When Peter Mayne visited the shrine of Ghazi Baba, it was being rebuilt, “so that what was once a modest little place perched on a rock is now going to look like a provincial movie-house”. The functional stairs that lead up to the shrine retain a quasi-commercial feel seventy years on. There is no doubting the fervour of those ascending them though, and that, together with the humour and humanity that he encountered in rural Sindh, seem little changed.
 
Cities are different and there is a familiar sense of purpose in Karachi. Pedestrians, fixed on personal ends, eschew eye contact with passers-by. Like New York, Hong Kong or Mumbai, other port cities grown great from immigration in recent centuries, Karachi’s monuments consciously proclaim the wealth that was generated here. The extensive yellow sweep of the domed Karachi Port Trust is a temple to commerce, while the Gothic Revival Frere Hall, once the town hall, blends Italianate and Moghul influences, with a slender spire on top that wouldn’t look out of place on a Zurich church.

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