appeared to be threatening. Not to her.

“It's late. Wali Dad,” she said to her driver, “Ammi will be angry…”

“Madam, she is used to your timings. When do you ever go home early…times are not good…I keep telling you to leave before dark…but you do not listen…”

“I know, Wali Dad, but we have to work and I could not leave those women who came from Badin before helping with their work…they have to go back tomorrow...besides, Anwar Rashid also works late and never leaves me alone in the office…did you get the vegetables Ammi told you to get?”

“Yes I did…”

Directly in front were the Manghopir hills that bound her city, her Karachi, to the west. This was a city to which she had come as a teenager, thrown out from East Pakistan, the land of her birth, when the great Partition was undone, and Bangladesh emerged from its ashes!

On the hills the buildings, rooted in granite, raised up upon steep slopes, an avalanche of houses heaped indiscriminately together, woven together by years of forced migration, a refuge from within and outside the country. The colours in the haphazard houses, out of sight of the sun, gradually took on their grey tones. There was something cold about that diversity of grays. A mild unease slumbered in the streets.

Then, perhaps, she leaned back on the seat and closed her eyes. She was tired. The day had been long. Just ahead on the corner, the yard selling timber for construction work was deserted. It was filled with echoes. The car turned left onto the main road. High up in the lonely night, an unknown lamp shone behind a window.

Everything else in the city was dark except where feeble rays from the streetlamps hesitantly rose and, here and there, resembled the palest earthly moonlight. In the black of the night, the different colours and tones of the houses were barely distinguishable, only vague, abstract, making up the irregularities of the unruly whole.

Of late, this road had deteriorated with large potholes and the stormwater drain that divided the two sides of the road had filled with plastic, silt and garbage. They were heading towards Banaras Chowk, which was one of the two entry points to Orangi. The Pirabad area lay ahead. Anwar Rashid's white Corolla was just ahead.

Perhaps she saw the man pillion-riding a motorcycle, his face hidden by the triangular-folded scarf tied in a knot at the back of his head, take out a pistol. Perhaps she heard the four shots and the sound of glass shattering.

Perhaps she felt the searing pain in her delicate neck, perhaps she remembered her Ammi was waiting for her, as the spewing blood stained red her white, delicately embroidered qameez.

There was no way to judge the depth of silence that followed that shot. Perhaps, it was as if the earth existed in a vacuum. There was no sound, not even of her own breathing or the beating of her heart, as if the very sound of consciousness had been stilled. Perhaps, just when the pause ended, she knew in that instant that she had been eliminated.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…the dark shadow of a city, the declining light on the edge of dusk ebbed away into those unexpected evenings, to the sound of motorcycles and vans fenced in by the melancholy of the surrounding streets, and above, the high branches of the tree, vaulted by the ancient sky in which the stars were just beginning to reappear.

It is perhaps impossible to reach a consensus on which places to include on a list of top attractions in Karachi. The geographical spread of the metropolis makes it difficult for one individual to see and know the entire city. To add to this, the city’s ever-increasing population and diversity ensure that you keep discovering new landmarks, rituals, food, beliefs, dialects and different ways of looking at it.

Karachi is full of forgotten stories, which any outsider may find perplexing, for Pakistan’s largest city has a relatively brief history. People living in the old quarters of the city never knew its former occupants and are thus unable to narrate the stories attached to their localities. You might stumble upon a story or two as you walk through the old streets or climb the staircase of one of the stone buildings and have a closer look at the nameplates.

This experience into the unknown is what makes exploring Karachi a fulfilling experience. This is what makes my Karachi different from yours.

It’s easy to love or hate Karachi, but it’s hard to remain indifferent to the City of Lights.

It has been more than a year since I wrote the first part of my DIY tour of Karachi. I have not stopped exploring the city in the meantime, and thought you might want to discover the less-explored areas of the city this time. Here is part II of the DIY tour:

Ratan Talao Gurdwara

The easiest way to find the Ratan Talao Gurdwara on a Sunday is to look for the famous halwa poori wala where people queue up early in the morning. The shop is set up in the shadow of another temple, which has been sealed after disputes over its ownership. Adjacent to the temple is the Nabhi Bagh College, where the rundown gurdwara still survives inside the college boundaries.

The side facade might give you the impression that the gurdwara is in reasonable condition, but when you get to the front door, you can see that the place is practically abandoned. The walls have survived with but the plaster has peeled off, the arches look shaky and the roof is gone.

The floor has disappeared behind shrubs and debris, but you can see a glimpse of the colourful tiles. There is a blackboard in the central hall of the gurdwara, hinting that it might have been used as a classroom. You will also find stone imprints of sacred Sikh symbols embossed on all four sides of the building.

Beaumont Lawns

Set in the heart of the Gandhi Gardens, these lawns have one of the oldest trees in the city. Even though they have gone through renovation a number of times, it is fair to say that the lawns have seen better days.

The layout of the garden, the use of red bricks, and age-old trees in the backdrop create a brilliant setting to spend an evening in Karachi.

Dhobhi Ghat

Footprint Pakistan Handbook calls Dhobhi Ghat one of the two most interesting sights for people watching in Karachi – and it lives up to this distinction. The ghat stretches approximately two kilometres along the banks of the Lyari River.

You will meet many people here who reminisce of the good days when the river had clean water. Even fish and groundwater were abundant. However, with the changing ecosystem of the city, the river turned into a sewage drain, making the water unusable and putting many dhobis out of business.

With time, the dhobhis have adopted to modern methods and washing machines have become increasingly common at the Dhobhi Ghat today. However, the dhobi’s donkey is still used to transport the clothes from and to the ghat.

Jewish cemetery in Kutchi Memon Graveyard

The Kutchi Memon Graveyard near Cheel Chowk is one of the oldest graveyards in the city and was originally a Jewish cemetery.

The graveyard is also a vibrant public space and you will find children and families here on weekends. When you reach the farther end of the graveyard, there are signs of a compound wall that used to be there. Within this space are old graves in dilapidated condition.

A local Memon Kutchi businessman, Haji Bachal, purchased and gifted this land to his community before Partition. However, Jewish graves remained intact and only withered away with time. Hardly a few tombstones have survived with legible writings in Hebrew, English and Hindi.

Lea Market

You have to fight for space with pedestrians, carts, cyclists, hawkers, and vehicles to enter the Lea Market. The iconic Clock Tower can guide you to the main entrance from distance, but you can also enter the trapezoid structure from many of the other openings. The multipurpose market is well designed but given the chaoticness, it is easy to get lost.

Lea Market was constructed in 1927 in the Napier quarters, which historically was a trading hub. It was named after Measham Lea, an Englishman who served as an engineer at the Municipal Corporation.

Today, every Karachiwalla must have heard of the Lea Market, even if they have never been there.

The market is at the intersection of Napier Road, Siddiq Wahab Road, River Street and Sheedi Village Road. Although Lea Market is easily accessible, which makes it an attractive choice for retailers, wholesalers and customers, it also makes the surrounding area polluted and congested. Traffic moves slowly and you have to remain vigilant before taking a step in any direction.

The Clock Tower takes centre stage in the market’s layout and depicts the current state of affairs as the clock remains frozen in time and the staircase to the tower is locked.

Dentist Gali and Lea Market bus stop

From the Lea Market, head to Napier Road. On your left, you will see a bus stop from where you can take a bus to most of the towns in interior Sindh. A little further away from the bus stop are a number of dental clinics. I remember a friend wondering aloud if people from this area suffer from a dental epidemic. Someone told me later that these dentists thrive on the travelers commuting from the bus stop, the proximity to which makes them an attractive spot to get a quick dental fix.

Nigar Cinema

If you keep driving straight on Napier Road, you will find yourself in front of Nigar Cinema, a good old single-screen cinema from the days of yore. Thanks to the heritage laws, the building has survived, but in reality it has only delayed its inevitable demise.

The building is now being used for a variety of purposes. There is a small Sufi shrine in its basement which attracts a lot of devotes, the lobby is used for raising sheep, and the main cinema hall is used as a warehouse.

The only thing related to art is the studio of Parvez Bhatti, Lyari’s Michelangelo – known for his portrait of Obama and his family – inside the compound. On a regular day, you will find him or his son busy painting commissioned work.

I came across two janitors during one of my visits here. As I asked for permission to take their photo, one of them hesitated and replied that he is only a janitor. The other janitor cut him short and said, with a wide smile, “Please take our photo, we might get famous.”

Narsingha Bhagwan Mandir

Tucked between multi-storey buildings in Ranchor Lines, this city secret has one of the most enthralling entrances. You have to walk through the narrow opening, typical to the residential quarters of the old town, before you come across a surprise in the courtyard.

A decorated door, adorned with a statuette on each side, welcomes you at the entrance of the temple. The interior is humble but well kept and is in deep contrast to the surrounding concrete buildings.

Narsingha Bhagwan is an avatar of Vishnu. He has a human torso and legs, but a lion’s head and claws. Vishnu took this avatar to defeat a demon king. A popular deity, you will find this incarnation depicted in sculptures and paintings all across India. The mandir is perhaps the only temple in Pakistan dedicated to the avatar of Vishnu.

