Pilgrim's Progress

It's been a gradual process of getting to know each other: the school, the job and the City. This is just the first year of a two year contract. I am settled in the Spiderweb, Tariq Road. The school is coming along with Mrs V (or Appa) back. She runs a tight ship, and the section is cohesive and united although we, the staff, are still a little standoffish with each other.

One Ramadhan has gone, and I enjoy the invites to peoples houses for iftar, or the evening breaking of the fast. I am also learning Urdu under a tutor, who comes to the Spiderweb. His name is Hubert and he is a Christian. He's  a very young man, barely out of college. He teaches me expressions like:
                                                Kitne ka hai? (How much is it?)
But then we usually end up chatting and arguing about religion.

I am not a Christian, although I have been actively searching and researching Christianity in the UK. I visited many churches of different denominations and read some pretty hefty tomes about theology.
I have met a few Christians here as well. One or two teachers in the school are.They're not pushy or irritating at all.

I visit St. Andrew's Church in Zaibunissa Street on St Andrew's Day in November. Inside it is cool and there is an atmosphere of anticipation as I and a few others sit and wait for something to happen. An azaan sounds from a nearby mosque then fades away with its last declaration. Then there is the sound of bagpipes as a piper walks mournfully up the central aisle.

St Andrew's Church, Karachi

Nearby the school is a Baptist church headed by Pastor Coleman. The building is tucked behind a wall down a side street off Khalid bin Waleed Road. There's a tank there for the full baptism - I witness one when I am invited one day. The baptee is in jeans and old clothes and ducked completely under. I think they expected me to join him.

Hubert and I go to Saint Patrick's Church one day, and to the seminary. Hubert wants me to make that shove towards being accepted and to accept Jesus as saviour. Many have tried before but I am usually pretty resistant. We wander through the seminary and enter what we think is wyet another empty room it is so quiet.

Inside a girl is laying full-length on a table and five or six men and women are standing around and placing their hands on her. This is some form of healing, apparently. Hubert is mesmerised. When they all stand, girl included, they stare at us both. Hubert gazes at me as if in a daze, beckons me to come and then leaves with the men and women and girl closing the door gently after. Just like Ali (See my 'Man in the Moon' post) Hubert vanishes and I never ever see him again.

Some people just disappear.

I am left to tackle Urdu on my own.

My First Tuition

So I am now a geography teacher... There's a kind of contract, of sorts, more like a "gentleman's agreement" (the words of my old friend Shorty, whom we will meet). I am getting 4,000 rupees a month which makes some other source of income a necessity. The contract states I am employed to teach English and "any other subjects I choose."

That other source of income is home tuition - either at the student's home or mine. Being a bachelor and with the Spiderweb as my home, it's impractical to invite students over, especially girls.

Mrs Smythe has an immediate solution and tells me about a boy, Omer,  who needs a tutor. He lives in a huge house and the family has a "butler" - much to the giggling amusement of Mrs Smythe.;

Hill Park

Omer's house is quite near as the crow flies. I'll get to know Karachi's Hill Park on my daily visits to the tuition, as the large rather deserted recreational area lies between the Spiderweb and the house. Omer is a large boy. He studies at the school run by the U.S. and he, and his two rather large younger sisters, are ferried every day there in a very large, 4 x 4 Landcruiser cum troop carrier. It's silver and looks like it should belong in a fifties sci-fi movie, say, like "Forbidden Planet." Or even a Gerry Anderson Supermarionation spectacular.

Omer's family are very rich. There are artefacts everywhere: an old-fashioned and huge globe, a pair of white porcelain full-size dogs, a toilet with spotless tiles, a huge banquet-sized table where we sit and do our tuiting.

Omer's father is a dashing character, with shoulder length swept-back hair, and dazzling bright eyes. His whole family seem larger than life. His Uncle chacha (father's brother) has a huge booming voice and a jovial personality. I meet the Pakistani extended or joint family for the first time. Omer's mother fusses over me, feeding me and providing endless drinks during tuition timings.

They are a warm, loving and somewhat chaotic family, and it is clear Omer needed some order in his life and I am to provide it.

