| |
The southern
province of Sindh takes its name from Sindhy, an
old Sanskrit name for the Indus (or Lion) River
which flows down its middle, making fertile an
otherwise arid, barren land. The province has
three distinct landscapes: the lush, irrigated
plains along the river, the sparsely populated
deserts on the either side of the irrigated
belt, and the mangrove swamps of the Indus
delta. Sindh is flat except at its western edge,
where the Kirthar Hills from its borders with
Balochistan. The climate is pleasant in winter,
and hot in summer.
The irrigated
alluvial soil forms some of Pakistan’s best
farmland. As far as canals can carry waters from
the Indus, farmers grow wheat, rice, millet,
pulses, oil-seeds, cotton, sugar-can and other
crops. Most of the 70 percent of Sindh’s rural
that live by agriculture are tenant farmers
tilling soil belonging to feudal landlords of
Balochi descent.
The deserts
begin immediately the irrigation ends the line
between green fields and sandy scrubland
strikingly abrupt. Desert tribes, some of the
settled around wells, some nomadic, etc out a
bare subsistence by breeding camels and goats,
growing pulses and millet, and hiring themselves
out as migrant laborers.
The Indus delta is a vast marshy track
stretching southeast from Karachi to the Indian
borders some 250 km away. Through its myriad
sluggish channels meandering around thousands of
mangrove islands, the Indus empties into Arabian
Sea. Each year, the river deposits millions of
tons of silt in the coastal waters, extending
the delta and enriching the marine food chain.
Fishing is the principal occupation on the
coast, providing Karachi’s restaurants with the
seafood for which they are just famous.
The history of
Sindh goes back some 5,000 years to the Indus
Civilization, which was contemporary which the
better-known civilizations of Mesopotamia and
Egypt. Archaeologists have identified some 400
Indus Civilization towns, scattered from Kabul
to Delhi. The most famous of these, the capital
of Moenjodaro, on the right bank of the Indus in
Sindh, was one of the greatest cities of the
ancient world. It had a remarkably advanced
urban organization and archaeologists believe
that the whole empire was controlled and
administered from here.
Alexander the
Great arrived in Sindh in 326BC and captured the
principal towns along the river. In the third
and second centuries BC, Sindh was part of the
great Mauryan Empire of India and embraced
Buddhism. Between the sixth and eighth centuries
AD, Buddhism was gradually suppleanted by
Hinduism and a cast system was introduced.
In AD 711, an
Arab expedition under 17 year odl Muhammad Bin
Qasim conquered Sindh, which marked the
beginning of Islam era in the subcontinent. The
province was governed by until 874 by Abbassid
Caliphate, the leaders of the Sunni Muslims who
ruled from Baghdad and whose court is so vividly
described in The Thousand and One Night.
KARACHI
A hundred years
ago, Karachi was a tiny fishing village
clustered on three islands just to the west of
the Indus estuary. It is now a sprawling city
with seven million inhabitants, Pakistan's major
port and biggest industrial center. The first
impression is one of glass-fronted hotels,
multi-storey banks, spacious British colonial
buildings with domes and spires and wide lawns,
and the normal hazard of any big city fast
flowing traffic.
Karachi is not
old enough to be graced with elegant Mughal
mosques or tombs. Its main attractions are the
sea, the seafood, the busy bazaars, the museum,
the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, and the tomb
of Muhammad Ah Jinnah, Pakistan's illustrious
founder.
As the sun
sets, the fishing boats in Karachi harbor unfurl
their sails and float silently out into the
quiet water. This is bundar boat time when
family parties and tourists sail around the
harbor, fish for crabs to be cooked and eaten on
board, and stop off on the Sandspit to watch the
giant turtles lumber up out of the sea to lay
their eggs in the sand (laying season July to
November). To hire a boat (a modest Rs 50 to Rs
100 an hour for a boat seating 10), go to
Keamari Harbor, 15 minutes from downtown
Karachi. As darkness falls, local fishermen
paddle by in rowing boats, and overhead, long
lines of cormorants and flamingoes fly home to
roost. For a bigger choice of seafood: cray-fish,
giant prawns and fish, try Karachi's famous
restaurants. Chances are you won't be
disappointed.