Christ Mission Church and School

The school is one of the oldest in the city and has a glittering list of alumni, which includes the founder of the country, M. A. Jinnah, and a host of cricketers such as Intekhab Alam, Mushtaq Mohammad, Sadiq Mohammad, and Haroon Rasheed.

Henry W. Preedy, the first Collector of Karachi, founded the school in 1846. He was also the patron of the Christ Mission Church, which is across the street. The school was nationalised in 1971, and thus began the decline in the quality of the education and subsequent negligence by the bureaucrats in power. A few new blocks have been added to the school and the old blocks have been renovated, albeit with an ostentatious finish.

The church is one of the oldest Protestant churches in the city. It has hardly been changed over the years and remains almost the same, with 150 year-old façade and wooden instalments.

Baba-e-Urdu’s final abode

Very few buildings in Karachi will boast as decorated a history as the Anjuman-e-Taraqi Urdu office. Long before its association with Baba-e-Urdu, Maulvi Abdul Haque, and the Anjuman, the building was home to one of the finest schools in the city.

The foundation stone was laid in 1921 by Mahatama Gandhi, who took keen interest in its management. The school was named after Shri Sharda Devi Mata, the goddess of wisdom in Hindu mythology. Jamshedji Mehta, the founder of modern Karachi and its mayor, was chosen as President of the school.

The school relocated to Gujrat after Partition, but the building was handed over to Maulvi Abdul Haque, who used it as his residence and office. He was buried in the same building after his death.

Beech Wali Masjid

People in Marwari Lines claim that the Beech Wali Masjid was built 250 years ago, making it the oldest mosque in the city, if the claim is true. The Marwaris are known for their expertise in stonemasonry. Beech Wali Masjid, though only a shadow of its former glory, is a testimony to their craftsmanship.

The surviving stone facade has intricate designs around the main entrance and on the pillars. Sadly, the rest of the building has not survived in its original form and has given way to a more contemporary design that has concrete and tiles.

Roadside Café

This is one of the most original cafes in the city and a fitting place to end your journey after a tour of Karachi. The café has evolved over time, but remains a popular hangout place. It is one of those unassuming places where you are not under pressure to constantly order something to keep the owners happy.

The most striking feature of the café are the murals on its walls, painted by its resident artist, Irshad. The murals depict artists, sportsmen, politicians, architects, qawwals, designers, writers, singers and the café's staff, amongst many others. There is bit of a memory for all of us on these walls, and you can sit here watching people react to the murals. The collection keeps expanding and on some days, you can find Irshad painting a new portrait.

There is still much more to Karachi and this DIY tour should only serve as a start. When you embark on this journey, you will discover that your experience will be different from mine. Your Karachi will be different from everyone else’s. Only then will you understand the immensity of a city of more than 20 million people.

Have you explored any off the beaten tracks across the world and want to share your journey with us? Tell us about it at blog@dawn.com

Four months before the Uttar Pradesh election results sent Muslims in India reeling in shock, former Rajya Sabha MP Mohammed Adeeb delivered a speech in Lucknow, which, in hindsight, might be called prescient.

“If Muslims don’t wish to have the status of slaves, if they don’t want India to become a Hindu rashtra, they will have to keep away from electoral politics for a while and, instead, concentrate on education,” Adeeb told an audience comprising mostly members of the Aligarh Muslim University’s Old Boys Association.

It isn’t that Adeeb wanted Muslims to keep away from voting. His aim was to have Muslim intellectuals rethink the idea of contesting elections, of disabusing them of the notion that it is they who decide which party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh.

Adeeb’s suggestion, that is contrary to popular wisdom, had his audience gasping. This prompted him to explain his suggestion in greater detail.

“We Muslims chose in 1947 not to live in the Muslim rashtra of Pakistan,” he said. “It is now the turn of Hindus to decide whether they want India to become a Hindu rashtra or remain secular. Muslims should understand that their very presence in the electoral fray leads to a communal polarisation. Why?”

Not one to mince words, Adeeb answered his question himself.

“A segment of Hindus hates the very sight of Muslims,” he said. “Their icon is Narendra Modi. But 75% of Hindus are secular. Let them fight out over the kind of India they want. Muslim candidates have become a red rag to even secular Hindus who rally behind the Bharatiya Janata Party, turning every election into a Hindu-Muslim one.”

Later in the day, Adeeb met Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was in Lucknow. To Adeeb, Azad asked, “Why did you deliver such a speech?”

It was now Azad’s turn to get a mouthful from Adeeb. He recalled asking Azad: “What kind of secularism is that which relies on 20% of Muslim votes? The Bahujan Samaj Party gets a percentage of it, as do the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.”

At this, Azad invited Adeeb, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, to join the Congress. Adeeb rebuffed the offer saying, “First get the secular Hindus together before asking me to join.”

Spectre of a Hindu rashtra

A day after the Uttar Pradesh election results sent a shockwave through the Muslim community, Adeeb was brimming with anger. He said, “Syed Ahmed Bukhari [the so-called Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid] came to me with a question: ‘Why aren’t political parties courting me for Muslim votes?’ I advised him to remain quiet, to not interfere in politics.” Nevertheless, Bukhari went on to announce that Muslims should vote the Bahujan Samaj Party.

“Look at the results,” Adeeb said angrily. “But for Jatavs, Yadavs, and a segment of Jats, most Hindus voted [for] the Bharatiya Janata Party.” His anger soon segued into grief and he began to sob, “I am an old man. I don’t want to die in a Hindu rashtra.”

Though Adeeb has been nudging Muslims to rethink their political role through articles in Urdu newspapers, the churn among them has only just begun. It is undeniably in response to the anxiety and fear gripping them at the BJP’s thumping victory in this politically crucial state.

After all, Uttar Pradesh is the site where the Hindutva pet projects of cow-vigilantism, love jihad, and ghar wapsi have been executed with utmost ferocity. All these come in the backdrop of the grisly 2013 riots of Muzaffarnagar, which further widened the Hindu-Muslim divide inherited from the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s and even earlier, from Partition. Between these two cataclysmic events, separated by 45 years, Uttar Pradesh witnessed manifold riots, each shackling the future to the blood-soaked past.

I spoke to around 15 Muslims, not all quoted here, each of whom introspected deeply. So forbidding does the future appear to them that none even alluded to the steep decline in the number of Muslim MLAs, down from the high of 69 elected in 2012 to just 24 in the new Uttar Pradesh Assembly.

They, in their own ways, echoed Adeeb, saying that the decline in representation of Muslims was preferable to having the Sangh Parivar rule over them with the spectre of Hindutva looming.

“Muslims need to become like the Parsis or, better still, behave the way the Chinese Indians do in Kolkata,” said poet Munawwar Rana. “They focus on dentistry or [their] shoe business, go out to vote on polling day and return to work.”

He continued: “And Muslims?” They hold meetings at night, cook deghs (huge vessels) of biryani, and work themselves into a frenzy. “They think the burden of secularism rests on their shoulders,” said Rana. “Educate your people and make them self-reliant.”

Readers would think Adeeb, Rana and others are poor losers, not generous enough to credit the BJP’s overwhelming victory in Uttar Pradesh to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development programme. In that case, readers should listen to Sudhir Panwar, the Samajwadi Party candidate from Thana Bhawan in West Uttar Pradesh, who wrote for Scroll.in last week on the communal polarisation he experienced during his campaign.

In Thana Bhawan, there were four principal candidates – Suresh Rana, accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, stood on the BJP ticket; Javed Rao on the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s; Abdul Rao Waris on the Bahujan Samaj Party’s, and Panwar on the Samajwadi Party’s. It was thought that the anger of Jats against the BJP would prevent voting on religious lines in an area where the Muslim-Hindu divide runs deep.

This perhaps prompted Rana to play the Hindu card, and the Muslims who were more inclined to the Rashtriya Lok Dal switched their votes to the Bahujan Samaj Party, believing that its Dalit votes would enhance the party’s heft to snatch Thana Bhawan.

Communal polarisation

Sample how different villages voted along communal lines.

In the Rajput-dominated Hiranwada, the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 14 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal not a single vote, the Samajwadi Party seven, and the Bharatiya Janata Party a whopping 790.

In Bhandoda, a village where the Brahmins are landowners and also dominate its demography, followed by Dalits, the Bahujan Samaj Party secured 156 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal zero, the Samajwadi Party nine, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 570.

In the Muslim-dominated Jalalabad, the Bahujan Samaj Party received 453 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 15, the Samajwadi Party six and the Bharatiya Janata Party 23.

In Pindora, where Jats are 35% and Muslims around 30% of the population, the Bahujan Samaj Party polled 33 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 482, the Samajwadi Party 33, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 278, most of which is said to have come from the lower economically backward castes.

In Devipura, where the Kashyaps are numerous, the Bahujan Samaj Party got 86 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 42, the Samajwadi Party one and the Bharatiya Janata Party 433.

In Oudri village, where the Jatavs are in the majority, the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 343 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 15, the Samajwadi Party 12, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 22.

