Undoubtedly, you are ecstatic and at the same time in deep pain if you understand the true meaning of the act altogether. That was the charm of Sheema Kermani and her troupe at a dance performance, combining some of the best folk, classical, Odissi* and Kathak* steps. The performance took place  on April 29 at the Arts Council Auditorium, Karachi, celebratingthe International Dance Day.

Beginning the first dance performance on Sheikh Ayaz’s poem, The Song of the Thirsty Peacock, Kermani portrayed what it is like to be in chains and how to claim ones right to freedom through her dance moves by calling out for freedom and liberation, at a high note. The music of this was an original composed by Sajjid Hussain, the well-known composer and sitarist.

The troupe also performed on Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, Dhole Dhole, the performance was comparatively average.

The third performance was a of Kathak dance to a Tarana in Raga Kalavati. Performed by Mohsin Baber in the lead and three other female students. Baber needs a special mention for his performance; with the flowing dance steps to the engaging hand gestures, it was a feast for the eyes to see.

For Kermani herself, her dance steps were relatively calculated now, before, she would step on the stage with the persona of a young girl, now, her steps are comparatively risk-free, nonetheless they didn’t fail.  From Amir Khusrau’s collection came three splendid works; a ghazal named Zihal-e-Miskeen, a geet named Chaap Tilak and a qawalli named Aaj Rung Hae. Her solo dance performance incorporated moves from different forms of classical dance genres namely Kathak, Bharata Natyam* and Odissi

Kermani surely did justice to the work of Khusrau in dancing away on the same note therein, gesturing with her doe-eyes on Chaap Tilak. Her moves are evident of the fact that she considers dance not just as a performing art, but beyond that  — something spiritual. Rung too captured an essence that was long lasting and mesmerising; it was one flamboyant performance.

The finale of the evening were the traditional dances from the coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan. The music and the choreography of the entire evening was all Kermani’s original work.

On a final note, though Kermani performed on splendid tunes and proved herself once again, it was evident that she is an outstanding mentor; it was her students who impressed the audience.

Odissi, also known as Orissi, is one of the eight classical dance forms of India. It originates from the state of Odisha, in eastern India. It is considered to be the oldest surviving dance form of India on the basis of archaeological evidences.

Bharata Natyam is another form of classical Indian dance that originated in the temples of Tamil Nadu. Bharata Natyam dance moves are known for their grace, purity, tenderness, and sculpturesque poses.

Kathak is a Indian classical dance form that  traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, known as Kathakars or storytellers. Its form today contains traces of temple and ritual dances, and the influence of the bhakti movement.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2014.

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Nearly the entire city was shut down from Thursday evening till after the Friday prayers after the MQM announced a day of mourning to condemn the ‘extrajudicial’ killing of four of its activists. The four young men – Salman Qureshi, Sameed Ahmed Khan, Faizanuddin and Ali Haider – were identified as MQM workers at the Edhi cold storage.

Few incidents of aerial firing were also reported in different parts of the city that claimed the lives of at least two people while around five others were wounded. As a result, around 70 suspects were apprehended by the law enforcers. However, cases have yet to be registered against them.

Funeral prayers

The funeral prayers of the remaining two victims – Salman Qureshi and Sameed Ahmed Khan – were offered at main Numaish Chowrangi. The funeral prayers, held after the Friday prayers, were lead by Maulana Tanvirul Haq Thanvi. The funeral prayers of the two – Ali Haider and Faizanuddin – were offered on Thursday evening.

The participants of the funeral on Friday then staged a protest, shouted condemnations against the incident and demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits. Strict security measures were made for the funeral prayers and law enforcers were able to successfully avoid any untoward incident.

“Today, we are burying our loved ones. Tomorrow, someone else will be doing this,” said a friend of one of the victims. “We know that after a while, all of you will forget these victims.”

He then went on to claim that the victims will not receive justice. “We have no hope of justice as those who are investigating these cases are the ones who are kidnapping and killing them.”

Following the funeral prayers, the MQM appealed to citizens to resume normal activity. After the appeal, business activities resumed as markets, petrol pumps and CNG stations opened once again.

Khan and Qureshi were later laid to rest at the Shuhada graveyard and the Karachi University Campus graveyard, respectively.

Rest of Sindh mourns

The MQM supporters in Hyderabad also observed a day of mourning as party workers hoisted black flags at various public locations. Markets and commercial centres remained shut and the mourning call was backed by transporters, who kept public transport vehicles off the roads.

Like Karachi, the Sindh Public Service Commission and the Hyderabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education also postponed the exams scheduled for Friday.

Incidents of aerial firing were also reported from Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, and Tando Allahyar districts, while tyres were also burned in a few parts of Sindh.

In Hyderabad, two people were injured by stray bullets. Seven-year-old Soha, daughter of Abdul Aziz, was hit by a bullet while she slept at home. Abid Noor, 23, was hit in the leg in Noorani Basti. According to the Pinyari police, the attackers could not be identified.

Investigations

An FIR over the abduction-cum-killing of the workers was registered at the Memon Goth police station on behalf of the state when the bodies were found. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah ordered the police to find the men responsible for this crime and to arrest them under the Pakistan Protection Ordinance 2014.

“We are still waiting for the orders of senior officials about any changes that need to be made in the FIR,” the investigation officer of the case, inspector Raja Shahbaz, told The Express Tribune. “We do not have any evidence about the suspects involved in this incident yet.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2014.

“In whoever’s custody these workers and supporters are, they should either be produced in the courts if there are any charges against them or they should be released,” said the party’s parliamentarian and member of the Rabita Committee, Dr Farooq Sattar, at a press conference at the Khursheed Begum Secretariat on Friday.

Sattar, who was addressing the media when the party had observed their day of mourning to condemn the killing of its four workers, also stated their other two demands.

He appealed to Chief of the Army Staff Raheel Sharif to form an inquiry commission under Karachi Corps Commander to investigate the killing of its four workers. The MQM leader then requested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to form a judicial commission.

“If our workers are not recovered and our demands are not met, then we will hold peaceful protests across Sindh and hold sit-ins on all major thoroughfares of the province,” warned Sattar.

The party also revealed the details about the arrest and abduction of six of its workers on April 13. Four of these missing workers’ bodies were found on April 30. The MQM has said that the Rangers had aided and provided cover to the plainclothes men who were involved in arresting their activists.

On the night of April 13, the MQM workers were discussing party matters at a snooker club in the apartments of Scheme 33, Gulzar-e-Hijri, narrated Sattar. According to witnesses, a suspicious man was spotted eyeing them for three hours and, after he made a few phone calls, two double-cabin vehicles with plainclothes men arrived at the spot. “The watchman of the apartments fired at them thinking that they were robbers,” said Sattar. “The Rangers van present nearby came immediately and helped the plainclothes men to take away our workers.”

Initially 15 men were arrested, which included six workers and nine supporters. Five of them were released outside the building while 10 were taken to a Rangers checkpost in Sohrab Goth. Six of these activists were then shifted to another vehicle and taken to another location.

“We then received the gift of the bodies of four workers while two are still missing,” said Sattar, questioning the role of the law enforcement agencies in this incident. The MQM leader also pointed out that the bodies found in Memon Goth bore severe torture marks. Later on Thursday, MQM chief Altaf Hussain said that the law of the jungle has been imposed in Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2014.

The Shahabuddin Market is just a small distance away from the Empress Market and houses an old fish market and a water trough that was initially meant for animals.

A 61-year-old tailor, Muhammad Ishaq, who has lived in the area all his life, said that he and his siblings used to bathe in the trough every morning. “Now the trough has disappeared and certain ‘developments’ have put the historical market place at risk,” he said.

Expert opinion

Architect Yasmeen Lari fears that the excavation near the site would damage the structural integrity of the structure of Empress Market.

“They had wanted to remove the fish market but they changed the design of the parking plaza after people protested,” said Lari.

NED University of Engineering and Technology’s architecture and planning department chairperson Dr Noman Ahmed said that the civic administration has failed in its duty to protect the city’s heritage. “The Sindh Heritage Foundation wanted to cancel the project but instead the administration tweaked the parking plaza’s blueprint slightly,” he said.

He lamented over how the city’s history is being buried beneath its commercialisation. “Multi-storey buildings have been erected – a new architectural scale that conflicts with the old and that is what the Shahabuddin Parking Plaza is to the Empress Market,” he said.

The other side

The plaza’s project director, Muhammad Athar, refused to give in to the doom and gloom, saying that allegations of damages to the heritage site are completely baseless. “The Sindh Archaeological Department has also endorsed the parking plaza and the non-governmental organisations that are speaking out against the constructions have vested Western interests,” he claimed.

Athar also negated fears of sub-soil water threatening the plaza’s structure by claiming that a land assessment survey was conducted. “Since we faced objections from certain quarters, we had to stop construction and the area has had to pay the price of doing so,” he said. “The project provides new jobs and opportunities since it will have three shopping floors along with a five-storey parking. Nearly half of the construction has been completed and we will soon open bids for the shops.”

