that English has become their “adopted mother tongue”. They have no qualms in giving up their own most sweet-sounding mother tongue, Urdu, in favour of English, just to assert their ‘superiority’ over their less fortunate kindred folk.
A lot of buildings that took us on a nostalgic journey into the non-linear dimension, the past, have been or are being consigned to eternity to make room for high-rises, shopping plazas, and apartment blocks that are beyond the reach of the common folk, but line the pockets of those in the business.
However, it is happy augury that among us we have many who really value our golden heritage and would like to acquaint posterity with it; people who are imbued with the aesthetic sense to realise the extreme worth of our heritage. And, there’s a whole lot of them.
Ironically enough, they are to be found in the much-maligned media community. It is through them that we get an insight into our past.
One of these is noted city journalist Peerzada Salman. In his “Karachi: Legacies of Empires”, Salman digs into the foggy yet beautiful past of the city and points out a number of its facets in a whole lot of fields, buildings, health and recreation facilities, and places of worship.
His book on the city comprises 562 pages within which he deals with almost 150 architectural features of the city, features which, fortunately, are still there. For each structure, there is a comprehensive historical note and a colour transparency.
He starts with Merewether Tower, in the parlance of bus conductors and rickshaw drivers. The tower, designed by a Scottish architect, James Strachan, was built in 1884 as a memorial to General Merewether.
Salman, in the most depressing of terms, describes the state of disrepair and negligence the monument has fallen into. He takes us on a jaunt through the Karachi of yesteryear and just a little further up, there’s the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) building, built 99 years ago, with its impressive façade and its wide expanse.
There are accounts, complete with colour photographs, of the buildings that have been spared demolition to make room for lucrative real estate business.
There are views of the Saint Andrews Church in Saddar, a garrison church built in the latter half of the 19th century for men of the British garrison who belonged to the Church of Scotland.
The photographs depict the architectural grandeur of both the exterior and the interior, a mix of the Gothic and renaissance style architecture.
There are the photographs of the Empress Market, a monument going through a constant decaying environment with undisciplined, uncontrolled vehicular traffic burgeoning with the passage of each day.
The book also mentions the contributions of Muslim architects of pre-partition Karachi, such as Ahmed Hassan Agha, who gave us buildings which, till today, remain pivotal in the functioning of the city as a commercial and artistic hub of the country.
The volume is a valuable source for knowledge regarding the Karachi of yore and would make an ideal compendium for not only history buffs and architects, but all those who value their heritage.