This voting pattern was replicated in village after village. Broadly, the Jat votes split between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Muslim votes consolidated behind the Bahujan Samaj Party, with the Samajwadi Party getting a slim share in it, the Jatavs stood solidly behind the Bahujan Samaj Party, and all others simply crossed over to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP’s Suresh Rana won the election from Thana Bhawan.

“Can you call this election?” asked Panwar rhetorically. “It is Hindu-Muslim war through the EVM [Electronic Voting Machine].” Panwar went on to echo Adeeb: “I feel extremely sad when I say that Muslims will have to keep away from contesting elections. This seems to be the only way of ensuring that elections don’t turn into a Hindu-Muslim one.”

The Bahujan Samaj Party’s Waris differed. “Is it even practical?” he asked. “But yes, Muslims should keep a low profile.”

Hindu anger against Muslims

For sure, Muslims feel that the binary of secularism-communalism has put them in a bind. Lawyer Mohd Shoaib, who heads the Muslim Rihai Manch, pointed to the irony of it. “For 70 years, we Muslims have fought against communalism,” he said. “But it has, nevertheless, grown by 70 times.”

Indeed, those with historical perspective think Uttar Pradesh of 2017 mirrors the political ambience that existed there between 1938 and 1946 – a seemingly unbridgeable Hindu-Muslim divide, a horrifyingly communalised public discourse, and a contest for power based on mobilisation along religious lines.

Among them is Mohammad Sajjad, professor of history at Aligarh Muslim University. “The 69 MLAs in the last Assembly was bound to, and did, raise eyebrows,” he said.

But what irks Hindus even more is that Muslims constitute nearly one-third of all members in panchayats and local urban bodies. “It is they who have become a sore point with Hindus,” said Sajjad. “When they see Muslim panchayat members become examples of the rags-to-riches story, the majority community feels aggrieved. It is not that Hindu panchayat members are less corrupt. But every third panchayat member being Muslim has given credibility to the narrative that Muslims are being favoured.”

The Hindu angst against Muslim empowerment is also on account of both the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party being popularly perceived to be indifferent to the aspirations of certain subaltern social groups. For instance, it is this indifference that has led to non-Jatav Dalits and most backward castes, clubbed under the Other Backward Classes for reservations, to leave the Bahujan Samaj Party, as non-Yadav middle castes have left the Samajwadi Party. They did so in response to Mayawati turning hers into primarily the party of Jatavs, and the Samajwadi Party pursuing the Yadavisation of the administration.

“These aspirational Hindu groups are angry with the SP [Samajwadi Party] and the BSP [Bahujan Samaj Party],” said Sajjad. “Their anger against them also turned into anger against Muslims.” This is because it is popularly felt that the support of Muslims to the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party brings them to power, turning these parties callously indifferent to the aspirations of other groups.

It is to neutralise the efficacy of Muslim votes, and also to teach their parties of choice a lesson, that these aspirational groups have flocked to the BJP. “This is why the very presence of Muslims in the political arena has become problematic for Hindus,” Sajjad said.

So then, should Muslims take Adeeb’s cue and retreat from the political arena or at least keep a low profile?

Sajjad replied, “Go ahead and vote the party of your choice. But after that, play the role of a citizen. If people don’t get electricity, protest with others. You can’t be forgiving of those for whom you voted only because they can keep the BJP out of power. This is what angers aspirational Hindu social groups.”

Indeed, it does seem a travesty of justice and democracy that Muslims should rally behind the Samajwadi Party in Muzaffarnagar after the riots there. Or that they voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party in Thana Bhawan in such large numbers even though Mayawati didn’t even care to visit the Muslim families who suffered unduly during the riots.

Introspection and self-criticism

Like Sajjad’s, most narratives of Muslims have a strong element of self-criticism. Almost all vented their ire against Muslim clerics. Did they have to direct Muslims which party they should vote for? Didn’t they know their recklessness would trigger a Hindu polarisation?

Unable to fathom their irresponsible behaviour, some plump for conspiracy theories. It therefore doesn’t come as a surprise to hear Obaidullah Nasir, editor of the Urdu newspaper Avadhnama, say, “They take money from the Bharatiya Janata Party to create confusion among Muslims. I got abused for writing this. But how else can you explain their decision to go public with their instructions to Muslims?”

Poet Ameer Imam, who teaches in a college in the Muslim-dominated Sambhal constituency said, “Muslims will have to tell the maulanas that their services are required in mosques, not in politics. When Muslims applaud their rabble rousers, can they complain against those in the BJP?”

To this, add another question: When Mayawati spoke of Dalit-Muslim unity, didn’t Muslims think it would invite a Hindu backlash?

Most will assume, as I did too, that Muslims fear the communal cauldron that Uttar Pradesh has become will be kept on the boil. But this is not what worries them. Not because they think the Bharatiya Janata Party in power will change its stripes, but because they fear Muslims will feel so cowered that they will recoil, and live in submission. “Our agony arises from being reduced to second-class citizens, of becoming politically irrelevant,” said journalist Asif Burney.

True, members of the Muslim community are doing a reality-check and are willing to emerge from the fantasy world in which they thought that they decided which party won an election. The Uttar Pradesh results have rudely awakened them to the reality of being a minority, of gradually being reduced to political insignificance, and their status as an equal citizen – at least in their imagination – challenged and on the way to being undermined.

But this does not mean they wish to enter yet another world of fantasy, which journalist and Union minister MJ Akbar held out to them in the piece he penned for the Times of India on March 12. Akbar wrote,

“…[T]his election was not about religion; it was about India, and the elimination of its inherited curse, poverty. It was about good governance.”

One of those whom I spoke to laughed uproariously on hearing me repeat Akbar’s lines. So you can say that with them believing their future is darkled, Muslims at least haven’t lost their humour.

This article was originally published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

Karachi has witnessed at least three major garbage outbreaks. At the same time, ironically, the history of the city also suggests that it not only managed to eliminate these outbreaks, but actually became one of the cleanest cities in India and then Pakistan. So there is always hope.

The first outbreak

When the British attacked and annexed Karachi in 1843, the city was part of Sindh which was being ruled by the Baloch Talpur dynasty. According to famous British officer and writer, Richard Burton, and those who penned entries in the 1919 Sindh Gazetteer, Karachi had a population of about 20,000 people at the time of the annexation.

Much of the city’s population was concentrated in two areas, Manora and Lyari, which were protected by a large fort (Qasim Fort). Outside these two areas, the city was barren, largely covered by mangrove forests, sand dunes and wild shrubs, and having a variety of birds (mainly kites, sparrows, parrots and crows) and animals such as dogs, cats, wolves, foxes and even a few black panthers. A deep pond near a shrine in Manghopir was full of crocodiles (it still is).

The population was concentrated in Manora and Lyari, mainly due to the fact that fresh water wells were available here. British soldiers and travelers found the people living in close proximity in mud houses in areas which had narrow, unpaved streets and no garbage collecting or any sewerage system.

The Sindh Gazetteer informs that the population was a mix of Hindus and Muslims, mostly Sindhi and Balochi speakers. There was a sprinkling of mosques, Sufi shrines and Hindu temples. Burton, in his writings on Sindh, also speaks of "no less than three brothels" and appalling sanitation conditions.

He described the men of Karachi as hard working but brutish and that the women loved to wear colourful clothes but were "very loud". The murder rate was high and alcoholism was rampant.

The British began to develop Karachi’s natural harbor and this drew more people to the city. The British developed cleaner "cantonment areas" away from the more populated areas of the city. Karachi’s population grew from 20,000 in 1840s to almost 100,000 in the early 1890s. The garbage and filth continued to mount, though.

In 1896, a ship from Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) docked at the Karachi harbour. A Bubonic plague epidemic had struck Calcutta. Dozens of rats carrying fleas which cause the plague made their way into Karachi from this ship. The mounting garbage dumps and dreadful hygiene conditions in the city were ideal for the rats to feast, multiply, and shred the fleas they were carrying.

By 1897, the plague had spread throughout Karachi. Thousands of Karachittes died painful deaths and thousands were quarantined as British doctors and traditional Muslim and Hindu medicine men tried to contain the outbreak.

The turnaround: ‘Paris of Asia’

The plague was largely contained by the early 1900s and the British doubled their efforts to further develop the city. This also saw the construction of a complex sewerage system, garbage disposal and collection mechanism, and regular cleaning of roads and streets (sometimes with water).

Even though, according to published statistics of the period, the city’s population had grown to over 300,000 by the 1930s, Karachi had risen from filth to become a bustling and lucrative trading and business hub and a preferred place of leisure. It also became one of the cleanest cities in India. It began being dubbed as the 'Paris of Asia'.

Still clean: ‘The City of Lights’

Karachi received a huge influx of millions of Muslim refugees from India after the city became part of Pakistan in 1947. Its population was 435,887 in 1941 but drastically rose to 1,137, 667 in 1951 (a growth of 161%).

With the city’s resources coming under tremendous stress, the government struggled to accommodate the influx. But a boom in exports of Pakistani agricultural products in 1950-51 somewhat stabilised the situation, especially since Karachi was the country’s only port city and an economic hub.