Karachi Metropolitan Corporation administrator Rauf Akhtar Farooqui endorsed Athar’s claims and said that the plaza will help Saddar. “The plaza is a unique project that can house 600 cars and hundreds of motorcycles.”

The shopkeepers

After migrating to Karachi after the partition, Salamat Ali was helped by the government to restart his grocery business besides the Empress market in the early 1950s. However, nearly half a century later, his business was relocated by the city administration. Only this time, the government’s interference destroyed his business rather than helping it. However, the Shahabuddin Parking Plaza, which will host 392 shops, provides hope for Ali, who hopes to invest in a shop there, but the delays have left him restless as he hopes to reopen his business as soon as possible.

Yet another failed project?

The Shahabuddin Parking Plaza stands just a stone’s throw away from the Saddar Parking Plaza, which was built at a cost of Rs650 million. The Saddar parking plaza is bigger than the Shahabuddin Parking Plaza and boasts 11 floors and a capacity of 1,200 cars. However, it has not proved popular as people claim that it is too far away from the main markets.

The Shahabuddin plaza’s project director, Muhammad Athar, insisted a second parking plaza is required in the area. “We will need more parking spaces even after the Shahabuddin Parking Plaza is completed.” Athar did admit that the Saddar Parking Plaza can be considered a ‘failed project,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2014.

In a meeting held on Friday, the KSE board decided that authorities concerned will be asked to withhold the planned increase of the CGT rate from the existing 10% to 17.5% in case the holding period of a security is less than six months.

The CGT rate for a holding period of less than six months was due to increase from 10% in 2012 to 12.5%, 15% and 17.5% in the following years. However, the government kept the rate unchanged at 10% for the last two years, which means it is set to go up by 7.5% in one go in 2014-15.

The CGT rate is marked to increase from 8% to 9.5% in 2014-15 in case the holding period of a stock is more than six months and less than 12 months. There is no CGT on the sale of securities after holding them for a year.

Speaking to The Express Tribune after the board meeting, KSE Director Mohammed Sohail said letting the proposed rate hike take effect will hinder the stock market’s growth in the country.

“Increasing the CGT rate will be detrimental to the government’s privatisation programme, which envisages the sale of government’s stake in different companies to the general public through the stock market,” said Sohail, who also serves as the CEO of Topline Securities, a Karachi-based brokerage.

The National Clearing Company of Pakistan (NCCPL) collected Rs1.2 billion in CGT during 2012-13 from individual investors, brokers and corporate entities. The NCCPL is not authorised to collect CGT from mutual funds, banks, non-banking finance companies, insurance companies, modarabas and foreign institutional investors, as they pay their CGT directly to the FBR.

Sohail added that de-mutualisation of the stock exchange will also receive a setback if the tax rate on capital gains increases. The KSE is in the process of finding an international strategic investor for a 40% stake, which will turn it into a company limited by shares. “Volumes will drop once the CGT rate goes up, turning away potential investors,” he said.

Calling the CGT rate exorbitant, Sohail noted no other regional country taxes capital gains at a rate greater than 15%.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2014.

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The protesters, convened in separate camps organised by the two parties, lambasted the government for the frequent incidents of target killings, extortion, deteriorating law and order and corruption, blaming the election commission for having stolen their mandate.

Encouraged by leaders of their respective parties, the protesters raised slogans against the commission, claiming that decisions made in foreign countries were being inflicted on them.

The leaders demanded the government to initiate an inquiry against the employees of the election commission who were involved in rigging during the elections.

“We have gathered here to peacefully record our protest against the blatant rigging that occurred exactly one year ago,” said Jamat-e-Islami’s Karachi Ameer Hafiz Naeemur Rehman.

On the other side, PTI’s provincial leaders, including Sardar Nadir Akmal, Khurram Sher Zaman and Syed Hafizuddin, said that the workers of one party had held Karachi hostage on the day of the general elections. They contended that fresh elections would disclose the truth, if they were conducted transparently.

“We do not want to derail democracy, which is why we organised a peaceful protest to show our strength in Karachi,” said Hafizuddin.

Leaders of the JI, including Muhammad Hussain Mehanti, Younus Barai and Nasarullah Shaji also addressed the gathering, criticising the election commission and the ruling party in Karachi.

CM disagrees

The Pakistan Peoples Party’s leadership has strongly condemned the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf’s (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek’s (PAT) protests, terming them a renewed conspiracy to derail the democratic system.

“Although we admit that rigging did occur in some parts of the country, especially in Punjab, we want the elected government to continue for the sake of democracy,” said Sindh’s Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah.

He was addressing the media at the farm house of Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon, who celebrated the first anniversary of his election from a constituency in Hyderabad, on Sunday. “Imran Khan will not succeed in causing any harm to democracy,” he predicted.

The information minister warned the PTI and PAT that the PPP will come out as the biggest obstacle in their way if they proceeded with their plan to subvert democracy. “Khan is shouting about election rigging because he failed to become the prime minister,” he claimed.

Speaking about the PAT’s chief, Tahirul Qadri, Memon said Qadri always came to Pakistan on a specific agenda. “Once again, he is working on the directions of foreign masters on a certain agenda.”

Memon went on to complain that the federal government was subjecting Sindh to prolonged hours of power outages. “People of Sindh are being punished for not voting for the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz in the elections.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2014.

To make up for this revenue loss, the tax on small companies, which are charged at the rate of 25%, is suggested to be increased, according to sources in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The proposals have been sent by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) – the corporate regulator.

It has suggested that the FBR should do away with the uniform corporate tax rate for big companies, irrespective of the fact whether a company is listed and paying dividends.

At present, a 34% corporate tax is imposed on all types of companies – large-sized unlisted firms, listed companies giving cash dividend and listed but not giving cash dividend.

Banks are charged at the rate of 35% while for small companies the income tax is 25%.

The SECP has proposed that from tax year 2015 the burden on listed companies giving cash dividend should be eased by 8.8%. It suggests a reduction in income tax on these companies to 31% compared to the standard 34%.

Companies usually pay dividends in the shape of cash and stocks. Cash dividend is immediately taxed as income, while stock dividend is taxed when it is actually sold by the shareholder.

The SECP has proposed that the tax on listed companies that are not paying dividends should be cut by 5.9%. It suggests a tax rate of 32% compared to existing 34%.

For large-sized unlisted public and private companies, the regulator has proposed 33% income tax.

“The FBR is considering the SECP’s proposals,” said FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa.

There should be a minimum threshold for cash dividends, as a company paying 5% of income in dividend should not be treated equally with a firm that pays half of the income, said Ashfaq Tola, a Karachi-based tax expert.

In its proposals, the SECP has argued that a gradual reduction in corporate tax rates over the years has triggered growth of the corporate sector, with an average 3,000 new companies being registered every year.

The regulator has asked the government to link the gradual reduction in corporate tax on big companies with the increase in tax rate for the Association of Persons or small companies. For the next financial year, it has proposed that the tax on small companies should be enhanced to 29% from existing 25%.

According to the SECP’s estimates, the FBR will collect Rs24 billion in additional revenues with the increase in income tax on small companies.

Lowering tax rates for listed companies will cause a revenue loss of Rs14 billion. However, the FBR is expected to receive an additional Rs20 billion from unlisted companies despite a 1% cut in the tax rate.

Against collection of Rs585.7 billion from big and small companies in tax year 2014, the estimates suggest that the FBR could still fetch Rs615.3 billion in 2015, up Rs29.6 billion or 5%, after changing the tax rates.

Inactive taxpayers

The FBR is also considering a proposal to increase the cost of doing business for inactive taxpayers as compared to active taxpayers, according to the FBR officials.

The proposal is aimed at pressing the dormant National Tax Number (NTN) holders to become active taxpayers. One option is to propose higher sales tax rate for such NTN holders.

However, a similar decision taken last year backfired after the business community protested against it.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2014.

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“The streets will soon become festive … that person is about to come who will hand over the real Pakistan to Pakistanis…” said the party’s deputy convener, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, as he addressed a large crowd, which broke into applause at these words.

On Friday, MQM workers and leaders protested outside the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) head office on Karsaz Road for not issuing Hussain an identity card. Siddiqui said that thousands of party workers were ecstatic to know that Hussain had submitted a form for a Pakistani identity card on April 4 but some people fear his comeback.

Siddiqui said that this is not the first time that Hussain is being denied his identity card as he had applied several times in the past too. “No one can snatch ‘Pakistaniat’ from Altaf Hussain,” he said. “The whole nation needs to question why he is being denied his identity card.” MQM Rabita Committee member Haider Abbas Rizvi said that at the ‘high powered meeting’ on Wednesday at Governor House, the prime minister and the interior minister had reassured that the identity card issue was not a big one. “Till yesterday, we kept hearing that some orders will to be passed but to no avail.”

