Adil Najam
Kaleem Omar is a journalist extraordinaire. Prolific, insightful, versatile beyond belief, and always full of surprises. His essay in this weekend’s The News on Sunday (18 June, 2006)‘Nobody in Karachi whistles anymore’ did not disappoint!
In the Karachi of the old days, the city of my youth, one often used to hear people whistling a jaunty tune as they cycled home at night after a movie. Many things in Karachi have changed since then, mostly for the worse. Which probably explains why nobody in Karachi whistles anymore – or, if they do, they do so in secret, as if it were a crime. Indeed, whistling has become so rare now that a whole generation of Karachiites has grown up not even knowing how to whistle – at least not in the way that many members of my generation could whistle entire songs in the old days, including catchy ditties like “Awaara Hoon Mein”, “Jambalaya” and “The Happy Whistler.“
Whistling is not the only thing that isn’t heard in Karachi anymore; jazz isn’t heard here either. Back in the 1950s, however, Karachi had many jazz musicians. Most of them belonged to the city’s Goanese community and lived in a section of Saddar some people called “Little Goa”. Romeo Pereira’s bakery in Saddar was famous for its “black bread”. Rodrigues, a tobacconist on Elphinstone Street, was the shop you went to for your favourite blend of pipe tobacco and other smokers’ requisites. Where does one go to buy black bread now? Does today’s generation of Karachiites even know what black bread is?
The entire article is, of course, worth reading. But the custodians of US image abroad might want to pay particular heed to this passage about a time when America exported music rather than fear. The custodians of Pakistan’s image might likewise recall a time when we were possibly more plugged into the global rhythms than we are today.
In the 1950s the US State Department had a programme under which leading American jazz groups were sent to give concerts in cities around the world. Under that programme, such legendary jazz groups as Duke Ellington’s Band, Dizzy Gillespie’s Band and the Dave Bruebeck Quartet (of “Take Five” fame) came to perform in
Karachi and Lahore. Duke Ellington’s 60-member jazz band gave two concerts at Karachi’s Metropole Hotel in 1959. The band included such famed musicians as Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonsalves on the alto sax.
When Ellington’s band came to perform in Karachi, some of us jazz groupies informed him during a practice session at the Metropole that we had a local jazz musician [also] named Paul Gonsalves who also played the alto sax. Intrigued, Duke Ellington asked us to bring him over. When Ellington heard him play, he was so impressed by the quality of his playing that he invited him to play at the concert that evening. The American Paul Gonsalves and the Karachi Paul Gonsalves were seated next to each other at the concert. Their free-wheeling jam session brought the house down.
Well, the picture that Mr. Kaleem Omar drew of Karachi, was so bleak that I had to express myself. The point was that no matter how much you try to suppress the nature of a being, it will somehow and someday learn to express itself in the only way it knows how. Hence the Jurrasic Park example, where scientists re-created dinosaurs and gave them an environment to grow but when they made all of the dinosaurs, they made every single one of them of the female sex. A few months later, the dinosaurs starting reproducing “asexually”.
The point that the writer was trying to make (my understanding) was that Karachi has lost its culture, or its exposure to the west via western music. I would say that some of the music being produced in Pakistan, especially Karachi is by far much better than most parts of the world with similar economic and historic standing.
The Metropole might have been closed, but there are not only more concerts happenning but are also Night Clubs (not necessarily a good thing) popping up.
Why so defensive, Altamash? I love the Strings and others, too. But I took Kaleem Omar (who I also avoided reading for decades because his work just didn’t talk to me) to be point out something that most of our peers would find hard to believe: that Karachi once was an integral part of world culture and civilization, not the violence-torn backwater even we (read your own post) often think of it as. I personally, I don’t buy that it’s ever been or is un-connected to the rest of the world, but to have that view challenged once in a while is a good thing.
And I hear the Metropole is no more? Adil, can you find/post stuff on it? Anyone else?
Very interesting piece…it reminds me of someone I know trying to make a point that Nostalgic Indian music was far more superior than present day Indian or Pakistani music combined. I, of course being the musician and listener that I am, responded by immediately calling his point non-sense and that he has no clue as to what music is. Later on, I pondered upon why so many people who grew up in the 50’s and the 60’s like the songs of that era better than modern day music. It dawned upon me that its nothing but nostalgia and the fact that there used to be far less movies and music made at that time, therefore not much to compare with (not to mention bad sound quality). Older generations always try to put down the newer generations when it comes to things like creativity and education. When you compare yesterdays music industry to today’s, well you cant. The sound quality is amazing because of the technology, videos have gone into multi-dimensional photography and lyrics also have not fallen that far behind.
Obviously Mr. Kaleem Omar has seen the bright days in Karachi, and my generation hasn’t but not all is lost. If watching “Jurassic Parkâ€
Yes, the pictures are Karachi. Top picture is Elphinstone Street and bottom one is Clifton. I beleiev both in the 1930s. BTW, Kaleem Omar is writing about the 1950 and 1960s.
Reader Mayraj Fahim writes to report of some very interesting work she has been doing in Karachi as an expert on local government, but also elsewhere in the world on “bottom-up 3-tier system with the neighborhood (union council in Pakistan terminology) as core unit” of governance.
She has written about local governance in Karachi as well as elsewhere:
http://www.citymayors.com/government/karachi_gover nment.html
http://www.citymayors.com/society/china_urban.html
Fascinating stuff for urban planners but also for anyone interested in local governance. Maybe we can explore urban governance in Pakistan in more detail later.