NOVANEWS
AKHTAR BALOUCH
It all happened when I was the Provincial Coordinator of the core groups at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The commission’s office is situated in the ILACO House, State Life building on Abdullah Haroon Road.
Our kind teacher Hussain Naqi sahib had come from Lahore and was at the HRCP office. He was trying to tell someone the commission’s address over the phone: “Come onto the Victoria Road. On the other side there is the Elphinstone Street. Our office is inside the Indian Insurance building.” The person on the other side of the phone was probably not getting any of this.
I politely asked Naqi sahib if I could take over the navigation. He gave me the phone. I told the person in search of the office that if he was coming from Clifton, he should get on the Abdullah Haroon Road, whence he should move to Zainab Market, cross the traffic signal and enter State Life building number five. Considering that the person might not be coming from Clifton, I continued, “If you are coming from the Saddar area, then come onto the Zaibunnisa Street, turn left after crossing the signal and enter the State Life building number five.” Keenly taking mental notes of my navigational instructions perhaps, he took a deep breath and hung up.
Naqi sahib smirked and asked, “So now that is what these roads and streets are called?” I replied, “Yes, sir.” He never agreed that the office was not in the Indian Life Insurance building. I took it as a memory problem, usually a symptom of old age and the matter was forgotten for the time.
One day, when I was trying to find the Victoria Museum on the Elphinstone Street (Zaibunnisa Street), I saw HRCP’s Kashan Kashif enter the ILACO House. It was a Saturday, not an HRCP working day. I thought of going in and meeting Kashan sahib.
The building echoed with the silence of desolation – a typical weekend aura there. I thought, before I go see Kahsan sahib, I should take a look at the building itself. It, too, was an old building and hence could not be saved from my obsession of finding any traces of the Victoria Museum.
Inside the building there were old, wooden stairs on the right which lead to old rooms. A few more steps and I saw an old gate. There was a stone board on the gate. It was too old to be read in a glance. I gave it a careful look, and read “Indian Life Insurance” embossed on it. In an instant, I brought the camera in my hand to life and took a picture. Suddenly, a man, identifying himself as the building’s security guard, came forward and stopped me from taking any pictures. Later, it was revealed that the guard resided in an old apartment on the upper floor of the Indian Life Insurance building. He was afraid that if the building was declared cultural heritage he might lose his home.
I, for one, was embarrassed that I doubted Naqi sahib’s memory.
Some time ago Tayyab Jajvi, a young teacher at the Department of Journalism, Urdu University, Abdul Haq Campus, who also reads my blog regularly, told me that the college where his sister is a student has an old board. His sister told him that the board had a Briton’s name written on it. Tayyab said he had given his sister his cellphone so that she could bring some photos of the board, but the pictures were not that good.
I took the address of the college from him. It was located on Burns Road, where Justice Maqbool Baqir, a senior judge of the Sindh High Court survived an assassination attempt recently. The place is not far from where I live. However, since the electronic media hordes are not fanatical over so-called sting operations across the country, especially in the metropolis of Karachi, it is no longer easy to visit a historical place and click pictures without locals giving you a glare and suspecting what not.
When I spoke of this during a conversation with a journalist friend of mine, Ashraf Khan, he laughingly replied, “My dear brother, the people who stop [you] from taking pictures also have one or another interest against it. Also, media persons are adopting too aggressive attitudes.”
I recalled Ahmed Faraz’s couplet:
Kuchh tau hotay hain muhabbat main junoo’n kay aasaar Aur kuchh log bhi deewana banaa detay hain
(Love has some traces of madness in it / While people do the rest in turning one mad).
I thought of visiting the college when it is closed. One can easily ‘settle matters’ with the gatekeeper and take as many pictures as one wants.
One evening I was accidentally passing by the college building when I saw a small entrance open adjacent to the central gate. I hesitantly entered the building. There was no one there. I kept moving forward, counting my steps and there it was in front of me: the board. I quickly took the camera out snapped some pictures.
Done with the board, I now started taking a look around. Suddenly, I saw a young man coming in my direction. He came and inquired about the reason of my visit in a soft tone. I told him I write on old archeological buildings and that is why I was there. He shrugged and went off, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief. I resorted to click a few more pictures of some other boards quickly before leaving.
