Karachi, lite
Experiencing the fun side of the city…
By Bharat Bhushan
It requires a leap of faith for many Indians to think of Pakistan as a place where one can have fun. So when I told a colleague in Delhi that I had been to the Fashion Week in Karachi last week, her response was -- "So they had these burqa-clad women walking the ramp? Ha, ha, ha."

The Salt Range of Punjab is home to a series of temples dating back a full 1000 years. Stretching from the banks of the Jhelum, they are situated in a meandering line through the rugged hills to the banks of the Sindhu River. Because of their great age, these buildings are in various stages of decay. All of these religious buildings were raised between 950 to 1050 CE by the kings of Kashmir when they held sway in this area.

While every single one of them is a visual treat because of the fine artistry that went into their construction, surely the most breathtaking one is Malot. And for two reasons: for one, it is situated on the very verge of a sheer fall of some 200 metres. Secondly, it is the only one of the Salt Range temples, which exhibits very strong Greek influence.

Now, Malot was built when Greek Taxila had decayed into the dust. Though the buildings of that ancient city were forgotten, by some abstruse mechanism, the stonemasons of the Potohar plateau had retained through dozens of generations the architectural vocabulary their ancestors had learned from the Greeks. Malot was built, as Kipling wrote in Kim, "...by workmen whose hands were feeling, and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch."

Despite the unkindness of nature and the passage of time, not to mention man's malicious hand, Malot stands majestic on a low hill to the south of the village that takes its name. It retains its fluted pillars with their Doric capitals so starkly reminiscent of Greek influence. There are, of course, architectural embellishments that are of purely local inspiration. The porous red sandstone used in its construction has eroded in wind, rain, and none of Malot's ancient iconography is now clearly discernible, but experts tell us that this temple was consecrated in the name of Lord Shiva.

The passage of centuries deprived Malot temple of its spire, the shikhara -- perhaps in an ancient and now forgotten earthquake. The gateway to the temple that sits some metres to the eastward of the main building has lost its roof and the walkway connecting the two is also gone. Yet, Malot continues to enthral and captivate with its aesthetic refinement.

If nature was unkind to Malot in the past, it continues to be so. The low outcrop of limestone on which Malot is situated is, in the words of an expert geologist, a miniature of the entire Salt Range. In that, it is slowly being pushed upward by tectonic movement. As it rises, the Malot outcrop is splitting apart. Consequently, just by the foundation of the temple building, the ground is riven by a narrow but deep cleft.

Back in 1994 Azmat Ranjha, the Deputy Commissioner of Chakwal, a man of good sense, ordered the cleft to be filled in with concrete in order to arrest its further widening. Even then he knew the measure was desperate and of little avail over the long term. Nonetheless, some little good was done under his instructions.

Back in the mid-1990s, after the work initiated by Azmat Ranjha, I wrote a piece in this paper about emulating the work done by the Indus Valley School of Art. The more than a hundred year-old building that houses the school in Clifton, Karachi was originally situated in Kharadar where it had been abandoned for some years and was awaiting demolition for being dangerous.

Some minds worked and the building was purchased. It was then dismantled, block by block, each block numbered and the whole was re-assembled in Clifton. Since Malot is threatened not only by mining activity but by natural tectonic movement, a similar action is necessary if Malot is to be saved for eternity.

Recently my friend Raheal Siddiqui came back from a visit to Malot with bad news. Just below the temple, a new coalmine has been opened. Now, coalmines in this region are not unknown, but we had not seen one immediately below the temple building. If that was bad enough, the worst was that a fat and ugly diesel generator powers the working. Pounding away the livelong day, and sometimes through the night, the generator sends dangerous vibrations through the hill and into the foundations of Malot temple. Little do the owners of the mine know and even less do they care of the great danger in which they put this priceless historical building.

Fortunately, there are stalwarts in this country who care for the cultural heritage of our sorry land. One such good man, a lawyer from the Salt Range, has filed a case in the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court,. Taking cognisance of the grave danger the 1000-year-old building is in, the honourable judge has stayed work on the coalmine. He has also scheduled a visit to the site to ascertain the correct position for himself. Even as you read these lines, the visit has perhaps taken place.

I do not think much good came of the last blighted dictatorship that we suffered, but one thing certainly did: judicial activism. In his foolishness, the dictator messed with the higher judiciary and unwittingly gifted our nation with this activism. The happy result is that My Lords of the higher benches now take notice of all irregularities.

Whatever is the court decision, one hopes that in the process, the historical and cultural heritage of Pakistan will be preserved for the future, especially the most beautiful of all the Salt Range temples.