By day, you can
laze on the miles of smooth sand, swim in Hawkes
Bay, or visit the aquarium and take camel rides
along Clifton Beach. At the fish harbor on West
Wharf, hundreds of small fishing boats with
colored sails line up to unload. Nearby,
boat-builders using old-fashioned tools still
make wooden fishing boats in the traditional
style.
A Bazaar Time:
Karachi's bazaars are good sources of antique
silver and copper, tribal embroidery, oriental
carpets and a multitude of modern onyx, brass
and wooden ornaments. The most colorful bazaars
are in the old city, to the north of M A Jinnah
Road (also known as Bundar Road), behind Boulton
Market. Here nomad women in full red skirts over
baggy trousers and tribal men wearing enormous
turbans, stride through the narrow alleys. In
the wider streets, camel carts jostle with laden
donkeys and hooting taxis. Each lane is a
separate market selling a different commodity.
The Sarafa Bazaar is lined with jewelry shops
offering both modern and antique pieces. Deeper
into the bazaar is Bartan Gali, selling copper
and aluminium pots and pans. Next comes the
wholesale cloth bazaar, and beyond that the
Khajoor (date) Bazaar full of carefully arranged
pyramids of fruit, and hawkers selling
everything from twigs to clean your teeth, to
pyjama cords to hold up your trousers.
Karachi's newer
markets are in the Saddar Bazaar area between
Abdullah Haroon (Victoria) Road, and Zaibun Nisa
(Elphinstone) Street (both the old British, and
the new Pakistani street names are used). These
have less local color, but offer a good
selection of new copper and brass, onyx, inlaid
woodwork and hand-printed cloth and applique
bedspreads.
A wander round
Empress Market shows the modern Karachi
housewife doing her morning shopping. The
market, opened in 1889, is a huge Victorian
Gothic building with a square clock tower,
housing hundreds of stalls selling fruit,
vegetables, meat, fish and groceries. Behind the
market.
QUAID-E-AZAM'S
MAUSOLEUM
This white
marble Mausoleum with its curved Moorish arches
and copper grills rests on an elevated 54 sq.
Metres platform. The cool inner sanctum reflects
the green of a four-tiered crystal chandelier
gifted by the Peoples Republic of China. The
memorial slab framed with silver railings, draws
people from far and wide who come to pay their
respects and watch the impressive changing of
the guards ceremony that takes place thrice
everyday. Today the Quaid-e-Azam’s Mausoleum is
a prominent and impressive landmark of Karachi .
Nearby are the graves of the Quaid-e-Millat,
Laquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of
Pakistan and the Quaid’s sister, Mohatarma
Faitma Jinnah.
NATIONAL
MUSEUM OF PAKISTAN / BURNS GARDEN
This museum, on
Dr. Ziauddin Ahmed Road, contains an important
collection of items to Pakistan’s heritage. Well
arranged galleries display Indus Civilization
artifacts, Gandhara sculptures, Islamic art,
miniature paintings, ancient coins and
manuscripts documenting Pakistan’s political
history. There is also an interesting
ethnological gallery.
MASJID-E-TOOBA
Situated in the
Defence Housing Authority area, close to the
market, is the Masjid-e-Tooba, said to be the
largest single-dome mosque. The dome covers a
central prayer hall with a capacity to
accommodate a congregation of 5,000. The
mosque’s minaret stands 70 meters high.
BEACHES
Karachi’s
golden, uncrowded beaches stretch for miles. The
more accessible of them are SANDSPIT, HAWKESBAY
and PARADISE POINT which are within a radius of
10 to 20 kms from the city and about 30 minutes
drive away. A ride on a gaily decorated camel is
a must for most visitors. Beach huts are dotted
along the shore, some available for hire. For
reasons of safety, care must be taken to swim
only in the safe areas as there
is always a strong under-current. In May and
June watch out for jelly-fish. On moonlit
nights, during the months of September and
October, giant green turtles lumber ashore to
lay eggs in the sand. The turtles are under the
protection of the Wild Life Management Board.
FRENCH BEACH
The
French Beach, located half way between Hawkes
Bay and Paradise Point is, in fact, a small
fishing village know to the locals as Haji
Abdullah Goth. Surrounded by a boundary wall, it
has some 20 huts constructed by villagers for
hire. The village has neither running water nor
electric power. Its rocky beach and clear waters
are ideal for snorkeling and skin-diving. Boats
for scuba-diving are available for hire.
