Defining Karachi is always difficult. Is it a port city or an industrial hub? Can Karachi best be described as the city of Urdu speakers or is it actually a mini Pakistan? The truth is that Karachi is so large in terms of both area and population, that its neighbourhoods can easily be thought of as distinct towns, each with its own subculture and history. This is not surprising considering that the city’s architectural landscape is neatly divided in precise epochs: the precolonial era, the city under the Raj, post-Partition Karachi and modern Karachi.
As the city expanded from a fishing village into a port city and then metamorphosed in August 1947 to become the capital of Pakistan, it became host to a diverse set of people and languages, each of which left an imprint on the city’s map. The names of Karachi’s neighbourhoods are a reflection of this phenomenon and it is interesting to note how religious sites, famous landmarks, personalities and city planners live on in the city’s maps.
Meethadar and Kharadar
These names range from descriptive to prosaic. The latter ones are easy to decipher. For instance, Soldier Bazaar was the place where British soldiers and their memsahibs would do their shopping back in the Raj days. Mukka Chowk was named after a statue of a fist on the junction’s roundabout, Dalmiya was where the Dalmiya cement factory used to be, Lucky Star is famous because of the eponymous restaurant located there, Pehlwan Goth was where wrestlers trained and Water Pump has an actual pump used by tankers that transported water across the city.
A history behind some of the quirkily named areas of the city
These are the easy ones but there are many parts of Karachi that have a story behind them. Kharadar and Meethadar, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city are among them. They predate the colonial era and mark the days when Karachi was a small fishing village called Kalachi Jo Goth. When Lord Napier conquered the city in 1842, the British thought of the original neighbourhoods as the Old Town and listed it as the first quarter out of the 26 they divided the city into.
The old city had spread over an elevated plain of 35 acres between the Lyari River and the brackish Arabia Sea. In 1729, this area was fortified with a high wall and its western gate, which was towards the sea, was known as Kharadar — a combination of “khara” for salty and “dar” meaning gate. In other words, Kharadar simply translates to the Gate of Salt Water. Kharadar is notable for being Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s birthplace and where he spent his youth in the narrow lanes of the neighbourhood.
The other gate faced the north-east towards the Lyari River and was called Meethadar, from “meetha” meaning sweet and thus the Gate of Sweet Water. The Lyari River changed its course in the 19th century and even though the locality no longer abutted the sweet water, the name stuck on. Meethadar was once the main business centre of Karachi but the arrival of the British prompted the businessmen to move to Saddar, Cantonment (Cantt) and Bolton Market. Many of these were Hindus and, in fact, until Partition it was a Hindu-dominated area, the signs of which are visible from its street names such as Chandan Mukhi Lane and Vishramdas Sukhramdas Street. At the eastern end of the neighbourhood is Rampart Row, where elaborate examples of 20th century Sikh and Hindu architecture still exist.
Both Kharadar and Meethadar are distinctive of what remains of the pre-colonial Karachi. The wall that separated the Old Town from British quarters was broken down in 1860 to enlarge the city but the neighbourhoods named after the two gates lived on.
Hawke’s Bay and Guru Mandir
However, if Meethadar and Kharadar are reflections of pre-colonial Karachi then the neighbourhoods created after 1842 reflect the colonial Karachi. As time passed, Karachi became a city of the Raj and its lanes and landmarks reflected the power of its colonisers. If one goes west from the port, towards the beach, one arrives at one of Karachi’s famous picnic spots Hawke’s Bay. The number of Karachiites who routinely flood this beach in summer would have overwhelmed Bladen Wilmer Hawke, 9th Baron Hawke (December 31, 1901 - July 5, 1985) of Towton; he had a beach house there in the 1930s after which the beach was named.
The eldest son of Edward Julian Hawke, the 8th Baron Hawke, Bladen later became a Conservative politician and, in 1939, succeeded his father in the baronetcy, serving later as a Lord-in-Waiting and government whip in the House of Lords from 1953 to 1957 in the administrations of Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan. Before arising to the baronetcy, Bladen Hawke was posted in Karachi for a few years. Being fond of its pristine beaches, he started the trend of beach houses there. The Baron passed away 30 years ago but his name lives on in this stretch of golden sand.