Remarkably, the sanitation mechanism put in place by the British did well to cope with the drastic growth in population. It was further modernised, mostly during the hectic industrialisation period initiated by the Ayub Khan regime (1958-69).

Even till the early 1960s, many roads and streets were still being washed with water, and, apart from the situation in the slums which had grown after 1950, there was no garbage collection and disposal problem. In the early 1960s, Karachi had become the 'City of Lights’ – the business hub and leisure centre of the country.

The second outbreak

Karachi’s population had increased from 2,044,044 in 1961 to 3,606,744 in 1972. The city was the epicentre of the industrialisation policies of the Ayub Khan regime. This had created a great demand for labour which largely came from the NWFP province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa).

An intense countrywide protest movement against Ayub in the late 1960s badly affected Karachi’s economy. The city’s sanitation mechanism broke down as well. For the first time after the 19th century, garbage dumps began to mount and were left unintended.

Things in this respect did not improve much when the populist Bhutto regime (PPP) came to power in December 1971. In his book on Bhutto, well-known author Stanley Wolpert wrote that on numerous occasions, Bhutto penned special notes to the Chief Minister of Sindh, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, lamenting the sanitary conditions of Karachi. He advised him to "make Karachi Paris of Asia" again.

Despite the fact that the Bhutto regime initiated various ‘beautification projects’ in the city, these could not arrest Karachi’s growing sanitation problems.

The aftermath of a right-wing protest movement against the Bhutto regime in 1977 saw many of the city’s areas, streets and roads chocked by overflowing gutters and tall garbage dumps.

Bhutto fell in July 1977, toppled by a reactionary military coup engineered by General Zia-ul-Haq. The 1979 local bodies elections empowered Karachi-based nazims/councilors to revive the city’s creaking sanitation mechanism and garbage collecting system.

But when ethnic riots broke out in 1985, this mechanism broke down again. Things got even worse in the 1990s when ethnic riots, militancy and a crackdown against the MQM left the city paralysed. By the end of the 1990s, the city cut a sorry sight. Karachi it seemed was a city buried underneath a million tons of dump and filth.

Another cleaning

When General Pervez Musharraf came to power (through a military coup) in 1999, he injected millions of rupees to revive Karachi’s economy that had been falling apart.

A lot of this money was also used to kick-start another beautification and cleaning project, mostly initiated through the MQM’s local government in Karachi.

An improvement in the overall economy of the country helped the project to become a success and the gloom and the filth that had had been haunting Karachi for so many years was lifted.

The third outbreak

As a recent report in Dawn explained, "the city’s solid waste problem is assuming crisis proportions." The report continues that "in neighbourhoods across the city — from the enclaves of the elite to the sprawling urban slums — there are mounds of garbage piling up everywhere, with the provincial government and municipal authorities all at sea about how to solve the problem."

Debates over the mounting issue between the city’s two largest political parties — the populist left-liberal Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which presides over the current provincial government in Sindh, and the liberal-secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) which has a history of returning the most Member of National Assembly and Members of Provincial Assembly from Karachi — often degenerates into becoming animated vocal brawls.

The populist centre-right party, Pakistan Thereek-i-Insaf (PTI), which managed to get bag the second largest tally of votes in the city in the 2013 election, seems to have no clue about the rather complex social and political dynamics of the city.

Recently, the celebrated real estate tycoon and philanthropist, Malik Riaz, decided to donate millions of rupees, machinery and manpower to lift the ever-rising mounts of garbage in the city.

The PPP government in Sindh has responded by importing powerful garbage collecting machines from China and signing a Rs2 billion contract with a Chinese company to process waste in the city. The MQM, on the other hand, has attempted to initiate various clean-up campaigns, but the garbage has continued to mount.

Another issue in this context has been the defacing of walls and monuments with ugly graffiti, posters and paan stains. Graffiti and posters are anarchically sprayed and pasted by a host of culprits ranging from political party activists, to religious groups, to quacks and small entrepreneurs.

Party flags are hoisted on electricity poles but then forgotten about till they rot and become ugly, muddy rags dangling from the poles.

Recently, however, the Sindh government initiated a campaign to wipe clean the graffiti, but much still needs to be done to get rid of the decomposing party flags, posters, paan stains and even a plethora of cable TV wires which can be seen dangling from electricity poles that create a problem for the city’s electric supply company, the Karachi Electric.

Unfortunately, the people of this city have only added to the problem. Shopkeepers do not hesitate to throw their litter even in front of their own shops. But many Karachiites say one can hardly find a garbage bin anywhere in the city.

Holi has become one of the well-recognised cultural and religious events across the planet. While the global status it has received might be new, the festival of course has historical significance in South Asia, including what is now Pakistan, where it originated from.

The festival lasts for two days, starting on the Purnima – the day of the full moon – in the month of Phalgun of the Sindhi-Hindu calendar, somewhere between February and March of every year. Holi signifies the victory of good over evil; it also marks the arrival of spring. This year, the date fell on the 12th of March.

Sindh, in particular, sees big Holi celebrations in Pakistan given the important number of Hindus living in the province. The city of Umerkot usually leads from the front, and it was no different this time.

The celebrations lasted an entire week and preparations began days in advance. Shops and businesses closed early so that nobody was late for the festivities.

As I walked through Umerkot’s decorated and well-lit streets, I saw everyone – young and old – dancing and singing. People were throwing gulal (coloured powder) at anyone they could get their hands on, giving the occasion a joyous and vibrant mood. The houses were adorned with rangolies and neighbours shared sweets that they had made at home.

The Pakistani Dandia Group was there to take part in the festival as well. Wearing green shirts and colourful turbans, they played dandia to the beat of the drums. The group has been doing this for several generations and its leader Shagan Lal said to me that these activities are part of their culture and reflect their values.

Umerkot and the Thar desert are known for religious harmony, where Muslims and Hindus participate in each others’ festivals, such as Holi, Diwali, and Eid.

Hundreds of Muslims joined the activities on the first night at the crowded Rama Pir Chowk. I met a Muslim man who had brought along his two sons so that they may learn about Holi and the Hindu community.

He told me that Hindus and Muslims over here always celebrate such festivals without any discrimination and that attending them is always a positive experience. The message was definitely that of harmony and national unity, and scores of Pakistani flags in the crowd were also a sign of that.

I heard community leader Gotam Parkash Bajeer give an address to those gathered. He stressed that this is what freedom of religion looks like: a minority community celebrating its festival openly and freely. He prayed for happiness, peace and love for everyone, which is the message of Holi itself.

Have you taken part in a religious festival and want to share your experience? Tell us about it at blog@dawn.com

All photos by the author.

Pakistani representatives seem to be getting their ankle-length trousers into quite a few unseemly knots these days over unprecedented ‘slights’ against our battle-hardened culture.

Under attack (as it usually is from unseen forces and a stunted perception of the public profile), lawmakers look ready to redeem our social experiment of some 200 million very diverse and very culturally charitable people into a neat little package of pitiable purity.

Punjab’s education minister, Raza Ali Gillani, seems to think it is perfectly agreeable for him to project his questionable intellect onto millions of young women and men by proposing to make the hijab mandatory for young women in Punjab’s colleges.

To further honey trap these youngsters, he rounded off by offering a five percent grace bracket for attendance. I don’t know about you but that sounds like solicitation through suggested sanctimony. In other words, these outward patterns of piety would do well to serve worldly agendas. Hypocrisy much?

Oh, and never mind the fact that it is women who have been tasked with this duplicitous burden of phoney morality. Never mind that once again, it is a man who is gathering up the mantle of her bodily and spiritual regulation, and clogging it with sanctimonious quackery. Never mind that what he just said, he probably is not even free to practice in his home, with his own wife and daughters (keyboard warriors will have a field day with this one), much less the rest of Pakistan’s female populace.

The Punjab government was quick to leave Mr Gillani to his own, unique ‘charm offensive’ by disowning his rationale and rubbishing the claim that any such proposal was made. But the damage was done: this idea became public discourse, it became acceptable to perhaps think about the idea - whether to repel it or recognise it - and to have a conversation about it.

Let’s get one thing clear: there can be no communion on canonised constriction. There can be no debate on allegiance through aggression. There can be no talk about getting a woman to do something because a man has deemed it his higher authority to act as the patriarchal hand of God. No, there can be no conversation but that is what it has become.

News channels are having a field day, Facebook commentators are arguing about the necessity to either follow ‘the path’ or enter the 21st century and, here, we are burning our keyboards in the comments section down below. It’s become ‘a thing’ and all of a sudden it could become very real, very fast.

By lobbing together terms like ‘religion’, ‘ethics’, ‘culture’, and ‘forgetting’ that same culture, the minister did what many men do when they’re looking to gurney a galvanic kind of godliness onto the already impounded shoulders of our women - you know, the kind of thing they do when it becomes all about ‘shame’ and ‘honour’ when they kill them too.