It requires a leap of faith for many Indians to think of Pakistan as a place where one can have fun. So when I told a colleague in Delhi that I had been to the Fashion Week in Karachi last week, her response was -- "So they had these burqa-clad women walking the ramp? Ha, ha, ha."

"Actually no," I said. "There were these ethereal looking models, all over six feet tall -- like the Na'vi from Avatar -- with off-the-shoulder dresses, showing a lot of leg on the ramp. They walked like elegant long-legged insects, with their torsos thrown back 75 degrees to the ground almost unable to keep pace with their lower half."

I was in Karachi at the invitation of Aman ki Aasha, a joint venture of the Jang group of newspapers, Geo TV and The Times of India, to explore the possibility of peace between Pakistan and India.

Karachi has a special place in my heart. Seven years ago I was bamboozled into addressing a rally of fishermen on the Sir Creek maritime dispute between the two countries, because of which fishermen on both sides are regularly arrested for illegally crossing "borders". The meeting was in one of the largest fishing villages in the area -- Ibrahim Hyderi.

I am normally a nervous speaker even in front of five people, but that day I spoke at a meeting of nearly 5,000 fishermen. I did not know any Sindhi, Balochi or Kacchi -- the languages spoken by the fishermen and spoke a sort of patois Urdu. I was a complete wreck at the end of it but the fishermen claimed politely that they had understood everything I said. As the place of my first, and probably last, political address, I have a special fondness for Ibrahim Hyderi and Karachi.

I was pleased to be staying at my favourite hotel, Avari Towers. That night, my Indian colleagues decided to patronise the must-go restaurant of Karachi, BBQ Tonight. But a surfeit of grilled meat gets my goat in Pakistan. I went to Cafe Flo, a French restaurant that has the ambience of a Parisian café. You can choose to sit outside. I had Carpaccio, followed by fish meuniere. They were excellent.

The next evening we visited the Pakistan Fashion Week at the Marriott. Though we reached late we were accommodated in the second row. There were takeaway bags containing T-shirts. One even had two condoms with some campaign literature on HIV.

The fashion show featured the big names in Pakistani fashion like Deepak Parwani, Umar Sayeed, Sana Safinaz, Faiza Samee, Shamaeel Ansari as well as newer talent like Sania Maskatia, Aziz Ali and Sana Rizwan. Deepak Parwani is one of the biggest names in Pakistani fashion. His label is stocked in London, New York, Dallas, Dubai and Singapore.

The music was loud enough to affect someone with a weak heart. "If you get a heart attack now, nobody will believe it's because of the music. They will blame the models," my Pakistani friend quipped.

Dinner was at the creek-side residence of Byram Avari, the owner of Avari Hotels, who was out of town but whose son Xerxes played host. I met up with several old friends including the veteran journalist Ghazi Salahuddin and his daughter Aliya who is now a TV reporter and Farjad Nabi, a documentary film maker who I had not seen since 2002. Farjad's award winning documentaries include one about Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan called "Nusrat has left the building… but when?" I remember him best for his "Das Goongi Filmein (Ten silent movies)" which he made with Mazhar Zaidi at the Mateela film collective and screened at the South Asia Film Festival at Kathmandu in 2001.

It was a treat to meet the unassuming M. Hanif of the A Case of Exploding Mangoes fame at the dinner. I told him how everyone in my family, including our two sons, had thoroughly enjoyed his book. "Tell me how to get my son to read books," he responded.

"Hey Bharat, remember me?" It was Asad Sayeed whom I knew from Cambridge, way back in 1991. He now works with the Collective for Social Science Research (Pvt) Ltd. Why Pvt. Ltd., I asked. "So that nobody thinks that we are an NGO and do things for free," he said with his bright smile.

The next day, I visited several boutiques including Sheep and Daaman, helped by a friend who had taken the day off from work, to shop for my wife. I also made the mandatory visit to the famous Zainab Market for Kutchi mirror-work cushion covers.

That night I had to make my way to another friend's house for dinner on my own as the rest of the group left early. When I finally got there, it turned out that the dinner was elsewhere. I had been given the wrong address.

A tall gentleman with a handlebar moustache came to the door. When I said that I was from India, he gave me a hug, invited me in for tea. "Don't be scared of hugging a Pakistani and don't worry, my man will escort you to your friend's house," he said and gave me his card.

"I work for the Customs. Next time you come, contact me at the airport and I will take you directly to your friend's house," he said, and offered his help while exiting Pakistan! "Kuch idhar ka samaan udhar le jaana ho to batayein," he said magnanimously, bowing with his hand on his heart.