In central Karachi sits a calm neighborhood called the Federal Capital Area (or FC Area), where I used to live in the 1970s and 1980s. It straddles over 4,000 acres and is made up of modest apartments for government servants. It used to have ample open spaces, playgrounds, parks and plantations. I lived here at a time when pushcart vendors defined the quotidien of its inhabitants. The sabzi wallah or green grocer would enter its streets at about ten o’ clock and announce his arrival with a nasal operatic flourish. This would be followed, in one deep breath, with a rapid-fire emission of his entire product line, which caused us to dash for our balconies so that the lunch and dinner menus could be debated with our mothers. Many of us did not have a refrigerator so vegetables had to be bought every day.
Buses on route 5A used to come in our neighbourhood every twenty minutes. We would board it and take a journey to Jinnah's mausoleum, old Radio Pakistan (on MA Jinnah Road) and Keamari
An hour later, the gola ganda wallah or ice-candy man would tinkle his bell on the street. This would elicit a pavlovian response from us children, whose ears were trained to hear it from quite a distance. We would bound down the stairs and swarm his cart with our four anna (quarter of a rupee) pocket money. He then proceeded to mince out ice flakes, shaping them into the forms we demanded.
Other feted visitors included the kulfi wallahs (milk ice cream), mong phalli or roasted peanut wallah, fruit sellers and utensil sellers (who would also give away glasses and tea sets in exchange for used clothes). This was a time when our mothers, who incidentally had more time for us, would have to contend with us rushing off to each vendor, interrupting their disciplining or supervision of our studies. The flip-side was that we managed their daily household errands thanks to this steady stream of vendors.
In the afternoons we played hockey. While our apartments were very small, our playgrounds were larger than life and many in number. Thus we had the luxury of choosing from the best available. The urge to compete and win would fire us up to work hard on our game. We learned how to organize local tournaments with teams from Nazimabad, North Nazimabad, Liaquatabad and PECHS who would visit our turf to compete.
In those days, a quality hockey stick was a luxury that few could afford. But we were skilled enough to repair broken ones by employing elementary carpentry skills. On national holidays, we organsed special exhibition matches and used to go around begging a hockey superstar to come watch. Once we were lucky to get national hockey team member Safdar Abbas as the chief guest for one of our matches. The joy of organizing the logistics and then attempting to display our skills was unmatchable. We also played many street games like kite flying, lattoo, gulli danda and marbles.
In those days, a bus ride to the city was a much vaunted leisure activity. Some of us lads would pool bus fares and some additional money for some fun. Buses on route 5A used to come in our neighbourhood every twenty minutes. We would board it and take a journey to Jinnah’s mausoleum, old Radio Pakistan (on MA Jinnah Road) and Keamari. The city had fewer cars and motorcycles as most people relied on buses as the main way to get around.
When the ticket conductor would approach us, we exercised our privilege of producing school identity cards so we would only have to pay half the fare. I always preferred to sit next to a window so I could see as much of the city as possible.
Hopping on to a tram and enjoying a ride on the Circular Railways was another interesting thing we did, though not that regularly. A boat ride from Keamari to Manora was the epitomy of leisure but came only a few times a year. Going to cinema houses for Urdu and English movies was a more frequent entertainment. We tended to go to Nairang and Firdaus in Liaqatabad, Arshi in Federal B Area, Bambino, Lyric, Scala and Star on Garden Road. Many of these cinema houses do not exist any more and have been replaced with markets, plazas and other commercial structures.
After we entered sixth grade we were qualified to accompany our mothers and elder sisters to the pictures. To be frank, we found their choices less than exciting as they tended to be intense family drama types of movies. Once, my mother took me to watch the all-time hit Aina (mirror) starring Shabnam and Nadeem. When I watched this movie again and appreciated its plot and acting, when I was a boy I can’t remember noting much more than the shining motor bike that Nadeem rode!
Even the politics of the 1970s is still afresh in my mind. I was a child when the 1970 elections were held. A van fitted with a loudspeaker would visit our neighbourhood and played election jingles about Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. I even saw him when he came to Liaquatabad in 1974. One of my uncles took me to the rally.
The 1977 elections were enormously exciting for the people of Karachi. I remember that our entire neighbourhood would sit out in the open on the chabootra (raised platform) of our apartments to listen to BBC Radio Urdu Service, including the well-known Sairbeen programme. Newspapers were regularly reviewed to form an analysis of what was going on in the country. And we grew concerned during the agitation by the Pakistan National Alliance (a combination of nine political parties that were contesting the veracity of the election results). A few of us boys were amused to listen to the 5 July 1977 speech by General Zia-ul Haq on TV, of merey azeez hamwatno (my dear countrymen). With almost no understanding of real politics and judging it merely by its looks, I remember one of my friends saying: Yeh aadmi to aik nakaam villain lagtaa hey. This man looks like a failed movie villain.
Dr Noman is the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Management Sciences at NED University, and has written extensively on urban planning, local government and water
This font was created specially for TFT's Authenti(cities) series by Habib University student Zainab Kazmi. It is called 'Fracture' and works with the original font of Didot.