After all, if our women don’t cover up, society as we know it will submerge into Dante’s ninth circle of hell. If they don’t control their flyaway wisps of heathen hair, all of civilisation will condense and collapse. I feel sorry for our boys who grow into young men under the fallacies of these ridiculous notions. Who actually adhere to the absurdity that is on pompous display by the likes of Mr Gillani. Time to end this conversation.

But Facebook, too, it seems, is counterfeiting our culture by forcing us to view 'objectionable' content, by converting our orgies of obedience into peepshows of profanity. Punjab’s home minister is also looking to get social media platforms disallowed instead of disavowing other more trivial things - like terrorists.

Alongside the Islamabad High Court (IHC) lies a petition that seeks to ban blasphemous content online - but there is a danger that the approach might be adopted by irresponsible actors to prosecute cases that may not fall in the realm of blasphemy.

It is fast becoming comfortable convention to seek solace in sanctimony when other more pressing issues are at hand. A revival of bomb attacks in Punjab? An unresolved word, such as the Panama leaks case? It seems that this matter is so critical in determining our national morale that even Interpol will be given a starring role in helping defeat the villain that is social media usage.

Funny how international agencies are seen as interfering and encroaching upon our sovereignty when we face real dangers like bloodied and decapitated bodies freshly squeezed by the simmering melting pot of assorted terror groups and the like.

Funny how culture is never really under attack when bombs and guns go off but always seems to be when people have an avenue for moderate opinion. And that’s what it is really about: moderate, diverging opinion. What really lies at the crux of this canting is the criticism, the demand for action and the displeasure voiced by many Pakistanis within the confines of fast choking online spaces, for that is the only space they have.

Culture, my fellow Pakistanis - we will never shun it nor disremember it but we may be able to evolve it. For ministers and religious extremists, hijabs and religious offence are where culture ceases and despotism develops.

For this motley crew of autocrats and aggressors, the culture that is the domain of every free man and woman becomes a primitive penitentiary for the practice of piety used by politicians and the clergy since time immemorial. That culture gave us wars, bombs and destruction.

Culture, real culture, gave us art, liberty and social standing. You choose. Which culture do you want to call your own?

When I was eight, I heard about a three-year-old who fell in a water tank and drowned. The news shattered mothers in the small community we lived in. My own mother told me to be more vigilant of myself and my younger sibling.

It was then that I first contemplated suicide. I didn't know much about suicidal ideation, but I did understand that just by falling into a tank full of water, I could end my life and make it all look like an accident. Nothing had sounded more pleasing. My body would drown in the water along with the mental and physical pain I had been suffering but could never explain. To me, it felt like I possessed the power to switch it all off.

I never went through with it.

Maybe it was my grandmother’s little anecdotes about how badly parents coped with the loss of a child. I felt I had to wait till my sister was a little older so that losing me might not be as big of a trauma for my parents.

As I recall these stories, I don't feel ashamed. I know people who equate willingness to take one’s own life with cowardice. For them, I can only say that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Suicidal ideation is real. Shaming people by calling them cowards will not stop them from taking their own lives. Instead, for many, including myself, these notions of ‘cowardice’ and ‘get over it’ are just another example of stubborn ignorance toward mental health issues.

I've had chronic depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) before I knew what these terms meant. I only saw signs of them around me: I saw them in my behaviour towards people and I saw it being triggered by other people's behaviour towards me.

There was a time when I was so afraid of other people’s reactions that I would constantly recheck my own work to make sure I hadn't 'messed up', even if this was something I had done over and over again. Any bit of appreciation or acknowledgement meant more to me than it would to someone who was not constantly battling a crippling sense of failure.

I never shared what I was going through with colleagues or friends because I feared that would put them under undue pressure. I worried they'd have to tailor their lives around my triggers and needs, and that they'd never be able to share their issues with me because somehow, mine will always be bigger than theirs. I just didn't want to cause inconvenience.

How do you tell someone you love that when they're being controlling they reduce you to the six-year-old who was told that no matter how hard she screamed, no matter whom she would tell, no one would be able to hear or acknowledge her? Not even her own mother. You can't inflict that upon someone. I can't.

I couldn't even bring myself to tell the people closest to me, who knew I struggled with depression, to be just a little more mindful and look for apparent signs of distress. I felt that it was too much to ask for. Inconvenience again.

Instead, I focused on making sure that those around me knew that they were appreciated when they did something well or when they accomplished something they had been wanting to do. It gave me a sense of purpose so to speak, but it quickly became my only sense of purpose. It drained me, made me feel worse and made me feel that I was being taken for granted.

My depression led me to believe I could only be someone's friend if I was constantly giving, regardless of how I felt. The only way I could be accepted anywhere was if I had a role that meant I had to take in everything and fix it.

My depression falsely convinced me that most people I met thought I was worthless and that all my achievements in life were by fluke. Each award or recognition invited more and more pressure. I felt that I didn't deserve success and that I had to keep proving myself even more to earn respect. So, I saw myself performing to accommodate people's needs at times, even if it disrupted my own life’s rhythm and comfort.

During one particular trip with colleagues and friends, I spent the entire week being someone else entirely. Someone who had to strike a conversation the minute she got into a cab, someone who had to make an observation about a new bike on the road or a technology around the corner. None of it was brought on by anyone but myself and the need to perform to mask my own suffering.

Unfortunately, for me it is a cocktail of things - having PTSD means being stuck in an audio-visual about the most traumatic incidents of one’s life where these incidents playback at will.

Imagine sitting at a table with a dozen people around you, waiting for you to answer a question but all you can think in your head is an image of you being pinned down in a murky hallway as you struggle to breath.

Imagine being at your own wedding and having an image of hurriedly washing your blood-stained legs at age six.

Imagine that while writing this piece, you could hear your abuser say: "no one wants to hear from you." Imagine that and hope you never have to live it.

It's difficult for me to articulate how I feel at times because despite my illness, I also consider myself a functional human being who has work, friends and family to deal with.

For as long as I can remember, I felt that writing about my own experiences would hurt other people. Maybe they'll think that I'm calling them out on their insensitivity and that I'm asking for an easy pass.

But if there's anything I've learnt through this deep, annihilating pain is that every time you stop yourself from setting boundaries, from telling people that you are suffering, from rearranging parts of your life to better navigate your illness, you're pushing yourself further into the abyss. That your demons are winning when you choose not to stand up for yourself because you fear you'd hurt others.

To anyone who is suffering, I want you to know that you're not alone, you're not an inconvenience to anyone and that you can't and will not just get over it. You have the right to stand up for yourself. Those who love you for who you are will understand and help you navigate the trenches.

The problem are the people who are willingly insensitive, who choose not to be vigilant, who have no time to give compassion, and who judge you without ever sparing a minute to ask how you feel.

Rather than lecturing people about wishing away suicide or depression, spare a moment to listen, empathise and act. Someone who appears to have their life together may still be trapped in their eight-year-old self, contemplating a decision they won't live to regret.

Are you suffering from a mental illness or working as a counsellor to help people overcome it? Share your story with us at blog@dawn.com

For most parents, the day their first child is born is a special moment. It is the day that marks the start of a journey full of promises, dreams, and expectations. Parents hope that their newborn will be the perfect child, destined to achieve great and beautiful things in life, so that they may hold their head high and beam with pride.

The day my first child – a daughter, Alaiyah – was born was a defining moment for me too, but not for the reasons stated above. A few minutes after the delivery, I was told that she has Down Syndrome. All the dreams and expectations of the 'perfect' child disappeared into thin air.

It couldn’t be true. Why did this happen to us? How will I ever cope with a child who has an intellectual disability? A child who will always be dependent, whom people will make fun of, who will never be able to marry and have children of her own. Will I ever be strong enough to love her despite all the limitations that she will have?

Fast forward six years and I know now that many of my initial fears and doubts were unfounded. They were a result of taboos and stereotypes associated with intellectual disabilities.

Will Alaiyah grow up and be independent enough to go to college or university? Probably. Will she be able to work and make a living? Will she fall in love and get married one day? Possibly. Am I strong enough to love her despite all the challenges that come with having a child with extra needs? Absolutely. She makes that last bit a piece of cake.

Alaiyah, along with a few other people with Down Syndrome, was the inspiration behind the Karachi Down Syndrome Program (KDSP), a non-profit organisation set up by a group of parents and individuals who strive to create a world where everyone with Down syndrome is accepted, included, and welcomed as valued members of society.

There was absence of support that I felt deeply when my daughter was born. KDSP strives to fill that vacuum; it is a place where anyone affected by Down Syndrome – parents, siblings, friends, and individuals with Down Syndrome themselves – can come and be part of a community that advocates for inclusion in mainstream society and assists those affected through medical interventions, education, vocational training, etc.

KDSP runs awareness campaigns every year to mark the World Down Syndrome Day on March 21st. The goal is to normalise differences. There is such a dire need for more acceptance for people who have extra needs.

It is tough enough to deal with the practical challenges of having a family member who needs extra attention, but the stereotypes and biases in our own minds, the pressures of society, and the emotional exhaustion that comes with it are the most draining of all.

It is important to know what acceptance should entail. It, in no way, refers to feeling pity or sympathy towards people with Down Syndrome, since that is disempowering.