He said that they had heard baseless excuses from NADRA that the data had been lost, and that the photograph Hussain sent with the form was not ‘proper’. “We don’t want to do a photo session of our leader and call a professional photographer to take his pictures,” he said. “NADRA should make his identity card using the same picture they have taken.”

The MQM leader said that for the last 22 years, Altaf had been forced to live in self-exile and away from his friends, family, and thousands of followers. Rizvi also called for the reinstatement of NADRA employees who were removed allegedly for taking Altaf’s fingerprints and pictures. That was all done in the presence of the Pakistani High Commission to the UK, he added. He also condemned the FIR registered against former NADRA chairperson Tariq Malik who spoke in favour of the MQM chief.

Rabita Committee’s Kunwar Naveed Jamil said that those people delaying the process purposely should be punished.  While the health minister, Sagheer Ahmed, felt that a non-issue was being turned into an issue.

In Hyderabad

Meanwhile, the workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) staged demonstrations outside NADRA offices in the districts of Hyderabad, Benazirabad, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar on Friday.

Several MQM MPAs led a token sit-in outside the NADRA office in Hyderabad. “The MQM leader is being denied his national identity card,” said MPA Ansar. “If he returned to Pakistan, he will spark a revolution.”

The protesters in Mirpurkhas, led by MPA Dr Zafar Kamali and Mirpurkhas incharge Mujeebul Haq, shouted slogans against Chaudhry Nisar, demanding his removal from the ministry. “This is an act of political revenge,” said Kamali, asking the government to desist from it.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2014.

The monetary policy rate is the interest rate at which commercial banks are allowed to borrow from the central bank’s discount window.

Most economists believed the status quo would prevail in the monetary policy announcement after year-on-year inflation for April clocked up at 9.2%. Only one out of the six brokerage houses polled by The Express Tribune on May 6 said it expected the central bank to cut the discount rate.

Issued bimonthly, the monetary policy rate helps the central bank keep inflation in check by allowing it to change the level of money supply in the economy.

Earlier on, an improvement in nearly all key economic indicators, ranging from the provisional gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate to foreign exchange reserves, fiscal deficit, rupee-dollar parity and the flow of credit to the private sector, suggested that the central bank would slash the discount rate to spur growth.

“Recent gains in confidence in the economy, backed by improvement in key indicators, need to be nurtured to ensure their sustainability,” the SBP said in its policy announcement.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Topline Securities CEO Mohammed Sohail said that the decision to maintain the status quo is ‘depressing’ because the SBP’s own review of the economic situation – along with its estimate of 8% inflation in 2014-15 – called for a cut in the discount rate.

Indeed, eight out of the nine paragraphs of the monetary policy statement recount the largely positive economic developments in recent months, such as substantially reduced government borrowing for budgetary support from the SBP as well as the banking system.

“Foreign exchange reserves are at a 14-month high while the rupee gained 7% strength in March alone. Instead of 11%-12% inflation that the SBP had expected initially, the consumer price index (CPI) is likely to be around 8.7% for the current fiscal year,” Sohail said.

Referring to the spread of 330 basis points between the average inflation figure and actively traded two-year government paper, Sohail added that the real interest rate – or the difference between prevailing inflation and interest rates – has already reached a ‘record high’.

Commenting on the SBP’s monetary policy decision, AKD Securities CEO Farid Alam said it is solely based on the higher-than-expected inflation figure for April. “Retailers will increase prices as soon as the rupee weakens against the dollar; however any appreciation of the rupee’s value against the dollar is seldom reflected in market prices,” informed Alam.

“Big conglomerates may have gained from the rupee’s newfound strength, but ordinary people have yet to receive any significant benefit. The relatively high CPI reading for the last month reflects the administrative problem in combating high inflation in Pakistan,” Alam said, adding that he expected a drop of 50-100 basis points in the discount rate before the release of the latest inflation number.

According to the SBP statement, its estimate of 8% inflation in 2014-15 is based on moderate aggregate demand, stable outlook of international commodity prices and deceleration in broad money growth led by contained government budgetary borrowings from the banking system.

Referring to the GDP growth of 4.1% in 2013-14, improvement in sentiments, relatively better availability of energy and reduction in government borrowing from the banking system, the SBP statement said these trends show that the interest rate is but one factor that affects economic activity.

“The continuation of these trends, however, will require a sustained effort to ease impediments to growth through the implementation of necessary reforms,” it said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 18^th, 2014.

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KARACHI: The drivers and conductors synchronize their digital Casio watches with the Timekeeper’s. One hundred Marwat Coach drivers and their one hundred Marwat Coach conductors are thus chronologically aligned — down to the minute. Their temporal alchemy persuades that all is never what it seems in Karachi, a city where we mistakenly believe the only order that exists is disorder.

‘Marwat Coach’ is the name given to one of the many routes on Karachi’s bus network in which others tend to be numbered, like the famed W11. This one is named after Lakki Marwat, the hometown of seth Nadir Khan Marwat who says he acquired the license for the route in 1994. Nadir, who came to Karachi three decades ago, has transport in his veins but it was only after struggling with three lines – Lucky, al Habib and Shaheen – that he managed to get the formula right with Marwat Coach. He started out with 15 buses and the service has since swelled to nearly 10 partners and over 100 vehicles.

The Marwat Coach line starts in Qayyumabad. Drivers are given 25 minutes to get to Mansehra Colony stop where a munshi will assess if they are late. It then loops to go back through the city, passes Merewether Tower and ends halfway down Mauripur Road. MAP: TALHA AHMED/EXPRESS

These Mazdas and Coaches steadily stream through the factory-lined Korangi and Landhi, connect to Shahrae Faisal, cut across to the parallel MA Jinnah Road, go past the Old City to make their way to Mauripur. Key to this route’s success is the choice of road; a seth will lose money on running buses and paying drivers if he picks ones without enough customer volume. This is why Marwat Coach abandoned its Bhens Colony exit and Tariq Road detour, once Nadir and his partners figured out the passengers wanted to go to Mereweather Tower.

Marwat Coach’s financial stability thus rests on it being an ‘awami’ or popular route that mostly people from the industrial area need. Working class women and men flag Marwat Coaches down along the Korangi-Landhi strip of pharmaceutical, textile, packaging factories. Driver Syed Rasool Shah tries to give a sense of how they cater to this clientele: “We make 365 stops or brake that many times to stop at each factory to pick someone up.” The formal bus stops are located at the roundabout chowrangis in Landhi but they are far apart; it is easier for the workers to just hail the bus in what is almost a personalized service.

By the time you reach the end of the Marwat Coach ‘up’ line that terminates in Budhni Goth, Karachi wallahs of almost every size, colour, tongue and temperament have climbed in for the ride. The interior of the bus forms a most democratic of spaces. But as Karachi defies absolutes, the superlative of ‘most democratic’ is misleading. This cannot be entirely true given the class factor: you won’t find any CEOs taking the bus to Malir.

A ride on a Marwat Coach will also challenge a romantic shibboleth coined by the people of Karachi who are fond of saying that you can keep going but the city won’t end. With one trip, your sense of the city’s time and distance will collapse. After two and a half hours on the roaring bus, you will emerge slightly disoriented off Mauripur road, as if you had taken a flight from the starting point at Qayyumabad and were spat out at the other end. You don’t understand how it happened.

Conductor Ayaz explains the intricacies of the timekeeping or token system at the Marwat Coach’s Qayyumabad adda where the service starts at 6am each day. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

This giant operation runs from 6 am on the dot to roughly 11:30 pm each day. The Marwat drivers and conductors are fond of likening it to blood flow. The city is the corpus, the route the vein. The bus adda or terminus is the chambered heart. It pumps out blood and bus at measured intervals — in Marwat’s case on average three minutes apart. The timekeeper or munshi at the adda works like a tricuspid valve, releasing buses in spurts and holding others back to maintain a constant, timely flow. And the entire system relies on square pieces of glossy white card paper called tokens.

Get in line: tokens and time

Late fines with the tokens sit on top of the munshi’s desk at the Marwat Coach end stop at Budhni Goth. Drivers will come and collect them when the pass through. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

The tokens that regulate a bus driver’s day and earnings are issued by the munshi at the adda. They yolk a driver to a schedule for each trip and this is a good thing, they grudgingly admit. The token is the paper equivalent of their Social Contract.

The word ‘adda’ best translates into ‘den’ and brings with it all the same connotations. But it would be unfair to denigrate it as this pit-stop is the nerve centre of any bus operation. Two addas at each end regulate the flow of the buses, usually with the help of the popular Nako Quartz Clock Na-613d, a matchbox-sized time machine.

