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Fire Brigade Station, Karachi

Even when Karachi was a charming little coastal town and not a sprawling metropolis bursting at the seams, it was accident prone. It may sound like a hackneyed remark because no city in the world can claim to be accident-free. But bearing in mind the continuum of gory and ghastly incidents which have all but haemorrhaged the city in the last three decades, it won't be an exercise in futility to draw comparisons between the Karachi that was peaceful and picturesque and the Karachi that has become synonymous with blood, gore and pollution.

Flashback It is the early 20th century. New buildings are being built. New parks are being planned. New neighbourhoods are being pieced together. Local Parsis, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and other communities are working their hearts out to turn a sandy piece of land into a city of their dreams. Masters Moses Somake and Ahmed Hasan Agha are doing up the cityscape with their ingeniously designed Renaissance and Anglo-Mughal structures. Roads are being laid out to utilise and facilitate the automobile movement, a novelty for many locals. Occasionally a squally thunderstorm or a fire incident disturbs the calmness of the city. So things have been looked at to improve civic infrastructure and to take measures to minimise the occurrence of mishaps. As a result, Karachi now has a fire station.

Real time You don't know when the first fire station in Karachi was set up. The one that you see in the street where public transport buses turn from M.A. Jinnah Road (formerly Bunder Road) enter the main Saddar region (yes, where traffic moves at a snail's pace because of the hodgepodge that comprises street vendors, donkey-carts, roadside kiosks, cheap knickknacks on handcarts, smalltime crooks and traffic constables who are as harmless as doves). If you're coming from M.A. Jinnah Road you'll notice a building with an old peepal tree shading its entrance. It's a simple construction that has only two big halls where reasonably maintained fire brigades are parked. You can clearly see Fire Brigade Station 1937 written on top of the building in a large font. There's nothing fancy about this stonework, yet it comes across as an important, can't-be-missed structure.

The back of the building is interesting too. It has a set of stairs leading to the roof. Just beside the stairs there's a big bell which is used to alert the fire tenders if they're not in close proximity to each other at the time of a fire outbreak. A few steps further back is another aged residential block.

Looking at Fire Brigade Station will clearly tell you that the building hasn't been taken care of for ages. According to a fireman, Sohail, there's no consulting architect for this historical site nor does anyone from the department(s) concerned make an effort to restore it. Also, given the kind of traffic that flows right outside the firefighters' office, you wonder how the brigades manage to weave in and out of the road in times of emergency.

On the other hand, consider another pre-independence building on the street behind where the fire station is located. It's the Bomanshaw Minocher-Homji Parsi General Hospital. The foundation stone of this hospital was laid on June 21, 1941 by Lt-Col M Hurford-Jones, Executive Officer Karachi Cantt. This building is clean as a whistle and appears to have been maintained with thoughtfulness and affection. The kind of quietude that the B.M.H. Parsi General Hospital exudes makes it hard to believe that it exists in a locality that's now known for horn-honking, smog-emitting and utter disorder.

Architect and conservationist Aneela Naeem says “These facilities were established when the municipality began functioning. Karachi's municipality (1852) was the first in the Indian subcontinent. Initially it took it upon itself to demarcate the various quarters. Then in the 1920s and '30s things like waterworks were put in place. Work on them had already been initiated but it was in that time period they were put to use. This was the cantonment area right up till and beyond Bunder Road. As to why a fire station was made, I can tell you that it was developing as a commercial-plus-residential zone, and a few fire incidents were reported from Bohri Bazaar. This could have been one of the reasons.”

“If the station was constructed in 1937, it is definitely a historical building as one of the first of its kind. It should be restored. Since it's a simple utility structure, it doesn't strike to the people concerned as an important example of architecture. These buildings should be made visible and prominent. Architect Arif Hasan has often talked about how to put things back on track. If encroachments and traffic are properly managed, the problem can be resolved to a great extent.”

What the conservationist is saying is that the cold and lackadaisical attitude of the people in general towards heritage and history has added to the city's woes. It won't be a bad idea to wind up this journey by quoting Robert Frost's poem Fire and Ice.

[Source: Dawn Newspaper | Coordinates: Talha Nasir | Photos from Google Map users]

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