Karachiites love the sea. On days when the blazing sun scorches the land, they flock to the beaches to relish the cool waves; when the fiery sun is hidden behind the dark monsoon clouds, they rush back to the beaches to savour the falling raindrops against the roar of waves. The sea does not care whether you are rich or poor, happy or sad, in love or not; it remains indifferent to the emotional upheavals of humans. The self-absorbed waves continue to sing their own song of freedom, and in the dreary metropolis the resulting ambience can be strangely uplifting. To the city's inhabitants, the sea provides a brief interlude from the fret and fury of modern life. Children splash about in the waves; the unemployed smoke cigarettes, absent-mindedly looking at the setting sun; and boys sell roses to new lovers walking at night time. The sea lures all.
For centuries, waves from the Arabian Sea have lapped at Karachi's shoreline. For just as long, as night falls, the salty sea winds blow onto the shores and into the city. To the stranger who cares to listen, the wind whispers many tales, singing of a time when Karachi was just a small fisherfolk settlement. It hints darkly at the heavy rains of 1728 that silted an estuary leading to Karack Bunder, an important port during the late 17th and 18th centuries. This led the merchants to relocate their activities to Kolachi, from where grew modern-day Karachi. As the wind continues to blow through the coconut trees dotting the city, it sings tales of even earlier times.
To the person sitting in Aram Bagh, once called Ram Bagh, the winds whisper legends of Ram and Sita resting here on their way to pilgrimage to Hinglaj, Balochistan, to atone for the killing of Ravana. It mocks the humans who think that history can be erased by changing names, and urges the stranger to look at the temple of Mahadev, in Clifton, believed by some to be centuries old, and which remains a centre for the festival of Shivratri. Merrily the wind caresses the white jasmine flowers, spreading their sweet fragrance throughout the garden. Naughtily it shakes the branches of the trees, unsuccessfully trying to awaken the perched birds but in the process freeing a kite caught in the branches. Fallen to the ground, the kite impatiently waits to be picked up by the boys who will walk along this path early the next morning. Tomorrow, the kite will again fly into the city's skies, experiencing a freedom that earthbound humans can only admire and envy.
Knowing that the stranger is eager to know more about the city, the wind tries to remember the time when forces under the command of Alexander the Macedonian stopped here. But it cannot remember the details correctly. Did the troops really come all the way to what are today the Karachi shores? Was Alexander the one who slept with a copy of the Iliad under his head? Was he the one who stood here, alongside his troops, planning the siege of Babylon? Why do humans call him 'Great', anyway, when all he did was conquer; why aren't artists and painters and philosophers called 'Great' – 'Da Vinci the Great' or 'Beethoven the Great'? And did his army really call this land Krokola, the land of crocodile worshippers?