KARACHI: To modernize the transport system, authorities in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi have kick-started work on multiple bus rapid transit (BRT) projects, but the uplift is going to cost the city, besides money, an iconic globe monument that is witness to the Pakistani cinema’s past glory.
Built in 1964, the iconic structure across Islamia College and the Dawood University of Engineering and Technology had been a favorite site for Pakistani filmmakers, who filmed superstars like Waheed Murad, Faisal Rehman, Nadeem, Kamal and Asad Bukhari there between 1960s and 1980s.
The structure is located on the under-construction Red Line BRT route, which connects the city’s Malir area with the downtown in the south, and is set to be removed in the next few days as development work has already begun on the said section of the route.
The prospect of the demolition of the iconic globe has upset many, including actors, historians and film enthusiasts.
“This site has a history and it has become cultural symbol after several songs were filmed here,” Mustafa Qureshi, a Pakistani cinema veteran, told Arab News on Saturday.
“It deserves to stand there.”
Khurram Ali Shafique, a historian and educationist, said he often visited the site as some of his favorite songs had been filmed there.
“Things like these should be preserved because our history is what makes us a nation and I do not think that a landmark of such immense cultural importance should be removed just because you want to build something new there or want to make a passage or something,” Shafique said.
“If there’s no other way, then at least it should be preserved. The entire area, that locality, it’s next to [Muhammad Ali] Jinnah’s mausoleum. So, every brick there has a historical value, that area should not be altered so radically.”
Officially known as the Islamia College fountain, the iconic globe structure initially had sky blue color but the East district municipal corporation made its shades darker and uprooted all fountains a few years ago. The site has not been maintained for quite a while and is currently surrounded by grass.
Hassan Ali Sajid, a spokesperson for the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, says the giant cement structure could not be moved to another place and it is mandatory to dismantle it.
“The structure has already completed its life. It has to be removed as an important bus route is going through here,” Sajid told Arab News.
But Sarfaraz Fareed, a culture writer and film enthusiast, says had such historical structure been there in any other country, authorities would have preserved it.
“Every country or city preserves its historical places,” he told Arab News. “They don’t remove them.”
Fareed lamented the uprooting of several other structures of historical and cultural significance by the authorities in the past.
“Now, this globe should be spared to let our [next] generation see it,” he said.
“It’s like a jhumar (a crescent-shaped South Asian wedding head jewelry) on the forehead of the city. It tells us about the cultural history of Karachi.”
