… and the Romantic Couple
Underneath the Natha Khan Bridge
In Karachi, from Drigh Road railway station, a solitary line deviates from the main route that takes standard up / down traffic of express as well as passenger trains. Just beyond a half buried railway crossing, our lonely line takes a detour due north towards what’s now a jumbo maze of ever sprawling and towering residential complexes of Gulistan e Jauhar and surroundings. These once were (or may be ‘still are’, if one thinks wishfully enough) Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) tracks. Plying on ever clogged Shar-e-Faisal, if one settles for the convenience of taking the overhead bridge at Natha Khan, they are likely to miss this detail. To be able to see these railway tracks now buried under the service road, one has to leave Natha Khan bridge and embrace the ruthless three directional traffic comprising bikes, rickshaws and pickup trucks brushing shoulders as they drive. When on site, just beside the drain that separates Army’s Central Ordnance Depot from PIA Township, there’s a junction of two railway tracks coming from opposite directions, originating from two different railway stations, Drigh Road in the west and Drigh Colony in the east. A little ahead, on walking distance stands what now survives of Depot Hill Junction, the first Railway Station on KCR loop.
One prominent landmark, still standing and which becomes visible from a distance is this pedestrian bridge across the railway tracks. It was on this bridge, dear reader, that on a quiet midsummer night of early 70s our Station Master of Depot Hill, bumped into two love birds enjoying their moment of solitude, lip-locked in an embrace, like a scene direct from the lines of Majeed Amjad’s Munich
بانہیں بانہوں میں ہونٹ ہونٹوں پر
To put things into perspective we are talking about Karachi of the 1970s. How do I know this? Well, let me tell you a story.
A Railway Veteran in Ontario
On a cold wintery evening in Ontario, with fingers curled around a hot mug of coffee, Abbu while reminiscing his early days of employment in Pakistan Railway, talked about Bholari, Meting, Dabheji and other forlorn stations on Karachi – Hyderabad railroad. There were stories, plenty of those. There was this kaantay wala (the line-man) who would cook desi chicken so delicious that he was officially designated as Master Chef of Gharo railway station. The dude would soon be in high demand and a tussle would ensue between three station masters of “The Gang” in getting him posted to their duty stations. In the waiting room at Pipri (present day Bin Qasim) railway station, a local woman from the nearby goth, waiting to embark a passenger train to her parents after a domestic episode had called railway police on her husband, painting him a stranger who was getting ‘indecent’ upon seeing a lady alone in the waiting room. The poor chap followed his wife all the way to the station, begging her to return home, only to get a good beating at the hands of railway police.
Abbu, when asked what was his earliest memory of a railway station in his career, had this distant stare, as if recollecting something and then with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his face his lips carefully uttered as if sacred, a name long forgotten, Depot Hill. The Depot Hill junction of KCR, Abbu’s very first posting as Assistant Station Master.
Ivan Sigal’s Project KCR
A few days back from the above-mentioned evening, I had watched a video from Ivan Sigal, an American photographer who had visited Karachi in 2018 and documented KCR, “a now-defunct commuter train that once connected the disparate neighbourhoods of Pakistan’s largest metropolis”. The video which in fact serves as a preamble to Ivan’s walk across the length of KCR loop, features a small piece of railway tracks buried under a road crossing, the steel top shining, polished by the passing of countless rubber tyres and soles of Karachi’s everyday traffic and commuters. This tiny piece of rails seems to appear from nowhere as the remaining track lies buried under the layers of dirt, stones and charcoal. And then in the backdrop is this lone railway signal, surrounded by residential structures, out of place, stuck in up position, a sign for railway traffic to come to a halt. In his true craft Ivan while keeping the focus on glistening steel of this surviving piece of tracks covers across traffic of cars, rickshaws, pedestrians in a time lapse. Everything that enters the frame fades away as if ghosts are walking by a railroad that goes nowhere, just sits there in suspended animation. The true depiction of the decline and relegation into oblivion of what once was Karachi Circular Railway.