The Qayyumabad Marwat Coach adda is located with those of other routes, the N, W-21, X8, Gulistan, Awan Coach, in the vast quadrant by the KPT Interchange. The rutted parking lot feels more like a leftover piece of the city. You’ll never notice the adda as you drive past because it’s hidden behind the parked buses. It’s nothing fancy, just a wooden shed on stilts covering an open kitchen (lunch is the protein-heavy daal and liver combo). A tandoor oven, lassi stand and Wazisistan paan cabin surround the desk of the all-important munshi or timekeeper.

Waziristan paan cabin is located right next to the munshi’s desk at the Qayyumabad adda. Drivers say they spend about Rs20 a day on naswar. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

At Marwat Coach’s adda, munshi  Nazeerul Islam with the dazzling white beard works the second shift from 2 pm. You’ll find him sitting behind the desk, leaning over a register, with a stack of tokens packed together by a rubber band and a drawer of dirty cash. He is a calm man, so soft-spoken that even when he shouts at the drivers to clear the way it is more like a verbal frown. But be warned: rudeness irritates him. How dare that driver flip back his collar and walk away, he mutters?

Despite these odd vexations the drivers prefer Nazeer mama to the early shift munshi. “Nazeer mama is the best munshi,” declares one driver from the back of the crowd. “He’s a fair man.”

Munshi Nazeer mama sits at the Marwat Coach start point adda in Qayyumabad. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

This sense of justice was a hard time coming. It is an emotional leaning hewn by years behind the wheel and the iron bar. Nazeer, who came from Mansehra in 1978, was working a Mazda when he killed someone in Orangi in an accident in 1985. It would be eight years of court before the dead victim’s mother would pardon him. He still remembers the name of each judge who he stood before (Rana Bhagwandas, Sajjad Ali Shah…) He eventually returned to work but his appetite for driving didn’t. Timekeeping as a munshi was a natural solution.

It starts early in the day to cater to people going to work. The Marwat Coach munshi will issue tokens two minutes apart from 7am to 9am. When the fleet thins out at the adda, he will adjust it to three minutes apart from 11am onwards and so on throughout the day.

Nazeer mama pulls one token from his deck and looks at driver Jaleel who stands expectantly at his desk. He writes down the number plate of Jaleel’s bus, the time 3:10pm to depart and 3:35pm when Jaleel is supposed to reach the Mansehra Colony stop after passing through the industrial area. This will give Jaleel 25 minutes to run the 16km route.

Driver Jaleel smokes a cigarette at Quaidabad, nearly one-third down the route. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

Jaleel takes the token, vaults across the ground and sails into his bus parked under the KPT interchange flyover. Once he’s in the driver’s seat, he wedges the white token card at eye level, under the driver’s pillar (the shaft connecting his window and the windscreen). Conductor Imran bangs the rump of the Mazda and they are off. Jaleel yanks on the wobbly gear stick and takes the bus to its first stop at Qayyumabad. As the engine idles, and the conductor scrambles around luring passengers with sharp cries of “Dawood Chowrangi! Dawood Chowrangi!” Jaleel keeps looking over his shoulder to see if there are any takers. He also relies on the tea tray-sized left mirror that gives him a perfect view of who is getting on or off. This circus of mirrors surrounding his hot-seat form a constellation of accessories that make it possible for him to safely manage the heaving ship under his command. To his credit, at least on this one trip, Jaleel never once brakes abruptly or accelerates at the wrong time.

At Mansehra Colony, conductor Imran gives the munshi their token to assess if they have reached at 3:35pm. If they are late, the munshi will write by how many minutes on the back of the token and keep it. The fine is Rs50 for each minute.

This is the crux of the logic behind this system: If a Marwat driver doesn’t make it to Mansehra Colony at the time specified on his token (such as 3:35pm), the assumption is that he was late because he was slowing down to pick up “extra” passengers along the way. “This is called haq marna,” explains conductor Muhammad Ayaz later at the adda. Eating into someone else’s right or due share. The assumption is that if Jaleel slowed down, he is picking up more than his fair share of passengers and is hence earning fare which would have otherwise gone to the driver and bus behind him. So any fine he racks up for lagging behind goes to the bus on his heels.

Jaleel’s token (late or not) will be deposited at the Mansehra Colony munshi’s desk. If Jaleel is late, the bus that comes after him will take the marked token so he can eventually extract the fine that Jaleel will deposit at the end of the line, at Budhni Goth. The token thus becomes a paper IOU.

Passengers don’t care much for the delicacies of this astoundingly democratic penalty system. They tend to curse drivers for rushing past them at a stop. What they don’t realize, however, is that usually when a driver ignores a passenger he is not doing it out of choice. He is off mark and needs to buck up. But more importantly, another bus is just a minute or two away.

Another Marwat Coach passes Jaleel on Shahrae Faisal with its conductor shouting out acknowledgement to Jaleel. All drivers recognize each other and their buses by the number plates. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

In the alienating vastness of Karachi, exiting the home means instant vulnerability which is why the intimacy on the road is surprising. These Marwat buses stream past each other, the drivers acknowledging each other, conductors leaping on to the tail of each other’s buses as they swerve in to a stop. They move like a relay race in which no one is passing the baton. They watch each other, keeping tabs. “We can even see who is two stops ahead,” explains conductor Ayaz. They can thus intuitively tell who is eating into their time. All the drivers recognize Marwat Coach buses by their number plates.

Often, more than one bus will be late and the one who was on time can take home fines collected from all of them. So if four buses are three minutes late each, the driver on time can take home an extra Rs480 (Rs40 per minute x3 minutes x4 buses). While it varies, the timekeepers generally get Rs10 from every Rs50 in late fines.

Munshi Abid fields off a fight from a driver at the Marwat Coach adda at Budhni Goth, the end of the line. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

Munshis prevent a bus from leaving the adda until a late driver coughs up the fine. At the end of the Marwat Coach line at Budhni Goth, the young munshi Abid explains that he monitors them exiting by their number plate. And they can’t leave anyway unless he gives them a token for the ‘down’ trip back to Qayyumabad. The munshis keep track in their registers of which bus owes whom in fines. The drivers take the late tokens they are owed and collect the fines through the munshi, who essentially works as a bank. He maintains a register, noting the numbers down upon receipt of a late token. This cuts out direct driver-to-driver interaction which would otherwise lead to a lot of fighting. All tokens have to be cleared within 24 hours, ensuring no debts rack up. If a driver exits without taking a token, the fine is Rs1,000. “Ye phir company ke sath bagahwat karna samjha jata he,” explains Ayaz. You are betraying the company. He is not allowed to earn on his own or renege on late fines which are entered in the register.

Freewheeling and adjusting

The token system doesn’t apply for the entire route but the initial strip on which it is easy to time the drivers. For Marwat Coach, the token will apply on the straight strip of Qayyumabad to Mansehra Colony. They are not penalized beyond this point when they take Shahrae Faisal and MA Jinnah Road because it is impossible to manage time there. The traffic congestion is just too great. Plus the cops can stop you along the way. But obviously the token system sets a pace, which translates for the rest of the trip.

The rule is that on the toke-regulated part of the trip you can’t overtake the bus in front of you. On the strip beyond the Mansehra Colony stop, though, drivers need to constantly assess how to time themselves to be able to keep the line smooth. So they all tacitly understand that it doesn’t make sense for one bus to idle at a spot to keep getting passengers; this would affect all of them. You have to keep moving with the understanding that everyone needs to be about three minutes apart. If you idle for too long the passengers start screaming as well.

This is why Jaleel knows roughly what time he needs to be at what spots along Shahrae Faisal. The 28-year-old Lakki Marwat native is the reticent responsible type with papery brown skin, stretched taut over his face. In troubled sockets are two anxious eyes. He worked as a conductor and has been driving for two and a half years now. You can sense that he is a man who doesn’t like to fight but sometimes has to.

The bus drivers usually keep a small Nako Quartz Clock Na-613d tacked on near the steering wheel. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

“Khala thora gate chor ke iss taraf ho jaen,” he sullenly says to a woman who insists on standing. It’s not clear where else he wants her to go because the women’s compartment is full. No driver likes someone standing in the doorway because that signals to potential passengers that there isn’t any space left inside.

With his finger and thumb jammed on the button for the mockery of a nursery rhyme that is his horn, Jaleel negotiates Shahrae Faisal. He is at the airport at 4pm, Drigh Road station by 4:10pm. By Baloch Colony flyover he is ready to draw on a long tall drink of sherbet that comes chilled in a watermelon-red plastic tumbler. He wipes his forehead with an oddly feminine canary yellow wash cloth. The Qayyumabad-Budhni Goth up trip will take over two hours and by the end of it you will sweat out five kilos. There is no such thing as a fat bus driver.

“Jaldi! JALDI!” curses Jaleel. “Itna hi time rehta he.” He has turned ugly as he fights down MA Jinnah Road. It is coming thick and fast at Tibet Centre by 4:45pm. As Merewether Tower hovers, you can tell Jaleel would give anything to sprout wings and climb into the air above Bunder Road.