The Northern areas

Besham

And somehow, during my little holiday, I visit Besham. 

I think my original aim was to get to the Pakistan - China border: the Khunjerab Pass.

The journey is exciting and eventful. After a long train ride to Rawalpindi, things begin to take off. In Murree, that all too accessible tourist winter and summer destination, I come across a troupe of teenage boys intent on taking photos of each other. (This was before the selfie craze). When I join them, it's photos of me - in combination with each one (there are five of them), then in various groupings of different numbers.I finally bid farewell to them taking 'action' pictures of themselves in various running poses.

Murree

At Balakot, I see the famous bridge but then turn away from Kaghan by a landslide. A rather morose hotel owner moons about wondering when the next tourists will come.

There are the Kalashnikov wielding young men of Dir, where I rescue a fair maiden of Australia in a cowboy bar and take her to book in at the PTDC motel. She wonders why she can't meet the locals so I take her to the local market to buy a salwar kameez. She buys a shocking pink outfit and the last I see of her is when she ascends a steep hill to meet the ladies in a hut.

Another not to be missed tourist attraction in Dir is the naked man. I am watching people in the vegetable market when he turns up. He has not a stitch on and jostles next to a woman in full burkah, pinches a carrot and runs off. No one takes a bit of notice, so he's obviously a regular customer.

In Chitral I meet the most pompous, arrogant, stuck up, opinionated Pakistani male I have ever come across. It's a rare phenomenon but distasteful and ugly when it does occur. He attempts to poke fun at me and my culture, at the British occupation and the colonial past. And all of this over dinner in a fairly posh restaurant in front of a fellow Brit - a pretty young girl in a sixties style flowy dress. He is, of course, wearing the full western suit and tie. I leave in a huff and have a more modest repast at the hotel with a group of boisterous local tourists.  As we are in banter, the flowy girl returns and charges up to me.

Chitral

"I think you are an utter f..........g bastard," she shouts at me in front of everyone then storms off to bed. I'm pretty used to this so I receive it with my usual notebook style. I stand firmly by my huff.

It's all very beautiful up here in the north of Pakistan. Besham is what is called in geography parlance a linear settlement. It's a ribbon of shacks and shops along a not so impressive stretch of the Karakoram Highway. Just what I like. And there are Chinese tourists in the little tea shop I stay at. Not neat little fellows, but swarthy, Mongol type rough riding men. The whole place had the feel of a Wild West town.

My northern areas trip.

The Route

My Holiday Route August 1987

Summer Holidays.

It's August 1987 and I have been teaching from April till now non stop. I teach through the June July holidays - very young children. Mrs V is back and is hardly an 'Appa' (Big Sister) to me. She is a hard taskmaster!

Mrs V "Appa"

The children are well behaved, rather sullen in fact. One pair of girls are daughters of a local fishing manager who lives behind the school. I am usually chaperoned - or maybe it's for the kids - with an older lady looking on to see how things are going with the class.

I have also started some tuitions - one being along the school lane. Two girls, in their late teens, wanting English conversation. When I turn up there in the afternoon, no one is there and a servant (a young boy) takes me to what looks like a prayer room. It's empty but for a red carpet and a few "kabab" cushions. They're called roll cushions in the UK I believe. The boy then wheels in an elaborate TV on a high stand, and switches it on. After some time a film begins: "The Exorcist" complete and uncut. Regan is just doing her inverted spider thing down the stairs when the two girls appear.

I decide, after all the work, to do a bit of travelling up north. I sort of have got the permission, grudgingly, from Appa. She's not happy, but I don't want to suffer 'burn out' when there are still twenty weeks of term left. (No half terms or autumn holidays.) Taking a small break of two weeks at the beginning of term, I figure, will at least minimize any damage.

I leave the Class in the capable hands of Mrs V and off I go.

Quaid - i - Azam

It would be remiss of me not to make some mention at this point of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Quaid - i - Azam (Father of the Nation).

His is an invisible but clearly palpable influence in the lives of the people of Karachi, as a Leader, Role Model and as a living reference. The Quaid is definitely not just 'history.'

