KARACHI, especially with reference to the post-partition time period, has been a culturally vibrant town — despite what it’s gone, and still going, through, it still pretty much is. There was a time when a variety of musical bands (rock, pop, classical etc) would regularly play at hotels, restaurants and even at educational institutions. For example, on Aug 22, 1972 a concert of German choral music was held by a local group of amateur singers at the Adamjee College under the auspices of the Goethe Institut. The Fatima Choral Group presented more than 20 items in front of an enthusiastic audience. A piano duet by Jane Subjally and Sandy Wilmot was reportedly the highlight of the programme.

Another form of artistic expression was on display two days later at the same venue (Adamjee College). On Aug 24, the dramatic club of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) staged a comedy play Jama Kharach. The popular actor Latif Kapadia, who himself was a senior bank executive, gave a delightful performance as a managing director at a bank in trouble at the hands of his scheming young wife who plans to liquidate her old husband by foul or fair means. The story was adapted by Zaheeruddin from a European play and produced and directed by Kapadia. The male cast was drawn from among the bank employees and the women belonged to local drama groups.

The arts are a means of putting important messages across. One non-arty means of communication that was in the news that week was the telephone. On Aug 27, it was announced that the Telephone Department had reintroduced the ‘tone device’ to enable people to detect if they were being overheard or tapped at the exchange during telephonic communication. The step had been taken primarily to guard against the ever-increasing complaints about obnoxious calls because of the alleged overhearing of conversations by the operators and other staff of the department. The device was being used previously but was discontinued during the Yahya Khan rule.

It was also the time when something extraordinary took place in the field of medicine. On Aug 24, the first open heart surgery at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICD) on a 24-year-old woman was performed. The six-hour successful operation was performed by a team of three specialists led by Dr Abdul Ghaffar Jatoi. He was assisted by Col Rahman, an anaesthetist, and Dr Haq, a hemodynamic specialist. The name of the patient, who had a hole in her heart, was Daulat Begum. Her condition after the surgery was claimed to be normal.

Staying on the subject of medical science, on Aug 22 it was reported that the previous day 10 students of the Dow Medical College went on a fast-unto-death strike to press for the removal of disparity in the ‘marking system of examination papers’. A spokesman for the strikers and the affected final-year DMC students told the media that they had earlier met with the governor of the province of Sindh, provincial health and education ministers and other relevant authorities for acceptance of their demands but they had only assured them of sympathetic consideration, never translating their promises into action.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2022