Conductor Imran is swinging like a frenzied monkey between the bus’s two doors, his “Shabaa! Shabaa! Sh’baa!” ringing against the wall of traffic. This is the polite imperative of conductors that grows more frequent as he and Jaleel field off impossible demands from passengers to stop in the middle of traffic. “Oye, Bapu!” cries Imran at someone who is trying to get a leg up while they are still moving. In a drumming Morse code, he is constantly issuing signals to Jaleel. One thud is to stop, a double rap is to go, go, go…

Jaleel is anxious to reach the double stop at Gulbai, at the mouth of Mauripur Road where the flyover is located. The buses are numbered by the order they cross the ‘phaatak’ or railway line. Numbered tokens are issued to help the munshi even out everyone’s timings and order. The buses fall out of whack on the main chunk of the route through the city centre. Gulbai’s double stop prevents the service from clotting. So depending on when you arrive, you want to be number 3 in line to exit Gulbai rather than number 20 because it will affect your return trip from Budhni Goth.

Once Jaleel arrives at Budhni Goth, the very last stop on his ‘up’ route, he will park his bus, hand in any late tokens he is owed and the numbered Gulbai token. He will pay any of his own late fines and then disappear for a break. The number that he came at Gulbai will apply for his exit to back to Qayyumabad for the down route.

While the nodal addas at Qayyumabad and Mauripur are the key regulators, the Marwat line has desks at Quaidabad and Merewether Tower but these ‘munshis’ are there to just keep an eye on the boys. “Otherwise they’d all stop at Tower,” says Gul Akber, who is one of the partners on the Marwat line. On the way back a stop at the munshi at Merewether Tower helps a bus driver assess how the service is flowing. For Rs10, the munshi there will pass on information on when the last bus left on the down route. If it was one minute ago, then firstly you know to wait as he will have cleaned out the immediate passengers at the next few stops. Depending on when he left, you will also be able to tell if he is eating into your time given that everyone needs to be three minutes apart. If you find that he is picking up passengers who would be yours normally, you speed up and try to overtake him.

Variation on the theme

Not all bus lines use exactly this type of token system but they all have some variation on the theme to give their operation some semblance of sanity.

The N line register with the popular Nako Quartz Clock Na-613d. He whistles for the N buses to exit when their number comes. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

The N line owned by seth Sher Asad uses a custom printed register on which just the numeric order of exiting buses is written down next to their number plates. They are not bound by time but follow the numeric order set by the munshi. Munshi Abid sits in the Qayyumabad ground with a whistle to signal when they can exit. The N tokens thus don’t mention time but the number plates of the bus, the one behind it and the one before it.

The N drivers thus do not appear to be fined for delays. The absence of this system means that these drivers fight a lot more for jamming up stops in the scramble for passengers. They do have a loose self-monitoring system on breaking traffic rules. If another driver sees you doing it, you have to pay Rs500. The route is three hours long and sometimes a tired driver will try to cheat by making a U-turn mid-way.

The drivers will admit that they cut corners and the munshis will, once they let their guard down, laugh about it too. “They eat from the same plate, so they race together,” says munshi Umer of Ilyas Coach. They break bread together, they are brothers. They fight. They make up.

The adda is the space where this community lives. It is the place that provides them some respite. They park the buses, eat, sleep, rest, smoke a joint. When they are ready to leave, they get up, reach into pockets hidden near femur bones. When the hand goes into the crotch you inwardly recoil until you realize, a second later, that in between the folds of their shalwars they have been carrying around a precious package. The wads of notes, like thick school sandwiches, consist of currencies from all over Karachi. And then, like gentle men, obsequiously they approach the munshi’s desk, no different from children, to tally up the accounts.

Driven mad

Bus drivers and conductors in Karachi are a maligned bunch. Much of the reputation is well deserved but it is unfair not to acknowledge the realities of their work.

“We are donkeys,” says Ilyas Coach driver Khaliq Noor. “The sergeant screams at us, the police wallah screams at us, the women passengers scream at us, the rickshaw wallah screams at us, the conductors scream, the sherbet wallah on the roadside screams at us.” Noor is sitting at the Ilyas Coach adda at Hospital Chowrangi in the heart of Landhi. It feels like a more isolated spot than Qayyumabad, this empty plot behind a petrol pump reached by a dirt track. This is one of the two addas for 70-bus strong fleet owned by Syed Mahmood Afridi, who is also the secretary general of the Karachi Transport Ittehad. Ilyas Coach operates much the same as Marwat Coach but its route is a longer, more punishing three and a half hours from Landhi to Mohajir Camp.

The Ilyas Coach route is so long that a driver needs to start it at 4:30am. They use the token system but instead of 25 minutes they get 42 to 45 minutes to get from the adda in Landhi to Korangi Crossing. Unique to the Ilyas Coach system, however, is their sense of timing. Even these drivers are all synchronized with their munshis but they all set their watches to 20 minutes ahead so that they can get people to work at 8am on time.

While even the Marwat Coach drivers are a ragged lot, there is something thinner, more wane and more desperate about the Ilyas Coach boys. They seem more malnourished. One driver works seven days a week to make ends meet and it shows on what’s left of his face. He grins when the other drivers point out how hard he works but there is a flicker of delirium in his eyes. Another is too embarrassed to sit through an interview because his shirt has been torn and someone raked their nails over his face in a fight over fares.

No matter which line you talk to, their drivers complain that the government has not set the fares right. They divide passengers into two categories: local and direct. The government has set the local fare at Rs19 for a coach and Rs14 for a Mazda for one to 10kms. The oddly named ‘direct’ passengers travel any distance over 10km. They need to pay Rs20 for a Coach and Rs17 for a Mazda.

A driver relaxes at the Qayyumabad adda. There is nothing better than lying down flat on one of the takhts after a three-hour drive. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

The problem is that passengers often refuse to pay the proper fine and will only give Rs15. “Ek do rupay ke liye nafrat rakhtay hain.” People will curse you for one rupee, says conductor Ayaz. The drivers around him nod in unison. “[Smoking hash] is the only way we can tolerate the kind of work we do,” says one driver. The screaming passengers, the heat, the madness all presses down on them. Passenger invective can be quite colourful.

At the end of the day, a driver will be able to take home about Rs300 on average. Fare earnings are directly given to the seth, not the munshi. They can vary considerably given the bleed on frequent repairs for the buses that are old models from 1997 to 2003. “We can’t wear white,” says seth Gul Akber, referring to just how frequently a driver and conductor get their hands dirty doing repairs. On a bad day your tire tube will burst and you’ll have to shell out Rs1,000. The Ilyas Coach route will level out your tires, say its drivers. “Sab barabar kar deta he.” One tire lasts only three months because the roads at Mohajir Camp are atrocious. “A patient’s stitches would burst open on those roads,” says munshi Umer.

Drivers also have to pay for the fuel which is Rs1,700 in CNG for one up-down trip. (The days there is no CNG supply, they don’t earn). “Sometimes if we haven’t made enough to even cover the CNG cost, we turn back half way,” adds Ayaz.

A portion of what a bus earns in the day is handed over the owner and the rest is split between the driver and the conductor. But a chunk of their daily wage goes into the hazri system to be offered at the addas, as if these roadside shacks were a Mughal emperor’s court itself. No wonder drivers refer to “Adday ka qanoon” or the law the adda.

Marwat Coach drivers pay Rs200 in the bara hazri at their addas in a sort of fee to use the facility. Twenty rupees goes in chota hazri at the smaller stops and an extra Rs10 if they want the munshi to cough up timing and information. Ilyas Coach munshi Umer claims that they have a lower bara hazri of Rs150 which the drivers can pay if they like, but one look at the drivers’ faces indicates that volunteerism isn’t part of this picture.

The competition of buses and routes adds to the squeeze on how much a driver earns. “There is no limit [to how many buses you can have on a route] which is why we make so little,” says conductor Ayaz. To add to this, other bus services will overlap on yours. There is a D11 that emerges from Quaidabad and also heads to Merewether Tower like the Marwat Coach. “Manzil ek he, lar jatay hain,” says Ayaz. We have one destination which is why we sometimes fight.

Even though there is no limit to how many buses a seth can put on a route, Marwat Coach and others can only afford so many because of economies of scale. But despite this many routes have disappeared over the years. Karachi thus appears to be short on public transport so there should technically be plenty of room for more bus lines. According to one theory, though, it’s just that the existing financial model doesn’t make sense. Volume of passenger doesn’t make up for the low fare. How can it make sense to pay Rs20 to go from Qayyumabad to Merewether Tower? The problem is that people can’t afford any more and the government hasn’t subsidized the route. On successful routes, though, drivers say you can earn up to Rs1,000 a day.

