How green was my valley

Many of you would have read this novel by author Richard Llewellyn, which was made into a movie in 1941, winning five Oscars including one for the best movie. It is the story of the Morgans – a hardworking Welsh family living in the South Wales Valley coal mines in the 1800s. It chronicles the decline of the family unit as well as the slow poisoning of the environment. The story of Karachi is no different with numerous poisons being injected into its veins -- polluted sewerage being dumped into the waters of the Arabian sea, plastic bags choking the sewerage system, blaring musical horns, garbage on the roads, paan peeks painting the city crimson red, bundles of  cable wires hanging from every electric pole and so on. These are just the few of the causes of this magnificent city’s slow death. Just think of an ill and we have got it in Karachi.

But here I would like to comment on just one of these poisons, which had scarred this great city beyond recognition -- the billboards of Karachi. We, the people of Karachi, must say a big  thank you to Our Lord Justice Amir Hani Muslim and his bench of three brother justices for doing what every successive government and all civic bodies collectively could not do -- remove these billboards. Thank you My Lords, for making Karachi breathe again. My city is definitely looking cleaner as if it was just washed by the monsoon rains. Not only cleaner, it is looking much greener too. This reminds me of the beautiful song “Feeling Good” written by Anthony Newleys and Leslie Bricusse for the 1965 musical “The Roar of the Greasepaint – the smell of the Crowd”. This song was sung by Nina Simmone in 1965 and later by a lot of other singers but the magical voice of  Micheal Buble perhaps suits it the best. With the sores and scars inflicted by the billboards gone, the lyrics of this song surely express the feelings of the citizens of Karachi:

Birds flying high, you know how I feel/Sun in the sky, you know how I feel/Breeze drifting by, you know how I feel/It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life. For me/And I am feeling good

After dragging their feet for a very long time but without getting any respite from our Supreme Lords, the civic authorities  were left with no option but to surrender and finally knock down these billboards. My Lords, that’s what we call a job well done and completed. The Cantonment Board and DHA areas, despite showing a little resistance initially, finally also upheld the law. The present station commander, currently also the president of the Clifton Cantonment Board is a very progressive man. Not only has he had all the billboards pulled down in and around the Station Headquarters, he is on the war path against all illegal encroachments in the Clifton area. All complaints are taken care of promptly and I can personally vouch for that as I am one of the complainants in one such illegal encroachment case. The Karsaz areas, especially around PNS Karsaz, were also not in total compliance of the court orders. The claims of the authorities there that the billboards in and around Karsaz are located inside boundary walls does not depict reality. These billboards were erected on the greenbelts in Karsaz and only very recently, due to the terror threat in Karachi, these greenbelts were secured within boundary walls and made a part of the Karsaz Naval Enclave for security reasons. This same action was taken near the Aisha Bawany building. So now to say that these billboards can’t be removed (as reported in court) as they do not fall under the zoning authority’s  jurisdiction would be a misleading statement. The overhead pedestrian bridges with huge advertisements adorning them have an altogether different mafia-like story associated with them. I am tempted to write about this as well but as the issue has already been taken care of, I will reserve my comments for a later day.

An injustice, a great wrong inflicted on the people of Karachi, has finally been set right for which once again, we salute you my Lords and with a unified voice say, ‘We all are feeling good.’

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2016.

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