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National Geographic : 1981 May
Contents
snarling lion. A kerosene heater offered up a smelly breath of warmth. "My five children are still home, so there are seven of us living here," he said. "Three of the five are sons, and they will take care of me when I can no longer work, Inshallah. Still, I suppose I will live in this hut until I die. Do you know the man in the picture, the one who looks in the mouth of the lion?" In 30 years of working the streets, the old man had filled his mind and memory with snippets of data concerning Karachi. He presented them in the manner of an alder man speaking to members of the sixth-grade class on their visit to city hall: * There are 1,000 camel carts and 7,000 mo torized rickshas in Karachi. * Ten percent of the city's population is "wealthy," 25 percent "medium," and the remainder "hand-to-mouth." * A young camel sells today for about $300 in Karachi. * The lower caste Hindus who chose to re main in Karachi after partition now hold the lowliest of jobs. Of the wealthy in Karachi, there is a small group called the Parsi. They are Persian descended followers of Zoroastrianism, and over the years they have become highly suc cessful in trade and commerce. Also repre sented in Karachi are some of the famous names of the textile industry. Traditional Industry Still in Lead On the outskirts of the city, at a place called Landhi, there is a sprawling complex of buildings where a work force of 3,700 produces textiles under the Adamjee label. Before Pakistan's textile industry fell on bad times because of growing import restrictions in Western countries and labor problems at home, the mill employed thousands more, and the ear-shattering drive of the shuttle looms was even louder. Textile production remains Pakistan's leading industry, although money sent back by Pakistanis working in other countries accounts for the largest source of foreign ex change. Most of the 155 mills in the country are still under private ownership, having survived the tide of nationalization started in the early 1970s. Karachi's port operation is under control of the federal government, and so is the steel industry. The former is over a hundred years old, the latter now about to become operational. The firing of the first blast fur nace of Pakistan's only integrated iron- and steelworks is scheduled for late this year. The new plant, located on a coastal site 25 miles from Karachi, is part of a large indus trial complex that includes a new port to handle imported iron ore and coal. The So viet Union supplied the plans for the mill and the expertise to build it. Construction began in 1976 with hundreds of Russians in attendance as advisers and supervisors. Four years later, when I visited the site, there were still more than 500 of them there to oversee the work and the training of Paki stani steelworkers. I was introduced to an engineer from Minsk, and as we were shaking hands, I thought of the irony in the encounter: Only two weeks earlier I had sat in a tent in a refu gee camp near Peshawar and listened to five tribesmen from a village 35 miles across the border relate how they had killed two Soviet soldiers. They would be leaving the camp in a few days, they had told me, to go back into Af ghanistan and continue the fight. They had thoughts of digging a hole in a road near their village, camouflaging the opening, and then waiting with the hope that a Soviet tank would come along and fall in. I remarked that the wait could be a long one, and I expected the reply to be rooted in the Asian strength of patience, something along the order of "Time is on our side." But no. They said I was right, that in terms of wasting valuable time, it was too risky. They decided instead to cut some of the lines feeding electricity to Kabul. Q "I am 108 years old," says WazirzadahAli Muradof Hunza. Called "Joonu," he claims to remember the British invasion of 1891 when he served in the Hunza militia, though no supporting records exist. Joonu contentedly cradles his great-great-grandsonand smokes a hookah-aworld away from the cares that vex modern Pakistan. 700
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