Consistency is key because a driver and conductor are essentially daily wagers. If you fall sick then you make nothing. At Budhni Goth, conductor Haroon looks like he just came under the tires of a bus. “I have a hole in my kidney,” he speculates. “I lose Rs500 a day if I don’t go to work.” Driver Jaleel chimes in: “Hamari hawai rozi he.” Your earnings are as fickle as the breeze. There is no such thing as health insurance and all a driver can pray for is a seth who has a kind heart and big pocket. But even a seth can’t act as life insurance.

They all remember the case of Marwat Coach’s Saleem and his brother who worked as his conductor for the PE3712. At Sharafi Goth about two and a half years ago, Saleem tried to swerve to avoid a motorcycle coming the wrong way. The bus turned-turtle, his brother slipped and came under. Today another brother has replaced him. Life goes on, sort of.

If a driver doesn’t work, he doesn’t earn. On average days they can take home about Rs400. Two exhausted drivers sit in an empty coach at the end of the line. PHOTO: MAHIM MAHER/EXPRESS

Many owners do not care enough for the welfare of their drivers and conductors. This is a shame as these men brave bad working conditions (partly their own fault). But the owners have some gems to thank for establishing their business. Each line tends to have one or two buses which have become the ‘mascots’. For the Marwat Coach it is the 3600 that emerges from Qayyumabad and the 4422 that leaves from Budhni Goth. Their drivers made the route famous by persistently making these buses visible to attract passengers. “You’d see 3600 at 2am on the route in the early days,” says conductor Ayaz. That is why it is given the honour of being the first one to leave the adda each day. It was run by Ashraf from Muzaffarabad and now his son Arshad, 24, drives it. “Ashraf was punctual about it leaving at 6am,” explains seth Gul Akber. “That kind of discipline is hard to maintain day after day. He’d drive it in freezing winter, sometimes totally empty.” In Ilyas Coach’s case the mascot is the PE9972 that solidified this route’s reputation by being punctual, regular and exceptionally hard working, leaving Landhi at 4:30am and doing three up-down trips instead of two.

One becomes a driver after working as a conductor for at least two years. (The men use the word kellender for conductor as a bastardised version of collector). If you are lucky, an older driver will teach you in the parking ground. Seth Gul Akber prefers to work with men who come through the reference of other drivers. He is well qualified to talk as he joined the family business after running away from home in Lakki Marwat after his Matric. He still loves to drive but the family wants him to manage the fleet and the men. “I’ll only take on a driver who I’ve seen drive in front of me,” he says. “I need to know where he lives, where his home is.”

They are playful men, these drivers and conductors. “Jungle me har qissm ka parinda hota he,” says driver Ustad Ikram who is putting down installments to buy his own bus some day. There are all kinds of animals in a jungle. They joust, inescapably bonded by an impossibly complex system of timekeeping. They will lunge at each other’s throats over a second lost at Nursery, their bodies pressed up against each other, faces breathing into faces, and they will fall back just as quickly after the crowd swells in to pull them apart. Their bodies are grimy but their faces glow. The best of them are the roughest. The roughest of them are the gentlest. Sometimes when you are in traffic, you will experience a silent exchange. If you are behind a bus, you’ll see a hand appear out of the driver’s side. It motions back and forth. Go ahead, it says, gently. Pass me by, pass me by. I am giving you right of way. At other times you will catch a fleeting invitation from a conductor: “T’WAAR! T’Waar! T’waar!” to war to war, to war, towar, tawer, tower…Tower.

With thanks to reporters Sohail Khattak and Zia ur Rehman. The line using ‘order and disorder’ draws on the title of Laurent Gayer’s forthcoming book, ‘Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City’

A shorter version of this article was published in The Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2014.

Intikaab-i-Kalam was a discussion hosted in honour of Shakir at Oxford University Press bookstore located at Khalid bin Waleed road, Wednesday evening.

The dominant themes in Shakir’s poetry are love, devotion and betrayal. However, she wasn’t just a romantic poet; she was well aware of the social and political issues prevalent in society and had written a few poems leaning towards the political set-up. Her first volume of poetry, Khushbu (Fragrance), was published in 1977.

Shakir, once a resident of Rizvia society and student of English Literature at Karachi University, belonged to a middle-class family. She shook prevalent norms with her poetry. “How can one forget the time when she and I were hurled and pointed fingers at for coming out of our homes to be at a mushaira!” said Hassan.

“The society at that time was unforgiving and uncompromising and, because of that, Shakir had to put a lot at stake,” Hassan added.

The double standards embedded in society left deep imprints on Shakir’s mindset, which had the capacity to spark wit through dialogue. Reminiscing the old days, Hassan said that Shakir’s years in poetry dictated not only her feelings as a young girl, but, in fact, she also delved into serious problems that she encountered as a working woman in a bureaucratic society.

“Parveen was in shackles of traditionalism; she led a life full of pain and agony,” said Fatema Hassan

There was a difference in their upbringing. Hassan, who was brought up in East Pakistan, had fewer limitations; going out and meeting people wasn’t considered a taboo. In comparison, Shakir came from an orthodox family in West Pakistan, who looked down upon women who went out or made friends. “Parveen was in shackles of traditionalism; she led a life full of pain and agony,” said Hassan.

It’s evident in Shakir’s poetry that she was submissive and easily surrendered. Hassan responded to that and explained that Shakir was highly intellectual and one of the wittiest people she knew, however the only thing she did was surrender herself completely in love. “Ishq, toot ker ishq kiya. Zaat ki manafi ker di [She truly loved, to an extent that she lost her self in it],” said Hassan.

Shakir died in a tragic road accident in Islamabad in 1994, leaving behind an unforgettable legacy.

•  Meri Dua teray Rakhsh-e-Saba Kharam key Naam

•  Raqs (dance)

•  Navishta (a piece of writing)

•  Murad (desire fulfilled)

•  Kutba (tombstone)

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2014.

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The event, which had previously taken place in Islamabad, was hosted for the first time in Karachi. There were stalls of various universities — foreign and local — and companies giving career-counselling sessions, along with consulting agencies and book distributors, such as Liberty Books and the Oxford University Press (OUP). There were various competitions and recreational activities as well, the results of which will be announced at 6:30pm on Sunday.

Chief guest Prof Attaur Rahman, the former Higher Education Commission chairperson, inaugurated the event and said that such initiatives are needed in the field of education.

OUP managing director Ameena Saiyid was a guest speaker at the opening and said a few words on the importance of education. The event kicked off with a declamation contest, followed by a drama competition and a musical session.

The painting competition, organised by Brighto, started at 12pm and participants were given three hours to paint with oil paints. “My priority was to participate in the competition, winning or losing does not change anything,” said 21-year-old Naveedur Rehman from the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan. “It is an amazing feeling to be able to display my passion here.”

Another student, Shahbaz Ghouri, from Hamdard University expressed his excitement while painting a picture of Mowgli from The Jungle Book. “I love art and even though I am a sketcher and it is my first time working with a canvas and paints, it feels great.” He added that he is also going to participate in the fashion show that will take place on Sunday.

Innovators and inventors

A group of four students from the Usman Institute of Technology displayed their final project at one of the stalls in the hall. They challenged the operation of K-Electric by coming up with a system in which even if a substation developed a fault, the circuit would not break and electricity supply would go uninterrupted.

“We want to save electricity and this seemed like a promising platform to display our idea and attract possible sponsors,” said Daniyal, one of the students behind the project.

Another group of students from the same university came up with an application that could control the electricity of a connected circuit. “It has a fire alarm and lights and temperature checking commands,” said one of the students, Rameez.

“This application can go places as one can use this in a lot of places, including building management systems,” said Ali, standing besides Rameez. “We all had to work really hard on this and I am thankful to the Express Media Group for giving us the opportunity to display our work here.”

A group of two people from Hamdard University, Muhammad Hassan and Naveedur Rehman, came up with a project in which one can control the supply of electricity to appliances by just calling on their landline. “Our idea is user-friendly since not everybody can afford an internet connection and all the commands are just a phone call away.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2014.

Terming it the biggest rally in history, MQM leader Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui claimed that over two million people had thronged the protest venue. He added that people had filled up streets from Tibet Centre till Teen Hatti Road. “These people have come to show their love and support for their leader,” said Siddiqui, pointing in the general direction of the swelling crowd.

The enthusiastic supporters claimed they want their leader to come back to the country. “Two generations have grown up without seeing him,” said a party worker, Rabia Majid. “Seeing him again would be a dream come true.”

Her only daughter, who is also an activist of the party, recalled the time she had seen him at their apartment in the late 1980s.

A university student, Saba, had come to the rally dressed in shalwar kameez of the party colours. Standing beside her sisters, Saba maintained they would always support their leader. “The best thing I like about him is that he speaks of equality for all as well as respect for women.”

Standing with children wearing badges of ‘Altaf uncle, we miss you,’ a worker from Korangi, Shahid Hamid believed that the party had a bright future despite all the conspiracies hatched to demoralise them. “We don’t feel let down,” he said. “Even in bad times, we will remain steadfast with our party.”

