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.
Vagabond,
I just noticed your comment and it reminded me an amusing experience a couple of years ago when I decided to visit my ancestral village, which I had never seen. (Searching for roots, I guess.) It is a small village located in a remote mountains of Mansehra district in N.W.F. P.
The last 6 miles of the journey were on a very steep and narrow dirt track up a mountain slope. Only one jeep plied up and down the track once every day. The jeep was a bare-bone contraption with no gadgets or dials and no seats other than the driver’s. The track was so narrow that it could barely accomodate all the four tires. There were sharp turns, and thousands of feet below flowed the Indus River. The passengers tumbled at every turn and hung on to whatever they could find in the jeep — mostly each other. Some quietly recited a prayer at each turn. There was hardly any population along the track. Only a few goats and scattered mud houses dotted the mountain slope.
After a particularly sharp turn I noticed a nicely made signboard at some distance ahead of us that looked like a well-made traffic sign. I couldn’t read it but guessed that it must be a warning of another sharp turn ahead. I was amazed and impressed by the thoughtfulness of the person or the administration for taking the trouble of putting up a traffic sign in such a desolate and inaccessible place where there was hardly any traffic. When we came closer, however, and were able to read the sign it said, “yahaN par gana bajana mana’ hai — ba-hukam nazim Oghi” (playing music is prohibited here — by the orders nazim Oghi)!!!
You are right, no one may whistle anywhere, anymore!
Well folks in Pakistan have no concept of preservation of their heritage. Be it architecture, music, literature.
Classic/historical buildings are torn down only to be replaced by office buildings and shopping plazas. Examples would be the Palace Hotel, Metropole, gothic styled buildings on Victoria Road, Colonial houses around Parsi Colony and Quaid’s Mazar.
Similarly, Classical music is dying a slow death in Pakistan.
Metropole is gone, maybe because it got a little too famous after Daniel Pearl was picked up from the lobby before his disasterous journalims.
In either case, in its dying days Metropole was just another Karachi brothel, where rumor has it a Ukranian troupe would camp for weeks while ‘servicing’ local clients.
I was born in Karachi in 1974, and lived in Pakistan for about 1 minute thereafter. I go back regularly, but basically I am American, and my concept of Pakistan was basically shaped from the mid-80’s onwards.
I read this article, and I hear stories from my parents and their contemporaries, and at times I could swear that Karachi in the 1950’s & 60’s was a more happening place than Monte Carlo. It would seem the city in those days would’ve have been better suited to life on the Mediterranean than on the Arabian Sea.
Duke Ellington played the Metropole!?!?! Are you kidding!?!? I could never have even imagined it!
That I agree with. And what I was saying by pointing out that I never bought into Karachi not being plugged into the rest of the world at any point.