Karachi Circular Railway was established during late sixties to provide a better commuting option for travel between Karachi’s hub and the surrounding suburbs. Somewhere during late nineties this mode of transportation was gone. The everyday commute in an ever growing metropolis was hijacked by transport mafia and politicians. A government sponsored option like railway was easy to get relegated and eventually lost to oblivion. Opportunists and thieves were quick to dismantle the tracks and grab the land otherwise belonging to Pakistan Railway. By the time I was going to college taking a bus to commute between Steel Town and Guru Mandir, KCR was already a ghost. What I remember from that time are the half buried railway tracks at railway crossing short of Model Colony bus stop that our bus used to cross everyday. I had always thought it to be a railway track from the defunct KCR but I was wrong, as Abbu would later correct me when on site.
Other than the video above, there were pictures captured by Ivan on his tour of the defunct line and one of those was that of Depot Hill. Abbu and I watched the video and the collage of other images with nostalgic memories. The old man and I, then struck a deal, that whenever back to Karachi we shall retrace the footsteps of our American photographer and walk the walk along what now survives of the skeleton of KCR. Here, let me confess, I cheated a bit by keeping the picture of Depot Hill Station taken by Ivan to myself. I didn’t share it with the old man, for dear reader, I had other plans.
Travelling Allowance – From the Archives
Our trip to explore KCR finally materialized on my visit to Karachi during June of 2024. It was a leisurely afternoon, just like any other afternoon on a home bound vacation, and we were browsing through some old stuff. Abbu is very good at archiving. He has carefully curated photographs in neatly laid out old styled durable photo albums. The education records of all of his kids from primary onwards to higher grades and universities, with result cards, marks sheets, certificates neatly punched and snapped to file ribs. Little did I know that the old man once had a habit of maintaining daily journals. While going through the photographs of his early days of employment in Pakistan Western Railway, Abbu was telling stories of his railway colleagues and friends when I left to grab another photo album and by chance found a couple of old diaries. These, to my excitement, were the journals kept by the old man during his early days in Railways. A quick browse through the contents in excitement, and after a bit of search, on one of the pages, I found that long forgotten name, once carefully uttered as if sacred, with fingers curled around a hot mug of coffee, on a cold Ontario evening, the Depot Hill Junction.
This was a record from the early seventies, of Travelling Allowances (TA) kept by Abbu during his rotary posting on various KCR stations. An entry from 1972 records his stay from Apr 10 – 21 on DPHL, Depot Hill railway station. There are other now forgotten abbreviated names of KCR railway stations, like MDCL (Model Colony), KMR (Kemari), KRSZ (Karsaz), DID (Drigh Road), DCL (Drigh Colony), MTPN (Metapan) and from later 1973/74 entries of those on Karachi – Hyderabad section, LTFG (Latif Chang), MTG (Meting), LND (Landhi), JHP (Jhumpeer), GHO (Gharo, my birthplace) and others. And then there was the photo album to give a pictorial perspective to Abbu’s story of early days in railways. Just when the old man was content on his rotation across the stations on KCR loop, the real culprits, Muhammad Ashraf and Akram Shah who, having experienced the quiet and serene postings on the tiny flag-stop railway stations on Karachi – Hyderabad section were now conspiring to pull their third mate Muhammad Saeed Akthar out of Karachi.
A Railway Childhood
The earliest of my childhood photographs are those snapped at Gharo railway station, a flag-stop on Karachi – Hyderabad section, where Abbu was posted as Assistant Station Master (ASM). In one of the pictures taken outside SM office, the ‘Chota Station Master’ is standing holding on to the trousers of his father. In the picture behind me, standing in the centre is Ashraf Uncle, one of the culprits we talked of a few lines above who had pulled Abbu out of the KCR loop. I have no memory of this, but Abbu narrates that I was a regular, standing beside him as he flagged past the trains, so much so that I was crowned the Chota Station Master. Years later when I returned to the structure where our picture from the late 70s was taken, much had changed. The erstwhile flag-stop was now an abandoned railway station with just an empty building standing. An all grown Young Station Master returned that evening only to discover that the trains no longer needed a child’s flag-post to pass through.
