Before I begin, forgive me for any inadvertent formatting and presentation mistakes. I don’t use MovableType, and quite frankly WordPress is a hell of a lot easier when it comes to aligning images, doing text wraps, that sort of thing. In other words, my posts may look like a hot mess, but I promise you they will taste like seriously good chaat masala.

Frere-Hall.jpg Carrying on…

In my experience (limited though it may be), of all the cities in Pakistan, Karachi probably has the greatest number of intact buildings left over from the days of the British Raj (Lahore has prettier and larger ones, but not perhaps as many). Which is not to equate “intact” with “well-preserved”; in many cases, these building are little more than shells and facades, while others have faded into the background under the manic pressure of urban decay expansion (not unlike many aging aunties struggling with foundation and surma in a desperate effort to hold back the ravages of time). Naturally, the city government finds it a complete waste of time to actually try and maintain these buildings, with a handful of exceptions, preferring instead to focus on cramming as many slum areas into one space-time locus as the laws of physics will allow.

This is important to me, I like the pretty, and I like it a damn’ lot.

One of my favourites in the list of these buildings is Frere Hall, which was erected (hee!) back in the day to honour (and I quote), “The Right Honourable Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere” (OK, it’s no full-scale desi name, but it’s pretty good for a farang), for his contributions to developing Karachi’s economy. The building is—in my not-particularly-humble opinion—gorgeous, even more so on the interior, what with its Sistine Chapel-esque ceilings painted by Sadequain and a library etc. And on the outside, it’s surrounded by one of Karachi’s most pleasant parks (insofar as possible), the Bagh-e-Jinnah [the Jinnah Garden(s)], which all ties into two things that made it one of my favourite spots in Karachi.

1) Each Sunday, almost every bookseller in Karachi would descend upon the gardens, set up stalls to sell books at prices so low as to give even the World War II Deutsche Mark validity as currency, and start selling books that you just couldn’t find anywhere else in Karachi.

2) The park was easily Karachi’s best cruising ground, be it on a Sunday or any other day of the week, and if you were in the mood for a bit of rough trade, it was always nice to either get an eyeful of some serious man-candy, or sneak into some of the…umm…bushier, shall we say, hedges for a little bit of lovin’.

And now I’m seriously pissed. I knew that with the US consulate right across the street from the park, there were issues of some sort—the area came under heightened security, and visitors began to be screened, even to the extent that guards were posted all around the entrances, and one needed some form of ID to get onto the grounds. Of a public park, mind you. Because of a foreign embassy about three hundred yards down the road, and about fifty feet over. Seriously. It’s not even directly opposite, it’s kind of “close to”, if anything.

But the reason I’m pissed is because the other night, with a European friend who was in town for a wedding, I went over to Frere Hall. She’s a huge art fan and wanted to see the collection of Sadequain’s work etc., so we drove over.

Frere-Hall-Night.jpg

Parking? Not an issue. Police? Big issue. I chatted with them in Punjabi long enough to plead for a quick walk-around, and succeeded—or so I thought until fifteen minutes later, as we were rounding a corner, and a sub-sub-deputy-chief-lieutenant-vice-inspector or some such came tearing around the corner, panting like a queen seeing the man of his dreams shirtless on a dance floor, and demanded that we leave at once, for “security reasons”.

“Huh?” I enquired eloquently, and with the utmost delicacy. “Have you been smoking something?”

Apparently the two and a half individuals who were manning the US consulate at that (or from what I hear, ANY) hour had caught my friend and I on what was referred to as “the terror-watch system”, and were demanding that we be immediately removed from the area, since the presence of a white person was apparently grounds for terrorists to spontaneously appear and start making things explode. A lot. I argued for a few minutes, but at the end, not wanting to upset my friend further (I don’t know, she kept rabbitting on about “big guns” and “laser-sights” and other such rubbish, HOW the Germans took over half the world if she’s any sort of representative is a complete mystery to me, sort of like vagina-based sexual intercourse—I don’t quite get it, but apparently it exists and people seem to rather enjoy it), I agreed to leave the area.

What I’m curious about is, is Karachi the only city where this sort of shit happens? I mean, does anyone else know about cities where embassy privileges dictate the recreational lives of its citizens? I suppose I wouldn’t care as much if it weren’t for the fact that Karachi has so little going on that’s publicly accessible, or in the way of a mass amenity, that for something featuring so prominently in the city to be shut down in such a cavalier manner really pisses me off. I mean, even more than the “black belt, brown shoes” thing that Paul Smith promoted years ago.

I mean, where else am I supposed to fucking go to get my books AND my booty? This is a serious inconvenience, people.

[PS - Truly, I apologise for the lack of borders around images etc., I really do. And for the absence of text wrapping and slugs etc.]