An Ode to Karachi

Thank Ras, It is a City of our birth and no matter how far away we are and how torn the strife ridden city becomes, it is still the Eden in our hearts and our minds. And maybe , just maybe we can somehow try and improve it and learn to deal with its problems, and crisis and turn it around. I do not know much and Havent done enough to qualify for intelligent discourse on civic improvement, but I can hope that one day, some day, the dream will be realised. And that Marble Mausoleum may not look so sad as it stands there with heroin laden addicts all around its boundaries.

Thanks for your sentiments and effort Syed Ali.
Karachi is very much a part of our identity, for some of us as a place of birth.

Here is my own humble poetic effort on CHOWK in 1998:


A BEGGAR FROM KARACHI


Once like the current multitudes in Chappals

These legs also walked your dusty streets

As this was home, but now all but lost in memory

Clifton Beach, Saddar and the market no

Empress would much care to bless.



Paan stains or is it the crimson of blood?

Of the many young and now old, pierced hate

The metal of unholy bullets in still bodies

Widows, orphans and the ravages of

Jinns let loose in the bazaars of fearful lives.



Peace once walked through this city but

Like Mir, sons died here for many perceived sins

And the loss has now reached the healer Hakim who

By educating children was pronounced guilty of doing good

Sentenced to death at age 78 to leave us horrified.



Many names not as famous come to mind too but

Space limits and the pain of this madness erases

Man dreams burnt in the hot Tandoors of hate

Bigotry, selfishness and the smoke of street heroin

All are now experiencing the futility of addiction.



Very easy it is to blame the outsiders for oppression

But amongst ourselves oozes a little truth

The City of Lights calls for an era that once was

When the people of Karachi lived around the clock

And were not forced to plead for peace

Like this beggar from the past.


By

Ras H. Siddiqui