The earliest of my childhood memories are of Pipri (present day Bin Qasim) another flag-stop on Karachi-Hyderabad railroad. I have vivid memories of the Station Master house, the rear backyard door of which had a relatively lower entrance. My mamoo, who was a tall young man, would slightly bend his head while passing through it. I would do the same, bend my head with a slight tilt while passing through the rear door, imitating my uncle. Then there was this band of us brothers, Ma’ni (a slight jerk between a & n typical of punjabi dialect) and Jani, and our playmates, Feshi and Dulli, the senior Station Master Bhatti Sahab’s grandkids. They would turn up from their haveli type house in the nearby goth, next to a vast compound of a disused factory, the Bhoot Bangla for us kids. On Bin Qasim station, was this farther platform, Platform No.2 where the goods trains would normally dock. Once in a while the ‘local’ would depart for Karachi from Platform No.2, the commuter train of Karachi Circular Railway (KCR), the carriages of which due to limited seating, were more suited to travel while standing.
But all of this came much later, after our culprits, Muhammad Ashraf and Akram Shah succeeded in pulling their third gang member Muhammad Saeed Akhtar out of the KCR loop. We are still in Karachi of 1972, where our young lad Muhammd Saeed, an eligible bachelor, writing romantic stories under the pen name Akhtar, got appointed as ASM at Depot Hill Junction, the very first railway station on KCR loop after it leaves Drigh Road, or Drigh Colony. This was Abbu’s first semi-independent appointment after attending the railway school at Walton. It was here at Depot Hill, dear reader, where having flagged through ‘Ek Chalees Ki Last Local’, our incumbent ASM noticed suspicious activity on the pedestrian bridge and discovered a romantic couple, in an embrace, liplocked, in the backdrop of Karachi skyline.
بانہیں بانہوں میں، ہونٹ ہونٹوں پر
The Quest to Depot Hill
On that Ontario evening, with fingers curled around a hot mug of coffee, as Abbu narrated the first memory of his days from railway, I had registered the name. I couldn’t recall Depot Hill Junction from memory, but then I hadn’t known much about KCR either. Abbu didn’t know whether the station had survived the downfall of KCR or not. The picture of Depot Hill from Ivan Sigal’s photography came as a pleasant surprise, but I had kept it to myself. I then waited for the right moment, to be at the right spot with my old man, to cherish the look on his face while standing at the very platform of Depot Hill Junction. Our moment, dear reader, came when I returned to my parents in Karachi in June of 2024, but not without a short adventure.
Qayyum (my drive buddy) and I were back from the Khokhropar – Nagarparkar trip looking for the lost graves of Munabao when I had to visit Malir Cantt to collect copies of a few documents related to my retirement benefits. It was then we planned to stretch this drive further to Depot Hill Junction. Abbu, who was lured in on the pretext of keeping company, had no idea what was coming. To be honest, dear reader, Qayyum and I had no idea either about what was coming our way.
In the jumbo maze of Karachi we relied on Google Maps only to discover that the suggested route was quite unusual, primarily because of the location of our railway station. Any vehicular access from the side of Natha Khan bridge was blocked and we were presented a longer way from the opposite side of Gulistan e Jauhar. From the road leading to Jauhar Chowrangi, at the foothill of tall apartment buildings of Rao Heights originated a fair weather dirt track that led to our destination.
Exiting Malir Cantt from Check Post No.5 onto University Road, as we passed through the notorious Pehelwan Goth area, Qayyum recalled that beside the drain that runs between the runway of Karachi International and Askari IV, was a kacha dirt track that followed the alignment of a concrete boundary wall and that was from where Google Maps was taking us. The first alarm was raised as we took the exit from Jauhar Chowrangi onto the service road. The area in front of us resembled a mini jungle with thick growth of acacia trees. Our dirt track was a thin narrow strip littered with sharp pebbles and acacia thorns, following a concrete wall of average man’s height, just wide enough for one car of Suzuki Cultus dimensions to pass through at a time. The terrain resembled those classic no go areas of Karachi I had known from my college days in this metropolis. To be precise it had this vibe of ‘kachay ka ilaqa’ where the course of subsequent events would narrow down to only two possible outcomes, kidnapped by dacoits, or a police encounter. Qayyum and I looked at each other, his face expression translating to ‘waqt ne ek baar phir se dulhan bana diya’. A few days back, from Chhor onwards we had encountered the vast unknown stretch of Thar desert and persisted, compared to what this was nothing. And then came the very familiar dialogue from Qayyum, ‘bhai aap dil bara karein, meri aur gari ki fikr chorein’.
