Not much happened thereafter until 1st February 1839, when a British ship – the Wellesley – anchored off Manora. Two days later the little fort surrendered without a shot being fired on either side. The fickle finger of fate had suddenly shoved the sleepy back-water towards becoming a megalopolis, a world city.

WRESTED FROM THE SWAMPS: The settlement was remote and swampy, isolated by hundreds of miles of bleak desert in every direction but the sea. Nonetheless, within four years, the capital of Sind was transferred there and building began in earnest. By 1847 the Napier Barracks (now governinent offices) were completed. A census next year showed that the population had already reached 50,000. The filth and squalor proliferated, everything became plastered with smelly black mud from the mangrove swamps, so a Municipal Committee was formed to levy funds and provide public utilities. In 1848 the municipality’s income was Rs.6,000; in 1849 it was Rs.18,000 and in 1850, Rs.27,000 – an increase reflecting the mind-boggling population explosion.

The committee laid out a whole network of roads, named after itself; in what is now Central Karachi. Preedy Street was named after the Revenue Commissioner; McLeod Road after the Collector of Customs and so on. Even in those days Karachi had a traffic problem. There were so many carts and carriages that the roads had to be paved with gravel chippings (an unheard of refinement, way ahead of London.) The streets were watered daily by municipal bullock carts, to damp down the dust. As revenues increased, public works were undertaken on a grand scale. Frere Hall (a museum and library) was finished in 1865, Mereweather Clock Tower in 1867, Boulton Market in 1883, Empress Market in 1889… The town turned into a city.

As people poured in, the drinking water problem, always difficult, became acute. There is no natural source of water in Karachi; all water consumed there must be fetched from somewhere else. Last century, water drawn from the Indus was brought by camel train to the cantonment. The wealthier merchants sent mule carts to the sweetwater springs in nearby Clifton. Less fortunate people bought drinking water from municipal watercarriers until household pipes could be laid. Though provision proceeded apace, demand has always been ahead of supply. Karachi’s poor, in places like Korangi, are still waiting for safe drinking water. At the turn of the century a public tram service commenced from Saddar (the cantonment) to the new harbour at Kiamari. The horses wore straw hats to avoid sunstroke and water for them was provided by the philanthropic “Drinking Trough Society of Karachi.” The troughs can still be seen here and there in the city. Modernising the harbour commenced in 1860, proceeding by fits and starts. By 1882 the Mereweather Pier was completed and pilgrims for Mecca no longer had to embark at Manora. By 1900, Karachi was one of the the biggest and best outfitted ports in the world. Nonetheless, it continued to be troubled by the ague and the plague until the sanitation system was completed, just after the first World War. The war itself brought immense prosperity to Karachi’s merchants. Clifton’s promenade, pier and park were gifted to the city by Sir Jehangir H. Kothari OBE in 1919. The complex Cost Rs.300,000 to build, an absolute fortune in those days. Other public parks, including the Zoological Gardens on Garden Road were laid out at this time. Even more new roads and buildings were constructed in the interwar period. As the population approached the quarter million mark, those who could moved out to the suburbs, building houses in a style best described as “South Asian Hollywood.” commuting arrived with a vengeance and one of the world’s first rapid transit systems was inaugurated.

MELTING POT: The building of Karachi attracted Goan cooks, Anglo-Indian bartenders, Sikh bricklayers, and Chinese washermen. Parsi, Hindu and Jain merchants came from Gujarat and Rajasthan. Until Partition, their camel caravans regularly crossed the Thar. The Parsis built a Tower of Death out at Korangi. A few of the merchants’ big mansions still remain downtown. The Lebanese community became sizeable. People of African descent can also be seen in and around Karachi.  Abyssinia  i.e. modern day Ethiopia  is called  Habashah in Arabic, Persian and Urdu.  This became a generic name for all persons originating from Africa except for those coming from North Africa. Africans were captured and sold as slave to Persian and Baluchi rulers. These people who populate Makran are called Makranis or Habashi.

At Partition, Hindus, Armenians and Jews left the city en masse. Muslim refugees from India, calling themselves Mohajir, migrated in by train, boat, air, truck, even on foot. It is not known how many millions arrived. Karachi,new capital of a new country, was so pushed for space that its government servants had to sleep in the public parks and gardens in tents! The travler further diversify the ethnic mix of the city. Many English stayed on, their ranks now depleted by age. Vintage couples can be spotted at their usual watering holes, the Metropole Hotel and the statelier clubs in the early evening.

