KARACHI: The pedlars start chasing after you the moment you enter the gates of the Christian cemetery, or Gora Qabristan, as it is known by most. It is Christmas Day and they are ready with red rose petals, incense sticks, match boxes and jerrycans filled with water as they know the place will receive many paying a visit to their loved ones’ graves.

Muzahir Hussain, a Muslim belonging to the Shia sect, is also there on the footpath outside the main gate with boxes of incense and matches. Since he speaks English, he gets more customers than the others chasing after you, reminding you to buy something from them anyway since it is “bara din” (big day).

Gora, as everyone would know, means ‘light-skinned’. The cemetery got its name from the British era when they buried their dead here. There are graves bearing dates that go as far back as the mid-1800s. But Lal Patrick, the gatekeeper on Korangi Road, says he has never seen any foreigner coming here now.

At the gate is visible a 140-foot high cross, Asia’s largest, courtesy a Pakistani Christian businessman.

Lal Patrick padlocks the gate on Korangi Road side so that only one person can get through at a time. “I don’t want them to bring in their cars and motorcycles from here. I only allow ambulances or funeral cars to enter. Still people bring in private vehicles from the Sharea Faisal side, which is enough of a menace and creates problems for those on foot,” says the gatekeeper, who has worked and lived in the graveyard for 10 years now.

The ones bringing in the motorcycles and cars inside from the other gate also have a point. “My father is old. He can’t walk all the way to my mother’s grave so we brought in the car to be able to bring him at least half of the way from where he can see the grave. He is not even going to get out of the car,” says Sandra Philip, as she tries to manoeuvre her car so that her father could have a clear view of her sprinkling rose petals at the grave.

Under the canopy near the gate, Andrew Lawrence waits for his mother to finish praying. “The ground is muddy and uneven. As she has bad knees, so instead of visiting my father and uncle’s grave, she is going to pray here and then we will leave,” he says.

“I wish there were paved floors and steps between the graves here. It would have solved many of our elderly folk’s problems,” he adds.

“I couldn’t even bring our mother here to visit our father’s grave,” says Celine Rodrique. “So I came here myself to pay my respects while my sister is at home with our mother,” she shares.

Mrs Amanuel was also there with her daughter Stacey and her cousins, Rhea and Shaheem. “Stacey was three years old when my husband died. And her cousins recently lost their mother who was expecting her third child at the time. We have been coming here on every big occasion including Christmas and All Souls’ Day. Now the other family children will also join us as they also mourn someone,” says the mother.

Outside on the road there are several rickshaws and vans with ‘pick and drop’ written on a paper pasted at the back. “My van was hired to bring families here, too, today. First I took them to the Church where they attended morning service while I waited outside, and now I have brought them here to Gora Qabristan,” says one of the drivers.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2016