At KDSP, when new families come to us, we tell them how magical their child's extra chromosome is and how the child will change their lives for the better. There is a lot of truth to that, but at the same time, the process of arriving at that better life is a difficult challenge.

Families have to grapple with all sorts of negative emotions: hopelessness, envy, disappointment, embarrassment. We tell them that instead of being bitter, they should look at the matter from a different perspective – they should look at life through the eyes of their child.

Children with Down Syndrome have no inhibitions when it comes to showing love. They greet each new day with such joy and enthusiasm. They empathise. They have no hidden agendas. They are pure. And they are experts at teaching us how to seek out happiness from the small things in life, only if we look hard enough. I may be Alaiyah’s mama, but she has been my greatest teacher.

People often tell us that we have done a great thing by setting up KDSP, but the truth is that it has been the other way round. It is difficult to put into words how much KDSP has given back to us. Personally, it has had a huge role in providing me with the opportunity to heal and grow. It has given my life a purpose.

When parents of young kids come to KDSP and interact with older kids, I can see the parents sizing them up. I can sense them assessing whether or not they will be able to cope if their child grows up to be like the grown ups with Down Syndrome who are in front of them. I know this because I have been there myself. I know their fears and doubts. We are all human, after all.

I would ask myself whether I would feel resentful if my daughter tagged along with me every time I went out with my friends because she would have no friends of her own. I feel guilty for even thinking this way about my own child. I would ask if it would be too much for me to have her talk in front of others in slurry, slow speech and for others to slight her for it. I have assessed and I have fretted. And I have gotten over it.

She is who she is and what will be, will be. And she, along with her little sister, are my loves, my life, my pride and joy. And in the bigger picture, absolutely nothing else matters.

Are you suffering from a disability? Are you a family member, friend, or counsellor who is helping someone to cope with it? Tell us about it at blog@dawn.com

The first resolve: Head of the All India Muslim League (AIML), Muhammad Ali Jinnah, speaking to party members in Lahore on March 23, 1940. Jinnah was presiding a party session in which the AIML passed a resolution that demanded the creation of separate federations based on Muslim-majority regions in British India. Jinnah resolved to achieve such an arrangement because, he explained, Muslims as a cultural and political polity were distinct from India’s Hindu majority.

A new resolve: Jinnah became Pakistan’s first Governor General in August, 1947. Here he can be seen delivering his first address to Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly. In his address, he resolved to make Pakistan a modern Muslim-majority country where Muslims could advance their economic and cultural aspirations but where communities of all faiths would be facilitated and protected. He said all will be equal citizens in the eyes of the state "because the state has nothing to do with one’s personal religious beliefs."

To demonstrate his resolve of creating a multicultural and pluralistic Muslim-majority country, Jinnah asked the government’s Hindu minister, JN Mandal, to chair the first session of Pakistan’s Constituent Assembly.

From August, 1947 till September, 1948 Pakistan and India shared the same currency notes. Pakistan had emerged as an independent domain of the British Crown, which is why the notes had King George VI’s image on them.

Another resolve: Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, speaking at the Constituent Assembly in 1949. He was reading out an Objectives Resolution drafted some months after Jinnah’s demise in 1948. The PM announced that Pakistan’s future transformation as a republic and Constitution was to be ‘Islamic.’ The government’s non-Muslim members accused the PM of deviating from Jinnah’s original resolve. But he insisted that the country’s non-Muslim communities need not worry because the future Constitution will be democratic and will safeguard the rights of minorities.

A 1949 Pakistan Railways poster. It was part of the government’s initiative to instil in the people the fact that the Pakistan state had meagre resources.

Between 1950 and 1952, Pakistan’s economy enjoyed a sudden boom when the demand for its agricultural goods grew in the US due to America's war in Korea. As this 1952 article on Karachi in the National Geographic states, Karachi became a boom town because most of the goods were being exported from the city’s port.

The economic boom saw the emergence of Pakistan’s first-ever five-star hotel. It was built in 1951 in Karachi and was called Hotel Metropole.

Angered by the government’s ‘slowness’ to implement the ‘Islamic’ aspects of the Objectives Resolution, religious parties Jamat-i-Islami and Majlis-e-Ahrar used economic turmoil in the Punjab province to launch a violent anti-Ahmadiyya movement. Controversial Punjab chief minister, Mumtaz Daultana, is often accused of 'facilitating' the agitation. The movement was demanding the ouster of the Ahamdiyya from the fold of Islam. Dozens were killed and property belonging to the Ahmadiyya was set on fire. The government called in the military which crushed the movement. The demand of the religious parties was rejected.

During the anti-Ahmadiyya movement, the government and the military distributed a pamphlet authored by Islamic scholar Khalifa Hakim, titled Islam Aur Mullah (Islam and the Mullah). In it, Hakim paraphrased poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal’s views on clerics to emphasise that the religious parties were at odds with Jinnah's and Iqbal’s ideas about Islam. The pamphlet was distributed across the Punjab province.

Meanwhile, in the Bengali-dominated East Pakistan, agitation against the imposition of Urdu as the only national language continued. In 1954, after the Muslim League badly lost an election in East Pakistan, Bengali was declared as the country’s second national language. DAWN ran a scathing front-page report on the League’s debacle in East Pakistan at the hands of the United Front.

A Constitutional resolve: In 1956, the Constituent Assembly finally passed the country’s first Constitution. The Constitution declared Pakistan as a republic. The Constitution resolved to turn Pakistan into a parliamentary democracy and an Islamic Republic. It was also decided to celebrate 23rd March as Pakistan Day. The picture shows the indirectly-elected members of the centrist Muslim League, the secular centre-right Republican Party, the leftist National Awami Party, and the right-wing Jamat-e-Islami debating the Constitution.

A cartoon in the Pakistan Times satirises assembly members who had agreed to call Pakistan an Islamic Republic.

The first-ever Pakistan Day parade being held in Karachi on 23rd March, 1956.

The resolve dismissed: President Iskandar Mirza (Republican Party) with the chiefs of Pakistan’s armed forces soon after declaring Pakistan’s first martial law in 1958. The country’s economy had nosedived, there was a spike in incidents of crime and corruption, and constant squabbling between politicians and bureaucrats. Mirza and General Ayub, who had engineered the coup suspended the 1956 Constitution, terming it a way for the politicians "to peddle Islam to meet their cynical political ambitions." Pakistan’s name was changed back to the Republic of Pakistan.

Ayub’s resolve: Ayub, after ousting Mirza, became Pakistan’s president and field marshal in 1959. He resolved to run Pakistan "according to Jinnah’s original vision," which to him meant a robust economy based on rapid industrialisation; a political system which was "more suited to the social realities of Pakistan’s polity" and overseen by a powerful army; and a social ethos constructed through a fusion of ‘Muslim modernism’, widespread education and free-market-enterprise.

Economic growth rose to 6% and manufacturing growth to 8.51% during the Ayub regime’s first six years. New factories and buildings began to emerge. The manufacturing percentage at the time was one of the highest in Asia. Introduction of modern technology, better seeds and fertiliser brought forth a ‘green revolution’ in the agriculture sector.

Students with a lecturer at a college in Lahore in 1962. The economic boom also saw a growth in student enrolment in colleges and universities. There was also an increase in the number of female students.

A 1963 stamp which explained Ayub’s takeover as an economic revolution.

The Minar-e-Pakistan began being built in the early 1960s on the spot in Lahore where the 1940 Resolution was passed.

Passengers being served champagne on a PIA flight in 1966. PIA, launched in 1955, began its meteoric rise as one of the world’s leading airlines in the mid-1960s. It held this position till the early-1980s.

Karachi became the entertainment centre of the country.

A group of Pakistan Air Force pilots during the 1965 Pakistan-India War. The Pakistan Air Force rose to become one of the best and would go on to train fighter pilots in various Middle Eastern countries.

The entrance of Lahore’s historic Badshahi Mosque being renovated in 1967.

The country’s new capital city emerged in 1967. Initially it was supposed to be called Jinnahpur but the government settled for the name Islamabad.

The end: The 1965 war with India badly impacted the economy. A declining economy laid bare the growing gaps between the haves and have-nots. In the late 1960s, a violent movement against the Ayub regime swept the country, denouncing his crony capitalism. Rightists wanted an end to Ayub’s ‘secular regime’ whereas the leftists wanted a socialist setup. Ayub resigned in March, 1969 and handed over power to General Yahya Khan.

Yahya’s resolve, 1969: General Yahya Khan resolved to make Pakistan a parliamentary democracy. He abolished the 1962 Constitution and asked the opposition parties to start work on a new Constitution. For this, he agreed to hold the country’s first-ever elections based on adult franchise.

In 1970 Yahya fulfilled his resolve. Pakistan held its first parliamentary elections based on adult franchise. The Bengali nationalist party, the Awami League, swept the elections in East Pakistan; ZA Bhutto’s populist Pakistan People’s Party won in West Pakistan’s two largest provinces, Punjab and Sindh; the leftist National Awami Party won majorities in NWFP and Balochistan. The religious parties, apart from JUI, were routed.

In 1970, Runa Laila rose to become Pakistan’s first modern pop star.