He looks down on his people from offices: he is in the visa department looking down on us, then in the office of the college dean at NED and Dawood. He is the offices of school principals, in railway station masters' offices.

He looks down with eyes that are stern yet fair and kind. The austerity and dignity of his character are no more apparent than in the monument erected in his honour. There is no statue. There is a magnificent memorial grand in its simplicity, elegant in its symmetry and balance. The mausoleum in Karachi encapsulates the ideals of The Quaid..

Muhammad Ali Jinnah passed away in 1948 in September, just a year after his work for the muslims in creating a homeland was done. It was too early to build a lasting legacy following the arrival of Pakistan in the world. He did, however, leave the powerful reminder of the strength of faith and decision and an unswerving devotion and dedication which makes him live in the hearts of his countrymen forever.

UNITY FAITH AND DISCIPLINE

On the Buses.

The buses are the first things to strike me in the main huddle that is Tariq Road, Karachi. Silver, carefully and colourfully decorated with horns sounding like crazed dinosaurs.

They tend to stop wherever they want - with request stops included. They race around the city sometimes leaning on the corners precariously, the ticket seller hanging from the front or back.  And there's always more room on the top, giving a new meaning to the "double-decker" idea. (Or maybe the open - top bus.)

Inside the seats are already packed tightly together and the aisle is always full. The 'conductor' usually a skinny fellow, squeezes between standing passengers, clicking the thumb and middle finger for tickets. He holds a wad of notes in his left hand.

Women (and foreigners) are given the choice of a seat near the front of the driver - a designated area - where there is marginally more space, mainly due to the huge gearbox. It is more interesting to ride inside with the Karachi-ites.

Stopping and starting the bus, for people to get on and off is usually done by the young conductor rapping the side of the carriage and shouting destinations.

A Karachi Bus

At traffic stops - red lights and the like - a crowd of street sellers and beggars flock round: men selling coconut cut into manageable crescents, or sesame sellers, transgender folk begging for alms, other beggars young and old.

One evening, while Ali the Iranian is still there, he gets this absurd idea to take me on one of these buses to Sohrab Goth. Being still in my single man travelling mode, I agreed. 

Sohrab Goth seems to be at the edge of the known universe. We travel forever, only to get down at a dusty, dusk-lit cowboy town. There are men with straggly beards sitting in groups drinking their evening tea. On seeing me they shout barrabar! which I interpret to mean "brother." We share a cup of tea. There are no signs of the infamous guns associated with the place.

The ride back, by bus, is manic and rivals the Star Ship Enterprise at warp drive. There are only Ali and I and a conductor in the passenger seats on board. The driver gets it in his head to race another bus to Tariq Road. We blaze through crowded streets, lights flashing and I half expect to enter another universe.

Of course, we arrive intact late into the night. I have to get ready for the next day.

Sohrab Goth, Karachi.

Bus 45

Bus 45

loaded with

people

it made its way

empty as

streets in

the receding day

I climb up

into the inside

sullen

morning faces

we bump along the rough road

"Do you wanna ride?"

cries the buscon

ductor out at way walkers

street idlers

in the faint morning heat

we ply the main streets wiggling through market ways tariq road bahadurarbad round about and about and again amd again past hill park into sharea faisal along along alonglonglonglognlogngngnolgogng

stop

lurch a few feet forward

shudder

stop

the con

ductor sweeps out and lunges

onehand in the doorway

the other clutching tea

swilled swiftly down

meanwhile

people climb up

onto the roof

old men with

skinny shanks

or shins toughened by heat

and standing young men

they squat on top

the con

ductor raps the side

shouting destin

ations

nazimabad tower drigg road saddarsaddarsaddarsaddar SADAAAAAR

we climb down

turn and

lose him as he

lurches round the cor

ner, bellowbarking places

over the bus

skreeling

crying

parping

gone

Tony Hamid © 7/8/2015

The Man in the Moon.

Karachi is a city of refugees. One of them, Ali, is an Iranian who meets me every day after school. He's a tall, handsome young man with curly hair and an amicable way to him. Ali has fled neighbouring Iran and the regime of the Ayatollah who overthrew the Shah in 1979.

