Morbi Memons keep old-country traditions alive in a new world

Small community's pre-partition welfare system is helping their own

KARACHI: The mood is festive but it's not a wedding reception. There's live music, but it's not a concert. There are prizes on offer, but it's not a game show. Karachi's YMCA Lawn is packed with a capacity crowd of 1,700 - all clad in their best dresses and all members of a specific Memon community - the Morbi Tankara community.

Year after year, this particular Memon caste comes together to gossip, mingle and bond, before sharing a typically chaotic dinner. It's a grand old pre-partition tradition, believed to have begun back in the Indian town of Tankara, located in the Morbi district, which is also where they get their name from.



But the annual meet-up, or 'function' as the attendants refer to it, is only the culmination of an entire year's work done by the community's elected body - Morbi Tankara Memon Association (MTMA).

Generally given a two-year tenure, the MTMA, through its chairperson's cabinet and chain of volunteers, collects donations from the community's affluent and disperses it among those in need, per their need.

The families struggling to put their kids through schools get monthly stipends, the unemployed get jobs, the sick get treated at the community's own free of charge hospital, and parents struggling to find matches for their children of age get fixed with rishtas via the inhouse marriage bureau.



With the middle-to-lower class pay packets struggling to keep pace with soaring residential prices, owning your own home in Karachi is more difficult than it's ever been. Once again, the MTMA pitches in for its homeless, providing them with low-cost housing and zero markup loans.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown

"We take care of our own," MTMA Chairperson Siddique Adam tells The Express Tribune while trying his best to convey to an elderly lady that the lucky draw prize she had her eye on was picked randomly and that he had no say in it.

"Food, education, medical, housing, dispute resolution - whatever our people need, we try to provide to the best of our ability," he hastily adds as the elderly lady makes her case again.



Adam counters with another polite explanation.

But her pestering doesn't irk him. Such is the desire to bring the community together and keep alive their cultural heritage from old country that whoever holds office does so with full knowledge that it is a thankless job.

At best, that is.

The basic instinct

Memons are self-sufficient, do-it-yourself creatures, preferring to solve their problems on their own rather than go complaining to the larger authorities.



It's precisely why they're rarely involved in outside politics and generally viewed as a peaceful, even docile, bunch. When feeling the financial pinch, they don't vent like others. There is little need to. The community elders make sure they're taken care of.

When faced with internal disputes, they prefer to mediate from within, with the elders again making sure their rulings are fair on everyone.

So, in times of crisis, while the general public would look towards provincial or national administrators, Morbi and other Memon communities get their first wave of relief from familiar faces.
It's also why they take such keen interest in internal politics, with community elections preceded by full-fledged campaigning and proceeded by victory celebrations.

Young generation is on board

"Ek se dus jani kese banta jata, Hume to kharobar shuru se ata, Jis kam me zada paisa usi se hey nata, Tabhi to har kam me hume hota faida," spits Memon rapper Zaryab Qasmani in the opening verse of his song 'Memony Swag', with his bars roughly translating into: "How to make 10 from one, we know this business from the very start, we're into the line of work that pays the most, which is why we profit from every venture we step into."



Having just heard their life story in a rap song for the first time, the crowd at once takes a break from counting their gifts.

Where has an aspiring MC come from in a community where owning a business is 'supposedly' the only way of life?

That stereotype may exist in perceptions, but the reality is a bit different. The Memon youth are now doctors, engineers, teachers, musicians, bankers, motivational speakers, journalists, and of course, businessmen.

Zaryab is part of the new wave that wouldn't let itself being pigeonholed into conventional career choices. His attire, his choice of alien music and his rhythmic prancing on stage raises a few eyebrows, but he couldn't care less.

Breaking barriers, however, doesn't mean Zaryab and others are ashamed of where they come from or don't believe in the idea of a close-knit community. "I'm proud to be a Memon," he said. "Our traditions should stay alive and this self-sustaining welfare system should stay alive. In fact, young folks like us need to participate more in our communities more so this gets carried forward to our future generations."

Morbi Tankara's internal welfare system may not be perfect, but in a country where the actual powers that be don't take responsibility, perhaps more communities should take a leaf out of their book.