I was on a school trip to Karachi at the beginning of the millennium. The prospect was all rather thrilling: dozens of teenagers from different schools across the country convening in one hotel to compete in everything from singing to mathematics. We were so excited because it was the first time many of us had been on a weeklong trip with schoolmates away from Lahore and without any kind of parental supervision. I was mostly excited about being put up in a hotel like a proper adult on a business trip. Not a fan of my school at the best of times, I was looking for an opportunity to leave the hotel and get out and have some fun.
While I was there, my father had asked one of his old friends to come and take me out for dinner one night. That man was the starchitect Habib Fida Ali. That night, I found him standing in the middle of the lobby waiting patiently, looking around with a sort of bemused curiosity at the uniformed adolescents bustling around him. He was tall, commanding and kind.
He had been talking about the building when I naively asked why the columns had fruits on top of them
At that age - when all teenagers are sullen, resentful and reticent - the prospect of going out with your parents’ friends is daunting. I had met Uncle Habib several times before and had always enjoyed his company, but would I be able to carry on a conversation with him the whole night? He was so intelligent, so erudite. What could I possibly say that would interest him?
He beamed when he saw me and gave me an affectionate hug. He had driven himself and decided to take me to his house for dinner because he thought I might enjoy seeing it. I remember that drive vividly. I remember the twinkling city lights of Karachi, which to me has always seemed chaotic, dusty and - dare I say - even unattractive, suddenly coming alive. Habib had a deep, booming voice and I can hear it even now. It was sonorous and rich, the kind of voice that lucky smokers have and that you long to hear on radio stations and in lecture halls. He casually pointed out a building as he turned the steering wheel at a roundabout and what was to me only a ruin became, through his telling, a living thing with a past and even a future. He knew when everything was built, who had lived where and why one building looked a certain way, which was all deeply impressive to me. He had been talking about the building when I naively asked why the columns had fruits on top of them.
The Education Building at Karachi University, designed by Habib Fida Ali
How he answered implied that it was the most natural thing in the world to not know this. That was the first time I found out what Corinthian columns were.
His home was a very handsome, elegant and simple colonial structure. There was a long driveway and his architectural offices were to the left in separate buildings, while the main house, beautifully lit up, was straight ahead. Uncle Habib, as I have known and loved him, was very proud of that house. We should all be. It was a temple of his devotion to aesthetics, and a testament to what architecture can achieve. The interior walls at the time were in shades of robin’s egg blue, or dove grey, and the white of the columns (not Corinthian) and moldings stood out against them like jewels. The furniture was modern, spare, Zen and beautifully proportioned. He showed me around the different objects he had collected over the years, and I saw so much of my own father’s love of history in the way he spoke about a Japanese vase or a jade seal.
Everything in that house was perfectly curated. Throughout the evening he made sure to keep asking about my mundane life. What paintings did I like? Which subjects did I enjoy? What did I think I wanted to study later? Never once did I feel that I was being lectured by someone more interested in their own opinions than mine. Never once did I feel like a teenager in front of an icon (which I was), but rather he behaved as if we were a pair of old friends. Acts like those affect a young person. For that generosity of spirit, as for so many wonderful aspects of his personhood, he secured my lifelong affection.
I tentatively opened up about perhaps going into the humanities, and he beamed and we spoke of art and the artist’s life.
After dinner he dropped me back at the hotel. Again, he drove himself. When we arrived, he stopped the car, got out with me, led me to the door and gave me another hug. He thanked me for coming to dinner and told me to give my parents his love and to come over whenever I was next in Karachi. We stayed in touch throughout my adolescent years and into my adulthood. I called him up whenever I was in Karachi. He never once failed to turn up to my professional engagements in Karachi. Not once. Even when he was unsteady on his feet, I could always count on seeing him there, cane in hand, standing in a corner and radiating what I like to think of was pride. I was meant to see him next month in Karachi.
Habib Fida Ali died last week. Most of his obituaries spoke of his work; about how he was the architect who designed the LUMS campus in Lahore, or renovated the excellent Mohatta Palace in Karachi. They spoke of his global practice and the rich legacy he left behind. They are all correct. His legacy is as rich as his voice was comforting. When I found out about his death, I took the memories of that night out of the backrooms of my mind to dust them off. I cried when I saw them again. That night taught me how deeply a love of art can affect a person’s life. I don’t think I would be what I am today had I not gone to his home for dinner that night. It taught me that to live well, to live beautifully, is itself a calling, and for that, I shall always be grateful to him. I shall miss him deeply.