Suzuki Cultus, thus roared forward, fearing for any oncoming traffic which would force us to drive in reverse retracing our steps backwards, but then of all the places in Karachi who would be in that godforsaken place, albeit driving a car, but two idiots and an old man. Soon we were at the RV from where the pedestrian bridge of Depot Hill was visible at a distance towards our right. Abbu was still trying to make a sense of it as I dismounted the car to reconnaître a pathway. Depot Hill Station was a few hundred yards but there was no way through the undulating ground littered with thick acacia vegetation. I could have negotiated my way through, not minding the scratches from razor sharp thorns, but it was nowhere near to ‘suitable’ for Abbu. While on the lookout, I noticed that our Depot Hill Station was right next to the outer perimeter of Army’s Central Ordnance Depot (COD) with a watch tower looming right over the platform. Any activity there would have raised a few heads and probably an alarm inside the depot. If there was a way to the station that would only be possible after coordinating with COD officials. So back we went, on the same dirt track towards Jauhar Chowrangi road. Skirting beside Askari IV our destination was the main entrance of the army depot.
The Kind Hearted JCO of COD
Abbu was now aware of what we were up to and I could sense an adrenaline rush inside the car. A private security guard on the main depot entrance scanned my retired defence services card and signalled us in towards a parking lot beside the main reception. An army lance naik at reception put me through to the Administrative Junior Commissioned Officer (Adm JCO) over the phone who was a Subedar by rank. Saab, I am Major (retired) Imran … and from here the conversation took that classic military route of exchanging credentials and the shades of ‘how may I help you Sir’. Our Subedar upon learning that we had a railway veteran in the vehicle on a quest to revisit the railway station of his days of posting from 1972 was more than excited. Within minutes he obtained clearance from the security officer and despatched Ansar, the officer on outer patrol to act as a guide. As we waited thinking that the adventure portion of this trip was finally over, there came Ansar and with him the perfect icing on the cake, there was no direct route from within the depot to Depot Hill Junction.
We embraced the cut throat three directional traffic on the service road underneath Natha Khan bridge, and Suzuki Cultus having brushed its shoulders with the unforgiving bikes, rickshaws and pick up trucks reached the half buried railway tracks of the level crossing. From here onwards driving on the narrow footpath meant suspending one wheel of the car across the railway tracks but a determined Qayyum wouldn’t budge an inch. He drove us all the way to a point beyond which only pedestrian traffic was possible. From there on, dear reader, we walked the walk along the disused railway tracks all the way to our Depot Hill Junction, fulfilling the promise Abbu and I had made back in Ontario. From then on Ansar took on the duties of a conducting tour guide to our railway veteran and I let them roam free, keeping a distance not too far to capture a look on the old man’s face, and a few snapshots as he roamed the railway station that was his domain back in 1972.
The trains don’t run past this relic of the past. The tracks are bent and rusted, traffic signals serving as birds’ nests, structures on the platform partially damaged, the signboards whitewashed without a trace of any name on them. Depot Hill Junction is a perfect recipe for a ghost railway station. The only place where the name Depot Hill survives, half visible, half washed, is above the window of the ticketing clerk. It was here I snapped our ASM for a close up. The smile on his face, eyes glistening from behind the shades, and the surge of activity in his frail body, lighted me up. The kid in me was all excited seeing our young Station Master from the days of yore out and roaming around on the platform, touching and feeling everything as if in dream, as if sacred. I saw the same kid smiling in Qayyum, and in Ansar. It was not a mere trip to the past, but an entire package, and we all lived that moment, to the fullest.
The Romantic Couple of Pedestrian Bridge?
Moments later, while atop the commuter bridge, I asked Abbu, ‘so what happened to the couple that you had caught “red handed” that quiet midsummer night’.
‘Hatt paran, shatoongrya!’ was his response in a blushed tone, which dear reader, shall translate to ‘leave it, you crook!’, leaving me with more than one interpretation of the probable happening that night.
Maybe our Station Master of Depot Hill hushed the couple away, returning to his office to resume his shift. Maybe he slipped away quietly letting them enjoy their moment of solitude, and when back to his desk, thought about them, weaving a plot for his next novel he was about to write. Maybe it was him that night, our Station Master and his girl, two lovebirds together on Depot Hill bridge on a quiet midsummer night. Afterall he was young, an eligible bachelor on his first employment in the metropolis of Karachi.
Think about it, dear reader, spice up a bit and another fascinating story shall be born …