Visitors need to bring there own equipment as
well food and drink supplies.
Shopping in
Karachi is a delight. There is Sarafa Bazaar , a
typical Eastern market in the city’s old
quarter, which is the main market for gold and
silver. Among the many colourful shopping areas
offering a wide variety of local goods is the
Zainab Market where cotton T-shirts, dresses and
handcrafts are available. Shops in the Saddar
Co-operative Market have a wide collection of
handicrafts made from onyx, wood and brass.
Since prices are not fixed, bargaining is
advised. Leather goods and ready-made clothes
usually have fixed prices but sell at a fraction
of what they would cost overseas.
Bohri bazaar is
a colourful market where almost everything is
available. Other modern shopping centres are
Clifton area, Zaib-un-Nisa Street, Abdullah
Haroon Road and Mohammad Ali Jinnah Road. The
typically Eastern bazaars are at June Market,
Kharadar, Mithadar and Jodia Bazaar area, which
are worth visiting.
For souvenirs
of brassware, carved silverware, gold and silver
jewellery, embroidery, delicate mirror-work of
Sindh handloom tapestries, printed fabrics,
lacquer-ware, camel skin articles and carved
wood-work etc., tourists are advised to visit
the All Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA) shop
on Abdullah Haroon Road and the P.I.D.C. Cottage
Industries show-room, where prices are fixed and
quality ensured. There are a number of other
shops in all main markets of the city.
THATTA
Thatta fis well
worth a visit for the Shah Jahan Mosque and its
bazaar. The mosque is a reminder of Thatta’s
past asd a thriving port and the campital of
Lower Sindh before the Indus abandoned it for
new channels to the east.
Some experts
believe that Thatta was the site of the ancient
city of Pattala, where Alexdander the Great
rested his weary troops before his near-fatal
mach across Makran Desert in Balochistan, and
where his admiral Nearchus readied the fleet for
the voyages along the Arabian Sea coast.
Alexander built a wall around Pattala’s citadel
and a dockyard known as the Wooden City (timber
being the only marterial to hand) at the head of
the Indus estuary.
Thatta’s known
history goes back at least 600 years. From the
14th to the 16th century
it was the seat of the Sammahs, the independent
Muslim rulers of Lower Sindh, who controlled the
lucrative spice trade to Indonesia, burned and
ransacked the town, and in 1529 it became a part
of the Mughal Empire. For the next 150 years it
was a prosperous port, famous its handloom
cotton-weaving and its wood-carving. In the 18th century Thatta declined; not only had the Indus
shifted its course, but Britain had begun
exporting cotton lunghis from India which were
better and cheaper than the once-famous Thattta
product. By 1815 the population had fallen from
its height of 300,000 to 7,000. Today only a
dazon or so of the old carved wooden hours
remain near the bazaar.
THAR DESERT
The border of
Pakistan and India runs through desert for 500
km from the Rann of Kutch to Bahawalpour in
Punjab. The That, Rajasthan and Cholistan
deserts form a continuous belt of dry, sparsely
populated land.
The Thar
Desert, however is not an inhospitable, empty
wasteland, but is often called with good reas,
the “Friendly Desert”. It is accessible, not too
hot and colorful, and makes a perfect four-day
trip from Karachi.
More than half
a million people, 70 percent of who are Hindu,
live in the desert, spread our over 13,000
square km. The women wear long, full red or
orange skirts and cover their heads with
embroidered or tiedyed shwls. Married women
encase their arms in bone of plastic bangles
from writs to shoulder (widows wear bangles
above the elbow only, single girls wear the only
round the wrist). The people live in round
mud-walled busts thatched with grass and
surrounded with thick thorn hedges. There is
always plenty of activity in the villages: women
come with pots on their heads or with donkeys to
fetch water, herds of camels and cattle drink
from the pond. The wells are generally very deep
and animals are needed to haul the water up-a 50
meter deep well requires the strength of a
camel, while the shallower wells can be worked
by two or four donkeys harnessed together.
Wandering Sindhi musicians sometimes sit by the
wells or at the shires and give impromptu
concerts.
SEHWAN SHARIF
Sehawan Sharif is famous for the shrine of Shah
of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, renowned for his great
learning and virtue and for his ability to
perform miracles. The twon is a permanent
carnival with a holiday air.