Members of the minority communities had also come to the rally in large numbers. Hindu representative Mangla Sharma said that the majority of the minorities supported the MQM because it was secular and spoke of rights for all. Bishop Sadiq Daniel of The Church of Pakistan prayed that justice be provided to Altaf Hussain.

Grand arrangements

The MQM had made grand arrangements for the rally. The entire area was adorned with party flags and banners of ‘We love Altaf Hussain’. A 20-foot-high stage, with the message, ‘Rally for Altaf Hussain, The voice of Common People’, in the backdrop was set up where the party’s leaders addressed the participants.

The younger members of the party, sitting at the social media camp, sent out live updates on Twitter and Facebook. According to party leader Aminul Haque, the people had turned up from the party’s 26 sectors and 250 units across the city. “Hundreds of our workers from the labour division and the student wing, All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organisation, are volunteering to provide security.” Before the rally started, Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) teams and police officers came in to thoroughly check the area for any suspicious objects.

Before the main event started, people from different areas took out rallies in their areas and met at MA Jinnah Road.

Aminul Haque said that they had worked out a plan to create traffic diversions and no other road was blocked. “Though the rally is huge, we took care that people would not face traffic problems,” he said, adding that people from rural Sindh had also come to participate in the rally.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2014.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SECP) has fined KSE Managing Director Nadeem Naqvi (Rs200,000) and Deputy Managing Director Haroon Askari (Rs500,000) for having ‘failed to perform their responsibilities’.

Separately, the SECP also imposed a fine of Rs1 million on the Karachi Stock Exchange, the frontline regulator of the equity market, in the same case for deviating from the requirements laid down in the System Audit Regulations and being negligent in the discharge of its obligations.

The penalty was imposed after the SECP found that the top management failed to enforce the System Audit Regulations, which are meant to ensure that all brokers comply with the requirements of Securities and Exchange Ordinance 1969, SECP Rules 1971, Brokers and Agents Registration Rules 2001, Regulations of the KSE and SECP directives issued from time to time.

According to the order passed by the director of the Market Supervision and Registration Department, two ballots were held on July 2012 and January 2013 in pursuance of the System Audit Regulations. These regulations require system audit reports of the selected brokers must be forwarded, along with counter-comments by the brokers, to the SECP within 45 days of submission of reports. However, first reports of non-compliant brokers did not contain views of the KSE and counter-views of the non-compliant brokers.

Moreover, the SECP order says enforcement actions were taken based on second reports instead of first ones, which was in violation of the System Audit Regulations. Also, the SECP said the KSE managing director and his deputy failed to ensure timely and appropriate enforcement actions in respect of non-compliance reported in various system audit reports, including Moosa Noor Mohammad Shahzada and Company (MNM) and B&B Securities (BBS).

This led the SECP to issue a show cause notice to Naqvi and Askari, seeking their views on issues ranging from non-inclusion of views of brokers to non-sharing of the reports of Inter-market Securities (IML), Invest Capital Markets (ICS), and First National Equities (FNE), non-initiation of action against MNM and BBS in a timely manner, and non-initiation of enforcement action, and subsequent declaration as compliant, against First Capital Equities (FCE), Gazipura Securities and Services (GSL), Oriental Securities (OSL), Foundation Securities (FSL) and Alpha Adhi Securities (ASL).

“I am of the view that regulations are rendered ineffective if not followed in letter and spirit,” said SECP Director Imran Inayat Butt in his order penalising the KSE top management.

“It is evident that with regard to the instances highlighted in the show cause notice, the respondents failed to ensure that appropriate enforcement actions were initiated by KSE in a timely manner against non-compliant brokers,” Butt said.

The SECP order is critical of the KSE deputy managing director in particular. It said Askari was responsible for ‘serious lapses and delays’ in the enforcement of regulations. The SECP also held him responsible for the default of MNS, a KSE broker, saying it could have been avoided in case Askari performed his duties diligently.

“The declaration of non-compliant brokers as compliant by KSE depicts laid-back attitude of Respondent No 2 (Askari) towards discharge of his responsibilities,” the SECP order stated.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2014.

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After hours of waiting in the sun outside Chief Minister (CM) House in the city’s red zone, on Thursday, the teachers’ province-wide protest entered its fourth day. Regular classes and examinations at public varsities were boycotted once again as teachers prepared for a sit-in and demanded that the controversial provisions made to the Sindh Universities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013, should be abolished.

The teachers have been in talks with the government for almost a week through the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (Fapuasa). They have been trying to remove the controversial clauses from the enactment that was unilaterally passed by the Sindh Assembly last year in August.

The deadlock continued, however, as the chief minister’s secretariat through an advertisement that invited applications under the new law for the posts of registrar, director finance and examinations controller at the public varsities.

“I congratulate all the university teachers whose unprecedented solidarity and support compelled the government to approve our primary demands,” said Fapuasa’s central president, Dr Waheed Chaudhry, as he returned to join his colleagues outside CM house after successful negotiations with the chief minister’s secretary for universities and education boards, Mumtaz Ali Shah.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Mumtaz Shah said that the advertisement that appeared in newspapers last Sunday was to be amended and a formal corrigendum will be published in next couple of days. He said that it will now be valid for the post of finance directors at the public-sector universities.

Dr Chaudhry was hopeful that the government and teachers would continue to discuss matter further. “One thing is for sure and the government officials have also agreed to it — no single entity has the absolute authority to decide on the universities’ academic and administrative affairs.”

He added that the delegation was successful in having the assurance of the chief minister’s secretary for acceptance of eight out of their 11 proposed amendments in the law. The draft of these amendments was earlier presented to provincial law minister, Sikandar Mandhro.

The teachers were also joined by some of their students at the protest, but the heavily deployed law enforcers restrained them along with a number of teachers at Karachi Press Club. More than a hundred teachers managed, however, to reach the protest venue.

Meanwhile, it was decided to call off the boycott and resume classes and exams from Friday. Teachers at KU, on the contrary, announced to observe the strike on Friday as well against the manhandling and illegal confinement of teachers at the press club for several hours. “The exams at the university will resume from Monday,” said KU teachers’ society president, Dr Syed Jameel Hassan Kazmi.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2014.

KARACHI: For a teacher who has been in the profession for more than 40 years, teaching comes naturally. They do not limit their sermons to their classrooms, as the police officers deployed outside Chief Minister House found to their misfortune.

Over 100 teachers from public universities across Sindh converged upon Chief Minister House on Thursday to protest what they termed were attempts by the Sindh government to encroach upon the universities’ autonomy. What followed was mass confusion combined with utter hysteria. The teachers, a large number of them well into their advanced years, certainly looked out of place as they faced the police trying to hold them back.

Sweating profusely and looking extremely flustered, the guardians of education shouted slogans against the government, demanding it to repeal the Sindh Universities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013.

As time progressed, some got bored of the slogans and seated themselves on the sidewalk, content to watch their colleagues scream their demands. The latter group kept shouting slogans, the leader with the loudspeaker beckoning his colleagues through catchy phrases, while his followers responding to his calls with an equally enthusiastic chorus. A third group negotiated with the police.

Sometime later, after a delegation of the teachers was invited to CM House to discuss their demands, the police formed a single file in front of the remaining teachers. With batons on the ready, the personnel’s faces gleamed with concentration as they eyed their potential targets. This caused a wave of nervous energy among the teachers’ ranks, some of whom preferred to joke about it to hide their apprehension. “Why are you threatening us with sticks when we have not even hurled a pebble at you?” asked one of the protesters.

“Put your sticks down and tell your CM to send some juice for us,” scolded Prof Dr Nasreen Aslam Shah, the director of women studies at Karachi University. “It is very hot and I am parched,” she told one of the personnel. “I am a grade 22 officer and this is the first time I have come out of the comfort of my university grounds in almost 10 months! Is this the welcome you will give your teacher?” she reprimanded the cop. The latter, seemingly moved by Dr Shah’s lecture, assured her that they will not be beaten up. Pleased with themselves, the protesters were almost relieved until a water cannon arrived at the scene.

This made the teachers nervous again. This time, however, the police officer cracked a joke. “This is sewage water; trust me you will stink for the next two days,” he winked at the protesters. This piece of information made the teachers smile, with one of them replying: “Make sure there’s ice in it. It’s quite hot.” The nervousness lasted for some time as the water cannon vehicle stalled at the road for some time. Upon inquiry, the officials found that the driver had gone to relieve himself, leaving the vehicle in the middle of the road.

The junior police officials, on the other hand, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their little break from the routine. They laughed and cracked jokes with the media personnel they recognised and even made attempts to interact with the protesters.

Although some of the senior officials were quite irritated for being deployed at the protest site; they agreed that there would be no violence against the teachers. They were well-prepared though; with tear gas artillery, batons and plenty of lethal weapons on show. “These teachers have the status of our parents. We respect them and will try to resolve the situation amicably,” Saddar SP Salman told The Express Tribune. His colleagues nodded their approval.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2014. 

