Akhtar Balouch, also known as the Kiranchi Wala, ventures out to bring back to Dawn.com’s readers the long forgotten heritage of Karachi. Stay tuned to this space for his weekly fascinating findings.

If the partition of India is the topic, migration is an inevitable point of discussion.

In his book Akhbaar Ki Raatein (The Nights at the Newspapers), renowned BBC Urdu journalist and researcher, Raza Ali Abdi remembers the time of his family’s migration to Pakistan:

“Most of things from our house were sold for peanuts. My books were taken as trash. The whole family reached the Wagah border. Indian Customs were checking our luggage. One trunk had Muharram’s mourning equipment and some ancient, historical religious flags. An officer tried to open it. When I told him the trunk had our religious things in it, he quickly stepped back.”

Abdi sahib and his family members were simple people. They survived on Muharram’s mourning equipment. Otherwise, many brought the guarantee of a perfect life with claim papers and everything to their avail. Some even brought the name of their area, giving the new locality in the new homeland the old home name.

I recall an interesting occurrence of which I read somewhere. When Late Z. A. Bukhari sahib was the administrator at Radio Pakistan Karachi, some employees of the broadcasting corporation were recent migrants from India. They used to add the area to their names, for example Dehelvi, Meerathi, etc. Bukhari sahib once said to someone with an area for a last name, “Mister, you are now in Pakistan, quit adding areas to your name.”

That mister replied, smirking, “Thousands of years ago, some people had migrated to this region from Bukhara. They still call themselves Bukhari. We have just arrived in Pakistan.”

People from the Indian Rajasthan, or the nearby areas, who migrated to or traveled to Pakistan can never forget Khokharapar station, where they would have their first stay in Pakistan while on their way from India. This Khokhrapar, however, somehow got to Karachi. Yes, there is a Khokharapar in Karachi, too.

This is a puzzle for the people of Karachi and the people from other areas of Sindh who came and resided in Malir.

In 2005, I used to work for a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Karachi. The Indian and Pakistani governments had decided to start a train service between the two countries on the 17th of February, 2005.

The nationalist parties of Sindh had many reservations in this regard. Their understanding was that this train service will help inject more non-Sindhi Indian migrants into Sindh, turning the already suffocating Sindhi population into a minority.

The NGOs did not ponder over the allusion that a certain group would become a majority, or that a certain group a minority. These organisations considered humanity above any border restrictions or cultural, political or racial reservations. The civil society, as it is known, was in fact eager to be part of this journey whose last stop was Khokharapar.

One fine morning, I was at work as usual. Two of our female colleagues, Tarannum and Lord’s Joseph were having a conversation. I heard Tarannum say, “Allah, how much fun it would be to go to India, no? Such an easy journey! Wow… Before this one had to go Lahore from Karachi, it would be 18 hours, then from there to Delhi in 12 hours, then to Rajasthan… my God…”

I started thinking how good it really was for the people. In the next moment, Tarannum’s words shocked me. She went on: “On a bus from Landhi to Malir in 15 minutes, from Malir to Khokharapar in 15 minutes and an hour or so till India.” I knew that the Khokharapar she was mistaking this place near Malir, Karachi for was actually in the Umerkot district of Sindh.

A week before the cross-border train’s first journey, Manzoor Razi, a well-known leader of the Railway employees’ union, told me during a conversation that Khokharapar is 284 kilometres away from Karachi by train. However, a journalist friend from Umerkot told me that by road the distance was at least 400 kilometres. I did not pass any remarks over Tarannum’s misunderstanding at that time. However, I was left wondering how Khokarapar had come all the way to Karachi.

I still visit that office sometimes. If I see Tarannum in a bad mood, or under a lot of work pressure, all I have to mention is how easy it is to go to India from Khokharapar. Her bad moods turn into smiles, and she can be seen joyfully admitting her mistake.

I had to explore how an area in Karachi got the name of Khokharapar. With the help of some friends, I was able to meet a few residents of that area, but to no avail. Finally, I asked a journalist friend Arbab Chandio for help. He was a resident of Malir. He suggested I speak to Gul Hassan Kalmati, an historian who was a resident of Malir himself.

Kalmati sahib has authored a book on the detailed history of many areas in Karachi. He told me that at the time of partition, those migrants who had come to Pakistan via Rajasthan, had made their first stop in their new homeland at the refugee camp of Khokharapar. Later, these migrants were taken to different parts of Sindh where they settled.

Some of these migrants landed in the Malir locality near Karachi. At that time, the entire locality was known as Malir. In order to highlight their identity, these migrants associated their part of the locality with their first stop in Pakistan, Khokharapar.

The name Khokharapar for the part of this locality was officially acknowledged in the days of Ayub’s regime. From then on, this semi-urban locality is a noun-replica of a remote railway station in the desert.

Two, three generations later, the current residents of Khokharapar have forgotten the christening of their neighbourhood. I wonder why the new residents of this area back in 1974 preferred Khokharapar over their old towns and neighbourhoods. They could have named it Delhi, Agra, or Hyderabad colony for that matter. Perhaps they wanted to strengthen their bond with their new homeland.

It was certainly an endeavour to bridge the gap which was born in the shape of Sindhi-Muhajir differences with the birth of Pakistan. The new Pakistanis of those days could not have imagined how this gap would widen as well as deepen, regardless of the efforts they made.

Translated by Ayaz Laghari

Read this blog in Urdu here.