The Shah of Iran  & The Ayatollah                                                                                                                                 

Ali's hatred has infiltrated his religion and he has one aim: to flee to America. We meet and chat a lot, wandering the streets of Karachi till night. He makes fun of the maulvis - religious leaders - in his country. Understandable, I suppose, but I am a little uncomfortable. He makes a joke of the Ayatollah claiming his face can be seen in the moon. Behind his words, I feel fear and aggression.

Can you see a face on the moon?

I meet a few of his co-nationals, lodged in a dark flat on Tariq Road. Rustum and Ahmed.Ahmed, in particular, is aggressive towards me as a representative of education. He wanders from room to room singing (or chanting):

"We don't need no Education!"

and

"HEY! TEACHER! LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE!"

Ali just grins in embarrassment.

Later we go to a cafe around the corner from the Spiderweb for a cup of evening tea. It's a lively place full of the chatter of workers there for their dinners. While there a transgender hijra stops to entertain with bawdy jokes and clapping.And even a little dancing.Her name is Sunhita, and Ali is fascinated by her.

When we leave, we see Sunhita moving towards Karachi's Hill Park. Ali can't resist and follows her.

"I want to see if she is real," he calls as I turn for home.

It is the last I see of him chasing Sunhita till they are both swallowed by the dark.

He must have found his California dream home.

Hill Park, Karachi

Mr Chand.

Life takes on a whole new colour at the Spiderweb. I feel part of the hubbub of the city.  Just down the road, towards Tariq Road is Kurta Gali (Shirt Road) leading onto Allama Iqbal Road. Men sit outside in the evenings when it is cool, arranging their chairs in a circle to drink tea and chat. (Gupshup) The talk is usually of politics, Pakistan still being a relatively young nation (but older than Sudan - Independence in 1956) having forged its independence in 1947.

I pass by one group a few times in the evenings before, inevitably, I am invited to join them. They sit outside a furniture shop laughing noisily, slapping each others' hands.

I meet Mr Chand for the first time. He is small with hair swept over his brow, the compulsory faint moustache. He is known as Harry Chand - a nickname - chand being the local word for moon. I assume it is because of his round face. He has the look of a Charles Bronson combined with Claude Rains in Casablanca.

The furniture shop they sit outside apparently is his father's. Just further along, on the other side of Allama Iqbal Road, is a Fish and Chip shop run by a large man in a pinafore. His servant, Abdul, is a black bouncer who specializes in clearing rats. Each night he finds one and kicks it high in the air.

Mr Chand remains a friend for some years - even after marriage I occasionally see him. Then, like many friends, he evaporates.

One night he is alone and rather melancholy. He tells me of his visits to the seafront in Clifton.

Karachi Seafront

"You know," he tells me, 'When I sad...I take one chair by car. I go to seafront to see waves. and I sit and watch waves..."

He looks into the distance as if he is there now, instead of in a busy commercial street talking to me.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!" he says, and chuckles

"Woooooosh..." I say.

Back to School : The First Batch

That first batch.

While I am settling into the Spiderweb, I am teaching at the school - the domed Cambridge Section mentioned earlier. The first batch of students will eventually appear for their O levels (the first for the school) in 1991. There will be thirteen of them: eleven will be boys. two will be girls.

At present, there are more and they are in Class VIII in the room next to the circular office upstairs. Mrs V had put them there "to keep an eye on them" from the window joining the room with the office.

Mrs V is still not back yet, but present or absent, she has done a good job on the children. And on the section. Everything runs well and on a surprisingly small staff of teachers and admin - they all have the air of being hand-picked. Even the servants.

The school is within walking distance of the Spiderweb. There are plenty of rickshaws too. I have been told I will have to teach extra to get a reasonable income. I have also met the owner of the school - the Grand Dame - also known as Burri Appa (Big sister). She is a wiry, frail-looking older lady with a will of iron.

My teaching duties include a full-ish timetable in the morning and then at twelve fifteen I pop next door to the matric section to teach Classes V and VI there. There are 60 in one class and 50 in another! Still, it can't beat the 100 strong superclass of 15-year-olds in Sudan. It's a tiring day, but rewarding because of the enthusiasm of the students.

The Matric Section