ZA Bhutto arrives to take over from Yahya in December 1971. The election had set the scene for parliamentary democracy. But the results brought forth the simmering tensions and mistrust between Bengali nationalists in East Pakistan and the West Pakistan ‘establishment.’ A civil war in East Pakistan and then a conflict with India saw East Pakistan breakaway and become Bangladesh. Yahya resigned and handed over power to Bhutto, whose party had won a majority in West Pakistan.

Bhutto’s resolve: During his first address to the nation, Bhutto resolved to "pick up the pieces" and construct "a new Pakistan" which was "dynamic and progressive." He planned to do this by introducing land reforms, reforms in the military and the bureaucracy, and by introducing socialist policies to make the economy ‘people-friendly.’

Bhutto’s ‘socialist’ Jinnah: Bhutto nationalised major industries, claiming he was following Jinnah’s ideas, as this 1973 press ad shows.

A new Constitutional resolve: In 1973, Bhutto managed to conjure a consensus between his ruling party and the opposition in the National Assembly on the contents of a new Constitution. The Constitution was passed and it reintroduced Pakistan as an Islamic Republic and a parliamentary democracy. The photo shows Bhutto announcing the passage of the Constitution at a rally.

Pakistani film actor Waheed Murad, an unknown guest, and TV actress Saira Kazmi at an art exhibition in 1974. Pakistani film and TV entered their golden age during the Bhutto regime.

In 1974, the ‘Ahmadiyya question’ returned to haunt Pakistan. After a clash between Ahmadiyya youth and members of Jamat-i-Islami’s (JI) student-wing in Rabwah, the JI started a fresh movement to oust the Ahmadiyya from Islam. Bhutto rejected the demand and threatened to use the military against the rioters. Bhutto insisted that the parliament was no place for religious debates. The JI responded by saying that it was because the Constitution had declared Pakistan an Islamic Republic. When the violence intensified and some members of the PPP in the Punjab Assembly too began siding with the demand, Bhutto allowed an anti-Ahmadiyya bill to be tabled in the parliament. The Constitution was amended and the Ahmadiyya were declared non-Muslim.

Bhutto had also resolved to make a ‘third block’ to challenge the 'hegemony' of the Soviet Union and the US. The block was to comprise Muslim countries. For this, Bhutto held a conference in 1974 in Lahore in which heads of states and governments from almost all Muslim countries were invited.

Tourists enjoy a tanga ride outside a hotel in Rawalpindi in 1975. Tourism saw a manifold growth in Pakistan in the 1970s. The government expanded the tourism department and promoted three main types of tourisms: 1) Archeological/Historical Tourism which included trips to ancient sites in Mohenjo-Daro, Lahore, Multan, and Taxila; 2) Nature Tourism which included trips to the northern areas of Pakistan (Swat, Gilgit, and Chitral); and 3) Recreational Tourism which mainly included nightclubs, bars, and beaches of Karachi.

A fleet of PIA planes at the Karachi airport in 1976. In the 1970s, the Karachi airport became one of the busiest in the region and was dubbed the "gateway to Asia."

A hotel in Karachi illuminated during the new year’s eve of 1976.

Another end: Bhutto sitting with party members and his new military chief, Zia-ul-Haq (third from left). Due to an international oil crisis and the Bhutto regime’s haphazard economic policies, turmoil was brewing in the country, especially among the middle and lower middle-classes. Bhutto’s authoritarian attitude had already alienated him from his erstwhile leftist allies. In March, 1977 religious parties began an anti-government movement. The movement demanded Shariah law and removal of the regime. Bhutto closed down nightclubs, banned the sale of alcohol (to Muslims) and promised to reverse his ‘socialist policies.’ But in July ,1977 Zia toppled him in a military coup.

Zia’s resolve: During his first address to the nation in July, 1977 General Zia resolved to turn Pakistan into an ‘Islamic state’ and introduce ‘Islamic’ laws.

Petty criminals, ‘troublesome’ journalists and radical students were regularly flogged in public.

When in 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the US and Saudi Arabia began to aid the Zia regime by pouring arms and money to facilitate a ‘jihad’ against the Soviets from Pakistan’s northern areas. Here, a Pakistani Pashtun declares war against the Soviets in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

1981: Unprecedented aid from the US and Saudi Arabia and the Zia regime’s pro-business policies helped Pakistan enjoy an economic boom in the early 1980s.

Pakistan hockey reached the pinnacle of its prowess when Pakistan won the 1982 world cup. This was Pakistan’s third world cup title. It will win it one more time before dramatically declining as a hockey power.

Students protest against the death of a colleague who was crushed under the wheels of a public bus in Karachi in 1985. This gave birth to vicious ethnic riots in the city. Karachi had begun to boil over due to ethnic tensions, a rising crime rate, and drug and gun mafias.

When the Zia regime began to empower extreme clerics to boost the ‘jihad’ in Afghanistan, violent sectarian organisations sprang up. By the late 1980s, sectarian violence spread across the Punjab.

When an alleged bomb went off on a plane carrying Zia in 1988, democracy returned to Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto’s PPP won the 1988 election.

Zia’s demise saw a local pop music explosion which lasted across the 1990s

Benazir’s resolve: Benazir Bhutto taking oath in 1988. She resolved to make Pakistan a democracy again and reverse Zia’s ‘reactionary policies.’ But when American aid vanished after the Soviets left Afghanistan, she did not inherit the 1980s economic boom. But she did receive Zia’s other legacies such as institutional corruption, drug mafias, and sectarian and ethnic violence. Coupled with her own government’s utter incompetence, her first term was a disaster. She would be reelected in 1993 to fall yet again in 1996.

Nawaz’s resolve: Nawaz Sharif taking oath in 1990. His Pakistan Muslim League came to power after the 1990 elections. He resolved to "rekindle Zia’s mission" and not let the PPP "derail Zia’s Islamization." He also promised pro-business policies. Unable to check an economy and polity spiraling out of control, he too fell. In 1997 he was reelected to fall again in 1999.

But as the country struggled to come to terms with things such as sectarian and ethnic violence, corruption, and a sliding economy, its cricket team won the 1992 world cup.

Yet another end: Soldiers climb the gates of PTV during the General Parvez Musharrf coup in 1999. He toppled the second Nawaz regime.

Musharraf’s resolve: Musharraf resolved to put Pakistan on the path which Jinnah had envisioned. To achieve this, he said he will use a doctrine called ‘enlightened moderation.’ This doctrine was actually an updated version of Ayub Khan’s fusion of Muslim modernism, free-market enterprise and a controlled democracy overseen by the military. Musharraf banned various sectarian and extremist organisations, eased ties with India, exiled Nawaz and Benazir and became an ally in America’s War on Terror.

In its first six years, the Musharraf regime remained largely popular. Crime, sectarian and ethnic violence decreased, the economy picked up and the urban middle-class expanded. Cities became boom towns. A revival of Pakistani cinema started to take shape as well.

The bubble bursts: In 2007, the lawyers’ movement began sweeping the country against the regime. The economy had begun to recede and Al-Qaeda increased its attacks on Pakistani soil. The weakening regime’s half-baked measures could not stem the radicalisation of the society. The same year, Benazir was assassinated by extremists and Musharraf seemed to have lost control. He was forced to resign after the PPP and PML-N won the 2008 elections.

More chaos: Extremist terror and mindset gripped the country during the new PPP government. The regime seemed all at sea, plagued by incompetence, corruption, assassinations, political intrigues and a military establishment busy playing mind games with politicians. By 2013, the country stood isolated and wrecked.

A new resolve: When Nawaz Sharif was elected prime minster for the third time, his government seemed paralysed as Pakistan continued to plunge into an abyss. Then, the tragic deaths of school children in an extremist terror attack in 2014 galvanised the government and the new military chief Raheel Sharif to actually reverse political and military policies of the last many years.

The government, military and opposition parties got together and through a joint-resolution, gave the green light to a widespread military operation against extremist and sectarian groups, and also initiate a National Action Plan (NAP) to introduce reforms which would reverse the mindset that facilitates radicalisation and extremism in society. By 2016, the percentage of terror attacks and crime had appreciably lessened. The struggle continues to finally construct Jinnah’s Pakistan.

I distinctly remember the photograph I saw of a child in a stone hut in the Broghil valley, close to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. She had the most striking eyes and was wearing a traditional dress that was gleaming underneath a beam of what seemed like a mystic light piercing through an opening above – a prominent feature of Pamiri houses. The image made it my dream to visit and photograph the place and its people.

While researching, I came to learn that there was a British era trade corridor, called the Wakhan Corridor, which led to Broghil. The corridor borders Afghanistan and stretches through Pakistan, Tajikistan, and China. A fellow trekker and I made a plan to go discover this region.

From lush green plains to gigantic lakes to snow capped passes, Broghil has some of the most unique and varied landscapes I have ever seen. Even the weather changes frequently from snowfall to dust storms.

Also read: Deosai Plains: Welcome to surreal Pakistan

Most of the Pamiri houses today are modern and made with wood but in Broghil, they are made of mud and stone. All of this combined with the incredible hospitality of the locals meant that I fell in love with the place right away.