Sehawan Sharif
is the oldest occupied town in Sindh Mud houses
huddle on top of a mound of mud debris that has
accumulated over thousands of years. The ruins
of a massive fort dominate the town at the
northern end and command the route from the
upper to the lower Indus, through which all
invaders from either north or south had to pass.
Possession of the fort was essential to the
success of every campaign, so Sehawan figures
constantly in Sindh’s history.
Lal Shahbaz
Qalandar is honored and loved as one of the
greatest Sufi saints in Pakistan. Born in Persia
in 1177, he was celibate, mystic wanderer and
missionary, as well as a scholer, poet and
philologist who wrote several books in Persia
and Arabic that are still widely read today.
MOENJODARO
Meonjodaro
(Mound of the dead) is the ruins of a 4,000 year
old brick city of the Indus Civilization (also
known as the Harrappan Civilization after the
first site to be excavated), on the west bank of
the Indus in Upper Sindh. It is a one of the
most important archaeological sites in the
subcontinent, and a must for anyone interested
in ancient history. Enthusiasts should allow a
whole day there to tour the ruins and see the
excellent museum.
The Indus
Civilization flourished from 3000 to 1500 BC
making it contemporary with the ancient
civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. At the
height, it comprised at least 400 cities and
twons along the Indus and its tributaries,
covering most of the present day Pakistan and
stretching northwest as far as modern Kabul and
east as far as modern Delhui. The waterways were
the principal highways connecting the empire,
and flat-bottomed barges, almost identical to
those still used today, plied the rivers from
city to city. Few of the cities have been
excavated; what little we know of the
civilization has been pieced together from the
finds at Moenjodaro, Harappa and Lothal in
India.
According to
archaeologists John Marshall and Mortimer
Wheeler, the Indus people had as a strong
central administrative system. The cities appear
to have been built according to a single, height
organized plan, with a raised citadel in the
west and streets laid out in neat blocks deined
by wide avenues intersecting at right angles. At
its height there must have been about 80,000
inhabitants. Much like the modern Islamabad,
different sectors were reserved for different
functions, so that there was an administrative
sector, a residential sector for the wealthy,
another for the working class, and separate
sectors for various kinds of artisans and
tradesmen. Even the different cities were
specialized to produce different crafts which
they traded with others. Lothal, in India,
specialized in making exquisite carnelian beads,
towns in what is now the Cholistan Desert made
bricks and pottery and smelted copper, and a
colony at Shortugai in Afghanistan worked the
lapis lazuli mines.
KOT DIJI
Kot Diji, is
the another place of interest on the National
Highway. It is a magnificent early 19th century Talpur fort perched on the right of a
steep, narrow hill just beside the road on the
right. The Talpurs ruled Sindh from 1789 to 1843
and built a number of huge brick forts at
strategic points. Kot Diji was constructed by
Mir Suhrab Khan (1803-30) and is the
best-preserved and most interesting of them all.
The entrance of
the fort is located in the village on the other
side of the hill and is barred by enormous
spiked elephant gates set between massive round
bastions. The gates are protected by a
projection wall with battlements erected so they
could not be charged. A steep road between high
walls leads up to the narrow top of the ridge.
Extensive soldiers’ quarters, a royal residence,
a pavilion with fluted arches under which the
commander sat and a parade ground fill with
space at the top the hill which is surrounded by
a crenellated wall.
The pre
historic site at Kot Diji is the foot of the
hill is not less exciting for the archaeologist.
The people who lived here were the forerunners
of the Indus Civilization. The lowest levels of
the site are under water and can not be
excavated, but from their discoveries here
archaeologists have found that the Indus
Civilization borrowed or developed some of the
basic cultural elements of the Kot Diji in about
2800BC.
The site
consists of two parts: the citadel area on high
ground where the elite lived and an outer area
for the artisans and workers. The people built
houses of mud brick on stone foundations and
made pottery which differed in the style and
technique from that of the later Indus people,
who nonetheless seem to have adapted Kot Diji
designs-horizontal and wavy lines, loops and
simple triangular patterns. There are hundreds
of shards at the site. It is not clear yet where
the people of Kot Diji came from or how they
disappeared.
|