The talk, titled ‘Jazeera-e-Shukanwaran by Ghulam Abbas and Intikhab-e-Ghulam Abbas by Asif Farrukhi’, centered on Abbas’s work, life and personality with literary critics notably Asif Farrukhi and Rauf Parekh along with Abbas’s daughter Mariam Shera on the panel.

“Ghulam Abbas sahib considered French and Russian writers to be the real writers; he could relate to their thoughts and ways of writing more, as opposed to the American or English writers,” said Farrukhi.

Farrukhi further pointed out that in Abbas’s writings, one will see that he wants to suppress the mighty colonial powers. There is a prophetic vision in his work, which sees beyond everyone else. More than satire and humour, what is laden beneath is the irony of it all. He emphasised that Abbas’s work is profound and if it is intently read and understood, one will see how relevant it is for the situation in Pakistan today.

Ghulam Abbas’s daughter Mariam Shera on the panel. PHOTOS: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

“When people pass away, all that is left behind are their memories. I, too, have some cherished memories of my father,” said Shera. He enjoyed the company of his loved ones and would share ideas of his upcoming stories before penning them down, said the writer’s daughter. While quoting one of her brothers Kami, she said: “According to my brother, Abbas sahib was like a well and not a spring of water; you needed to dig deep down.”

Besides acknowledging her father as a perfectionist when it came to writing, she also appreciated how he had a great heart and knew how to keep his two wives and nine children happy.

“A great writer is one who thinks deeply and Ghulam Abbas was someone who spent time thinking about even the most trivial of things. He knew the art and craft of storytelling,” said Parekh, the other literary critic on the panel.

He then spoke about Abbas’s novella, Jazeera-e-Shukhanwaran, which is about a land of poets and listeners living on an island unaccustomed to the material world of earning pennies. “Just think about how vivid his imagination was. Is it possible to imagine society where nobody needs to work and earn a livelihood?” said Parekh.

Abbas had a collection of over 20,000 books at the library at his residence. Besides his deep interest in literature, the writer greatly appreciated good music as well. His daughter reminisced how her father had a strong inclination towards music and how he enjoyed playing various musical instruments including the guitar, violin, piano, flute and the mouth organ.

On the concluding note, Shera shared an anecdote from the past, one of the most precious memories she has with her father. “He’d often walk down Bundar Road and bargain at the bookshops. He was popularly known as Chachajee in the areas of Saddar and Nursery, where he inspected all kinds of books,” she revealed to the audience.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2014.

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The newly established business school at its state-of-the-art campus celebrated the inaugural commencement and has set a new milestone in the history of advanced business management education that began with the founding of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in 1955.

Wearing royal blue convocation robes with orange frills, the graduating students walked in the academic procession amid enthusiastic cheers by their parents and family members. High hopes were attached with the graduates who decided to get themselves enrolled in the business school’s rigorous MBA programme that was launched in collaboration with Cambridge University’s Judge Business School around two years ago.

“We will vie for a form of management that looks at the business organisations from a bigger perspective than just profit-making entities,” said Asad Abdul Muhammad, who secured first position and received the Hussain Dawood gold medal, in his valedictorian speech. “The form of management that looks at people as partners and not merely resources and where businesses are nurtured to not only benefit the investors but the society as a whole.”

Along with Muhamamd, Subia Faruqi secured the second position and received Abdul Razzak Tabba silver medal while Muddasir Soomro stood proud at third.

The parents were overjoyed seeing their progeny’s hard work coming to fruition. “I am excited to see my son receive his Master’s degree. The credit goes to the KSBL scholarship policy,” said Abdul Sami Memon, the father of a graduating student. “Without financial assistance, this degree would not have been possible. I have very high hopes for his future.”

“Today our inaugural class completes one of the most important chapters of their lives and are transitioning to a life-long journey of leadership through service,” said Hussain Dawood, chairperson of the KSBL board of governors. “We are pleased to offer our country the very first class of future leaders equipped with entrepreneurial energy and innovative thinking.”

KSBL dean Dr Shaukat Brah asserted that the school has prepared these young adults to have rewarding and fulfilling careers, embarking on a journey of constant personal growth. “I am certain they will utilise their learning in the most effective way possible to give back to the society,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2014.

KARACHI: The Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), the religious political party representing the Shia community of the city, took to the roads to protest against the target killings in Karachi.

The MWM leaders warned the provincial and federal governments of country-wide protests if the tide of targeted killings in the city was not stemmed.

MWM’s central spokesperson Allama Hasan Zafar Naqvi in his address to the rally said that Sindh Governor Ishratul Ebad and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah have failed to stop the targeted killings of the Shia community in the city. “We have gathered here to raise our voice for those who have fallen prey to target killings and the families of the martyrs in the city are looking at us to raise our voices for them,” he said, adding that they were protesting not only for the Shia people killed but also for the other victims of violence in the city, regardless of their religion and sect. “We warn the provincial chief minister and governor and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that if the target killings are not stopped and Karachi’s peace is not restored, then we will take our protest to a national level.”

MWM deputy-general secretary Allama Ameen Shaheedi in his address said that the party had taken to the roads to restore the peace of Karachi. “The elements that are behind the target killings should be named and shamed on the media,” he said.

Traffic closed

All the roads leading to the Chief Minister House and the Governor House were sealed with containers and buses to keep the participants of the rally from entering the ‘Red Zone.’

The MWM had announced to hold a sit-in outside the CM house a day before the rally. To prevent that, law enforcement agencies sealed all the roads leading to the CM house and the Governor House on Sunday. A heavy contingent of the police was also deployed on the MA Jinnah Road and the areas sounding the CM House and Governor House.

The rally’s participants gathered at Numaish Chowrangi, from where they marched on the MA Jinnah Road, and passing through Saddar’s Electronic Market on the Garden Road, entered the Fawara Chowk near the Governor House. From there they headed towards the Shaheen Complex and staged a sit-in outside the Supreme Court Registry on the MR Kiyani Road.

Saddar SP Syed Salman Hussain told The Express Tribune that they deployed around 300 to 350 police personnel to provide security to the rally’s participants. “We had to seal the roads in the path of the rally to avoid any intrusion and any untoward incident,” he said, adding that they specified a path for the rally’s participants.

The closure of the roads caused traffic problems for the commuters at Saddar and the surrounding areas of the sit-in as traffic police sergeants tried to direct confused motorists at various intersections and thoroughfares. Anwar Khan, a traffic police sergeant at one of the barriers at Saddar, was himself unaware of which roads were open and which were not. “Take the Preedy Street straight towards the New MA Jinnah Road, it is open,” he said, directing traffic at Garden Road. However, the Preedy Street was also closed with a water tanker. At the Abdullah Haroon Road, hundreds of vehicles were stranded as drivers tried to go in the wrong direction to reach their destinations.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2014.

While the party’s leaders sat cross-legged on the road, their solemn faces had a reflection of the gravity of the situation, the workers shouted slogans in support of their beloved leader. “Bhai ko bacha le aye Maula [Oh God! Save our brother]“, “Deewanay kis kay, Quaid kay, hum bazoo kis kay, Quaid kay [Who is our dearest? Our leader.. Whose arms are we? Our leader's]” were some of the slogans that echoed from the frenzied crowd as men and women waved the party’s red, white and green flags while others carried pictures of Hussain.

“We will keep sitting at Numaish Chowrangi until our leader, Altaf Hussain, speaks to us himself,” Haider Abbas Rizvi had told workers at the party’s headquarters, Nine Zero, earlier. The workers had poured into the offices in large numbers on hearing that Altaf had been arrested by the London Metropolitan Police on suspicion of money laundering.

Instead of their stronghold, the party decided to take their protest to Numaish, where shops had already been shut down and the roads cordoned off. Here, the party’s deputy-convener, Nasir Jamal, and Rabita Committee member, Aminul Haque, were the first to arrive. They were soon followed by Dr Farooq Sattar, Sagheer Ahmed, Haider Abbas Rizvi and Waseem Akhtar, as activists slowly filled up the road.

‘Arrest is unfair’

As party leaders and activists refrained from commenting on the issue, deeming it sensitive, Dr Farooq Sattar told The Express Tribune that the arrest was unfair and unusual. “If the London police wanted to question him, they would have come to us. Arresting him without any charges is unjust and unusual in the UK.” The party leader said that Altaf was to be hospitalised on the day for a series of tests, and his health and safety were their main concern.

“We should get some response from the UK government,” he stressed. Sattar said that they had provided proof of all legitimate sources of cash which was recovered by the police from their offices. “We have been cooperating with them and will continue to do so.” Dr Sattar recalled the arrest of another leader, Tariq Mir, last December. He claimed that Mir was arrested on the occasion without any charges and was subsequently released on bail. “This is a repetition of the incident,” he claimed. “But I don’t know what other reasons the London Police may have for arresting him.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2014.