There are two ways to get there: you can either go from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or from Gilgit-Baltistan. It is the same passage with two different entry points. Most tourists trek from Ishkomun in Gilgit-Baltistan to visit the famous Karomber lake. Otherwise, the area remains largely unexplored.

Accessing Broghil is no easy feat. We first attempted to go in 2014 from the Gilgit side; however, when we were on the way, there was a terrorist attack on the Karachi airport.

As a retaliatory measure, there was an army operation in close proximity to where we were travelling. Out of concern for our safety, the locals of Immit village did not let us through, so we had to abort the plan and trek elsewhere.

A year later in June, 2015 we decided to try again. This time, we entered from Chitral and luck was on our side. From Chitral, we took a jeep to Mastuj and continued our journey to Ishkarwaz over an incredibly difficult terrain.

Also read: Chitral: Bringing Kalash back home

It was a miracle that we actually reached Ishkarwaz. I was amazed how our driver was able to reverse the jeep downhill whenever it got stuck at a turn. The map on our phones showed that we were approaching a river.

To our surprise, the driver kept going without stopping or slowing down, as though he was taking us into the water. At the last minute, he took a sharp turn onto the rugged mountains, which led to a narrow road that took us to Ishkarwaz.

We started the actual trek in Ishkarwaz. Since it is a border area close to Afghanistan, military soldiers posted at the checkpost noted down our IDs and we were on our way – but not before we played a game of cricket with them!

Our first destination was Karomber lake. To get there, we first trekked from Ishkarwaz to Lashkargaz, where the Broghil valley officially begins. That whole stretch of land is majestic and extraordinarily beautiful, but it was particularly Lashkargaz that caught my eye.

In the evening, half the sky would be dark blue while the other half would be golden. At night, I could see the Milky Way in its full glory and endless shooting stars. And there were so many expansive and clear lakes that it made me wonder if I had already reached Karomber lake!

Also read: A rendezvous with Saif-ul-Malook

The trek would take up to six hours everyday, sometimes even ten, depending on our speed and weather. We were accompanied on our journey by local Wakhi men. Some were our guides, while others were porters to help us carry our equipment.

I was accompanied by a local villager, Sultan. I told him that I wanted to photograph the men, women, and children of the area. He was enthusiastic and immediately agreed to act as my translator. With Sultan’s help, I finally got the chance to interact and bond with the Wakhi community and take portraits.

After camping at Lashkargaz, we continued on to Karomber lake. But because of snowfall and strong winds coming from Afghanistan, we had to set up camp halfway. We called it Karomber high camp. The next morning, we woke up to see our tents covered in snow.

When we reached Karomber Lake, we realised that we had gone too early in the season – the lake was frozen. But it was still an incredible sight! As is traditional with teams when they reach their destination, a call to prayer was recited and the national anthem was sung. We stayed for half an hour and then trekked back to Lashkargaz, where I made the most of my time by doing more photography.

The next day, we trekked back to Ishkarwaz, where we rested for an hour, before going on to the last leg of our tour to the Darkot pass.

On the way, we stayed overnight in Chikar village. While setting up camp, a little girl with blonde hair wearing a traditional Wakhi dress kept following me everywhere. Her name was Shabnam.

Since we did not have to leave until noon the next day, I slept in for most of the morning. I was woken up by someone knocking on my tent. I got up and looked out: it was Shabnam. She did not say anything, but pointed to a large field where a group of people were present and motioned me to follow her.

Once we reached, I saw four of our team members playing football with the locals – a strong 11 against four very tired men. I was very sore from all the walking, but they insisted I take the centre-forward position. We lost miserably.

I had fallen in love with Chikar and it was an emotional farewell when we left around noon.

Very soon, we could see the Darkot pass at a distance. We huddled together and discussed how far we could go. The idea was to get as close to the pass as possible. When we reached, we set up camp on a small, rocky patch. Everything else was covered in ice.

Water was the biggest issue at this time. The place where we were was barren and there was no water except for a waterfall very high up and nearly impossible to reach, and a melting glacier which was miles below us.

One of our porters volunteered to make the perilous climb down to the glacier with a container to fill it up with water. However, he slipped on the first step, but was thankfully saved as he grabbed a ledge and was roped back up by our team. The container slipped and broke.

Also read: Karakoram's unsung heroes

Another team member Abdul was an experienced climber and mountaineer. Without saying a word, he took another container, tied a rope around it, and climbed a steep path to reach the waterfall.

He filled up the container and rolled it down to the camp, using the rope to break its fall. Clearly, he had nerves of steel as a task like this would have taken anyone else hours! We slept after dinner at sundown so that we would be ready to make the final trek through the deadly Darkot pass.

We woke up and ate breakfast at 2:30am and left by 3am in order to avoid the harsh sun and the melting snow. We were all roped together so that we don’t fall into crevices. The ascent to the pass was difficult because of the lack of oxygen and slippery snow. By the time the sun had risen, the snow was reflecting the sunlight onto our faces and burning our eyes.

One by one, all of us reached the pass. As we looked down, we could make out the lush green of the Darkot village, but we were so high up that it seemed like we were looking at it from a satellite. We could even see clouds far down below under us.

The descent was a near-impossible task. It was an 85-degree decline, full of melting snow and loose rocks. One wrong step would cause a rock to fall on the person below you. Slip, you fall into a crevice.

After eight hours, we all made it back. We regrouped, caught our breath, and counted our blessings for having come back in one piece. We camped for one more night at Darkot village and grabbed a bus back from there the next morning to Gilgit.

Also read: Hunza valley: A whole new spectrum of colours

My team and I trekked through this region for almost 10 days. We were so awestruck that we decided to revisit the next summer, from the end of July, 2016 till the first week of August. We went later in the season this time since we wanted to see the Karomber lake in its unfrozen form.

Visiting for the second time was even more fruitful as some locals recognised me from my previous trip. I had prints of the portraits I had taken of them during my last visit. I had also learnt a little bit of Wakhi, which allowed me to communicate better.

Their hospitality is such that if you pass a village during a trek, you would be stopped and given salted tea, dildongi (flatbread) and dral (sweet dish similar to pancake).

The route we took was a little different this time as there was a lot of landsliding on the way, making the main road to Ishkarwaz inaccessible. Our coaster dropped us at Kashmanja, which is about five hours away from Ishkarwaz.

Since we were behind by one day, we had to expedite our trek by making less stops and without setting up camp on the way to Karomber lake.

Something happened the night we reached the lake that I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams. It took me 12 long hours to trek to the lake. Everyone else was already very far ahead or had reached.

I was moving slower than usual, since I was feeling sick after drinking water from an unhygienic stream. My friend Zafar alongside me was not feeling well that day either. To add to this, I was carrying extra weight in a bag that did not have waist support.

I had to stop and rest every few minutes. I was so behind that night had already fallen, the temperature had dropped, and strong winds had started.

The porter who was carrying my warm clothes had already reached the destination, which was still a few hours away. I only had a full-sleeve shirt and a raincoat to keep me warm, which obviously was not enough. Then suddenly, my torch stopped working. Zafar had also gone out of my sight. Everything was a recipe for disaster!

Just when I felt things couldn’t get any worse, it started raining. There were hardly any trees on this path, which meant no shelter. My breath started growing shorter and I went into a cycle of unconscious – falling, coming round, getting up, and continuing my trek.

The cycle continued for hours and seemed like an eternity to me. My entire life flashed before my eyes and a part of me told me it may be my time. I found a large rock and, with great difficulty, snuggled next to it, covered myself with my raincoat, and prayed.

I was going to either die, or be rescued if I were lucky. I closed my eyes but after a few minutes, I opened my eyes and I got up immediately. It felt as if my body was doing this all by itself and I had no control over it.

Before I knew it, I started running in the dark, jumping over streams and sharp rocks and not slipping even once. There was a voice inside my head that kept telling me to keep going. It felt like somebody was carrying me.

I eventually ran into another person who was also trying to find his way. It turned out to be Zafar. We stuck to each other to keep warm and prayed for our lives.

The voice inside me told me to keep looking south. After a few minutes, a torch frantically shone from the same direction. It was Zeeshan, one of the climbers. He ran to us and rescued us. It was a moment that I will never forget.

I did not see the lake until the next morning. As expected, it had fortunately thawed, so we got to witness it in its most majestic form. It looked so infinite in size and reflected so many colours.

Truly, journeying across this region was nothing short of epic (given its history and that Genghis Khan is said to have set foot on the same route) and life changing.

Similar to our route the year before, we passed through the Chikar village and I met everyone again. They were happy to see the prints of their photos and were incredibly hospitable as always.

This time, I took the liberty of going into one of their houses. Inside, I saw a child with mystic light shining on her through an opening in the roof. It was a similar image that had inspired me to explore this area in the first place.

All photos and video by the author.

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Mobeen Ansari is a photojournalist, painter and sculptor based in Islamabad. A graduate of National College of Arts in Rawalpindi, his mission is to promote a positive and often unseen side of Pakistan through his photographs.