Subsequent decades have seen the influx unabated. The Karachi Development Authority instituted the upgrading of amenities on a massive scale: new housing colonies, public buildings, roads, schools, colleges, markets, bazaars, business centres, to keep pace with development needs. Cycle rickshaws have now been replaced by thousands of scooter-rickshaws.

After Pakistan’s civil war in 1971, thousands of Biharis (Urdu-speaking Muslims from Bangladesh) arrived by boat. In the 1980s Afghan refugees joined migrant workers from the Frontier who have laboured as dockworkers and porters for decades. Meanwhile, “economic refugees” from Pakistan’s less developed areas, like Gilgit, Chitral and Hunza head for Karachi in search of jobs. The original Sindhi speaking population is now a minority in the city.

Gas supply lines from Sui in Baluchistan were laid, the Hub Dam Scheme extended the Greater Karachi Water Project and the Circular Railway was completed. In the 1960s, two huge industrial areas were built, at Sind Industrial Estate and Landhi and in the 1970s three more: the Export Processing Zone, Pakistan Steel Mills Complex and Muhammad Bin Qasim Container Port. In the following decade, work on KANUPP, Karachi’s nuclear power station, was inaugurated. Industrial growth has been spectacular.

RICH AND POOR: Original home of Pakistan’s film and music industries, Karachi in the 1980s made more films and exported them to more countries than Hollywood. It houses the very latest in modern technology. The city works and sleeps in a haze of brick dust as buildings barely 30 years old are relentlessly torn down and replaced with something more up to date. The population of seven, maybe eight, million now extends over several hundred square kilometres along the coast and into the desert, residing in modern apartment blocks, prestigious cooperative housing societies called “Colonies”,
seaside mansions and sprawling shanty towns on the outskirts, areas of such appalling poverty that it is difficult to see how residents will ever be extricated from their plight. Working 16 hours a day, poor youths toil like slaves, earning a pittance to produce elegant costume for the city’s elite.

KARACHI PICTURES

DL Science College
karachi downtown	karachi gymkhana ground
kotahari Palace
KARACHI – OLD DRIVEN CINEMA SITE	Tooba Mosque
PNS Karsaz	Karachi Stock Exchange
Necropolis Baluchich	Mazar-e-Quaid  (The Founder of Pakistan
ASTOR VALLY	Airport Road (One Rainy Day)
MCB Towers – During Construction
Karachi Bride (Dulhan)	Zamzama Park Karachi
Masjis-e-Tooba
night shoot from heart land at super high way	Night shoot from heart land restaurant at super high way
karachi night
inaugration of Kokan Park Gulshan town	jinah terminal
Sunset of Karachi	I.T TOWER HASSAN SQ
Jahageer Kothari Parade	Karachi Night Life
Mazar-E-Quaid	beautiful karachi
M.T.KHAN ROAD photo by: JOHNNY CASPER
Karachi Surf	Karachi Surf
photo by: Beaytiful beaches	beach
Creek Mariner City

In 1991, he had another solo exhibition at the Indus Art Gallery managed by Pakistan’s leading artist Ali Imam. Baqar has also over 20 years of teaching experience at the Balochistan Art Council, Karachi Grammar School and the Visual Studies Department of the University of Karachi. He had bagged first prize at Biennial International Competition of SAARC countries in 1988.

Born in Karachi on April 14, 1956, Baqar is the youngest son of eminent Urdu critic and former head of the University of Balochistan Urdu Department, Prof. Mujtaba Husain. He earned his diploma in fine arts in 1975 from the Karachi School of Art and was the institute’s youngest diploma holder at the time. His father, Prof. Husain, migrated to Quetta in the early 1970s, when Balochistan University was established with eminent scholar and educationist, Prof. Karrar Hussain as its first vice chancellor.

Baqar also shifted to the provincial capital of Balochistan and joined the Balochistan Art Council as a teacher in 1978. However, he returned to Karachi in 1981. He has a passion to paint and usually paints during the night.

“I was always fascinated by water colour and painted thousands of seascapes and landscapes at Karachi Harbour, Manora, Keamari, Malir, Ziarat, Kalam, Kaghan, Murree, Swat and other places,” he told The News.

He was taught the art of painting by Mansoor Ahmed Rahi and Abdul Hafeez Khan and amongst masters; he was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Picasso, Salvador Dali and J.M. W. Turner.

