If you don't buy the notion that buildings speak, try and talk to the Mules Mansion. You'll strike up a pretty long, albeit sad, conversation. It's a beauty that's in a dire need of a facelift. But beauty it is. The elaborate structure has the presence of a treasure trove no one seems to be interested in acquiring.
Crossing Native Jetty Bridge (Netty Jetty if you like) with a cool breeze caressing your cheeks making you feel comfy in the sweltering Karachi weather, you invariably get lost in the attention-grabbing moving pictures that the bridge helps you come across people leaning or bending over the overpass looking at the anchored ships or at the small mandir on its right side or some children throwing stones (not in the ducks-and-drakes style) into the calm, a bit contaminated, water on its left side. There have been reports that occasionally some depressed individuals use this very bridge to say goodbye to life. But to judge the reports' veracity we'll keep that subject for some other time.Once you cross Native Jetty Bridge you witness quite a few commercial buildings on both sides of the road, many to do with the seaport. It is at this point that a striking but not well-maintained structure, built of rugged stone masonry in 1917, halts your progress. It's the Mules Mansion. Say hello to it, though it is difficult to greet it because there's heavy vehicular traffic on Bunder Road whizzing past you like a twister to Keamari Port, polluting the atmosphere in every which way. Pollution has made life a tad cumbersome for the magnificent mansion.
If you become gracious enough to ignore the de-coloured (in the sense that its original sheen is no more) and somewhat aberrant current state of the building you will notice that it has a character that's marked by its ornate nature having classical elements.
The Mules Mansion was designed by Moses Somake (who was born in Lahore on June 6, 1875 and died in London on April 6, 1947). It was named after the first chairman of the Karachi Port Trust, Charles Mules. After partition of the subcontinent the mansion served as the Naval Headquarters for a certain span of time. Subsequently the place was used for different purposes, including residential. In fact a few pen-wielders used to live in the building in the '70s.
There was a time when quite some journalists lived here. I even had to throw one of them out, says Cyrus Cowasjee, one of the executives of the estate. The Cowasjees own this building.
These days there are shops on the ground floor, painted yellow with distemper, occupied by tenants dealing in different products. The upper two floors are for residential purposes. But there's something disconcerting about it that you can't put your finger on.
Architect Noman Ahmed says It's a lovely building constructed in the Anglo-Oriental style. There is a slight influence of the Renaissance method as well - for example, the orderly arrangement of columns. The Anglican features that can be readily noticed are the beautiful keystones, horizontal grooving and the symmetry maintained in its construction.
It's a structure inspired by the KPT building (curvilinear), which is why it has functional orientation, that is, it was made for a particular purpose, says Noman Ahmed.
Touching upon the maintenance of the Mules Mansion, Noman Ahmed says The distemper on the ground floor will ruin the stone layers. Then two other things have marred its beauty pollution and the fire that broke out in the past whose deposits settled on the upper two floors causing a sooty effect. The building needs to be cleaned urgently. It's a precious piece of architecture.
The closer you go to the mansion the faster it transports you to a different era, not necessarily into the past, but different in the sense that you forget how modern skyscrapers and high-rises tend to give off vibes of a make-believe, virtual world, and you start breathing, albeit momentarily, in a genuine setting.
However, the current condition of the imposing edifice leaves much to be desired. Cyrus Cowasjee says How can it be looked after well? The tenants don't pay their rent.
Doesn't that boggle the mind?
I don't know quite a lot about the style in which it's made, what I know is that it was designed by a Jewish architect Moses Somake, and I think he copied Buckingham Palace's design, says Mr Cowasjee.
That sounds a little hard to believe but the thing that can't be disputed is the Mules Mansion does have a royal air about it - albeit of yesteryear.
