'Place' is to Architecture

I lay awake in a cave

I learned to read under a tree

I planted trees all around me

I marked an ‘X’ for me to ‘be’

I felt the wind talk to me

As I stood on the place to ‘be’

I found each day, as the trees grew

Many new places around me

Places to sleep

Shades to eat

Places of warmth

Shades to read

I took some branches from the trees

Put them up to surround me

I marked each place with these sticks

Letting vines grow around me

In these creeping vines I found

Wrapping me, places to ‘be’

I found myself looking around

Asking the question repeatedly

What is this place, this ‘place to be?’

Is it not the place I seek?

A place barren and undefined

A space I made to be mine

This place, a space, belonged to me

The lines I had put on the ground

Marking points to grow the trees

With growing vines, I visualized this ‘place’

As the space for me to ‘be’

As the space took its shape

It became from a space to the ‘place’

The place I now know to be

The place I designed for me!

My Karachi is Burning

Amidst the smoke and the dust and the blinding sun of the afternoon, one can see little of what lies beyond and walks on, through the hustle and bustle of the crowds. Is this road always this overcrowded? Are the roads always this clogged? Why is everything hidden behind large clouds of smoke? Struggling through, making way for my colleague and myself from encroached foot paths, to on the road, squeezing through vehicular traffic and groups of people standing around, we moved into the cloud of dust and walked through on the M.A. Jinnah road.
Through the blinding light of the sun, silhouettes of Snorkel vehicles appeared, large groups of people crowded around them and as we followed their gaze, our eyes set upon the horrifying sight of arson-hit buildings. Buildings dating back to pre-partition set next to buildings from the contemporary period, stood ahead of us, damaged from the fires of 12/28/09, after an explosion ripped through the main Ashura procession earlier that day.
As my colleague and I surveyed the damage, I was amazed to see the variation in the extent of damage caused to the buildings from our heritage and the buildings of today and I was reminded of the phrase ‘set in stone’. It was inspirational to see the heritage stone buildings standing exceptionally and comparatively, in a much better state than the buildings constructed in concrete, amidst the aftermath of the fires leaving shop owners jobless, citizens’ homeless and offices abandoned. The composition of stone and limestone definitely proved stronger than that of concrete and mortar; nevertheless, the damage caused by the fires has left not only our architecture to shambles, but also the civilians of the area, as well as the people of the city down-trodden and perplexed.
The efforts of the victims of this condemnable destruction for repairing, renovating or reconstructing damaged and demolished buildings in all the chaos was elating and surely deserves appreciation, unfortunately, in all this efficiency or shall we say haste the people fail to realize that plastering or painting over these stone buildings will only ruin the natural beauty of the material while a little careful touch of the brush for simply cleaning the surfaces, will do wonders.
Melancholy is set about in the effected vicinity where burnt and carbonated facades speak of their misery, regenerating the image of Karachi burning on the day of Ashura, and as one walks down the road, the trail of buildings reveal the aftermath of the raging blaze, surrounded by victims struggling for solace, struggling for reconstructing their shops, to once again return to their hard earned business’.