“Turner’s paintings in particular inspired me a lot, especially his drawing,” he said. “Herb Olsen, a great water colour artist also inspired me a lot and I improved a lot after going through his works.”

“Among Orientalists, I was inspired by great artists Sadequain and Chugtai, but my paintings have not been influenced by them,” he said. During 1991-2001 Baqar taught fine arts at Karachi Grammar School and later joined the Visual Studies Department of the University of Karachi. He also taught at the Central School of Arts and Crafts at Karachi Art Council.

“Today there are about 60 art galleries in Karachi and quality of art has also improved but we are not creating great masters like Sadequain and Chugtai. The new breeds of artists don’t concentrate on their work. They don’t have the flame,” he lamented.

Baqar said that people in Karachi today are buying lots of paintings, including paintings by young artists and it’s a positive sign. “Chowkundi, run by its curator Zohra Husain has made a significant contribution in promotion of art in Karachi,” he said. “Bashir Mirza’s BM Gallery and Indus Art Gallery also played a vital role in promotion of art in the city,” he said. “No doubt Bashir Mirza and Ali Imam were the pioneers,” he said.

He showed satisfaction at the pace of art in the city. “Thousands of students are enrolling themselves in art schools.

In yesteryear there was only Karachi School of Art and Central Institute of Arts and Crafts where art was being taught. Today we have Indus Valley of Art and Architecture and the Visual Studies Department of the University of Karachi where one can acquire education in art and even students from elite classes are taking keen interest in art,” he said.

However, he regretted that the era of military dictator Gen. Ziaul Haq was a bad omen for art and culture in the country, including Karachi. “It generated fear, anxiety and violence and promoted drug and jihadi culture and terrorism, previously unknown in the city. Art was also affected by regression of that period,” he said.

“During the despotic rule of Gen. Zia art was ignored and only calligraphy was promoted,” he said. “And we as citizens are still suffering from the follies of promoting jihadi culture by the rulers,” he said. “We don’t know till what time we will continue to suffer,” he said.

“As far as my contribution to water colour is concerned, I can say with a sense of pride that I introduced subjects such as rain, mist, fog and night in my paintings in Pakistan,” he said. “I have also painted verses of great Urdu poets such as Mir, Ghalib, Yagana, Anis, Dabeer and Josh,” he said.

All I can say that Karachi is a beautiful city to live in , where people from every class live

and enjoy pleasures of life .Worth seeing city altough has some draw backs or short

comings still a wonderful city it is.

Louvre Art Gallery Karachi

One of the leading art galleries in Karachi, Pakistan, is well situated on the street level with ample parking slots in the heart of Clifton since 1999. Taking leads in promoting and presenting visual arts it has provided platforms to emerging artists of sub-continent who otherwise were eclipsed under the shadows of renowned artists. At louver we have proudly offered them an opportunity through exhibitions to make a room for themselves among renowned artists at home and abroad. Albeit somewhere at a lower rung.
Through Louvre a number of artists’ works have been exhibited in North America and specifically in the United Kingdom.

Some of the artists that have held exhibitions at Louvre are:

S Shahid's Painting

S R Rind's portrait collection

M Ilyas Streets of Karachi

Tanweer's realism

Louvre Art Gallery:
Pearl Haven,
Kh-e-Roomi, Block-5
Clifton, Karachi, Pakistan.
Tel: 00 92 21 3586-6993 / 3587 2126
Cell: 00 92 333 215 5710
E-mail: Info@louvrepakistan.com
louvrepakistan.com

Abudullah Syed Work

CHAWKANDI ART , established in 1985, is a leading art gallery in Pakistan. Since inception, the Gallery has supported Pakistani art with the result that many notable artists today, have had their one-man debut at Chawkandi.

Ali Azmat's work

Chawkandi also houses a store of exhibits by leading artists, sculptors and ceramists, which are available for viewing and sale at all times.

Chawkandi Art
105 Marine Point,
Kehkashan, Block 9,
Clifton, Karachi.

The gallery can be contacted via phone, fax or email:

Phone:- +92 21 537 3582
Fax:- +92 21 587 1025

Email:- info@chawkandi.net

Chughtai Painging

Karachi is a city of over 16 million residents making it one of the top 7 mega cities in the world. But despite its size Karachi does not offer a wide array of art galleries and art schools.

If Karachi wants to attract world travellers eager to live and work  here then it has to increase the depth of its cultural scene. That not only includes adding more art galleries but also events of performing arts.