Mohammad Ehsan Leghari

The mountains of Khirthar do not care for schedules.

When the rains come, they send walls of water crashing down through the ravines, swallowing roads, livestock, and sometimes people. When the rains do not come, the land cracks open like a wound and people beg the sky for mercy. Kacho exists at the mercy of both; a rain-fed world cut off from the great Indus irrigation network, stranded at the edge of things, forgotten in the way that only the poor can truly be forgotten.

Chacha Abdul was seventy-four years old when he buried his granddaughter.

She had been young. Healthy. The kind of girl who carried water on her head and still found reason to laugh. But childbirth does not forgive the absence of doctors, and the government hospital near their village had no lady doctor — had never had one, in memory. No male doctor either. Not even a compounder who showed up reliably. There was a dresser. One dresser, playing every role medicine requires, doing his honest best with what God and the government had given him, which was very little of either.

She bled. And then she was gone.

Chacha Abdul sat with her three days. Then he picked up his pen.

He wrote in Sindhi, in a hand so precise and careful it embarrassed men half his age. The application asked for one thing only: the posting of a doctor; and a lady doctor, at the government hospital. He walked it to every home in the village and every elder pressed his thumb or signed his name. Chacha had taught them this years ago — that one voice is a complaint, but many voices are a demand. He had been doing this for as long as anyone could remember. Applications for roads. For schools. For water. For the ordinary dignities that other Pakistanis received without asking.

He folded the application. He began walking.

The first few kilometers he walked on foot, on a track the flash floods had half-erased. Then a motorcycle, a neighbor’s, dropping him near the FP bund. Then public transport; the cramped, lurching kind, rattling to Johi. Then another bus to Dadu. Then Hyderabad.

By the time Hyderabad’s lights appeared it was already dark, and Karachi was still hours ahead. He had nowhere to sleep. The mosque where he used to spend late nights had started locking its doors after Isha, a small cruelty of new times, and so he sat in a corner of the bus terminal with his application folded against his chest, and slept the way old men who have walked all day sleep: without dreaming.

Friday morning he boarded the first coach to Karachi.

He was at the door of the Health Secretary’s office at five minutes past nine.

The secretariat was still waking up. Staff trickled in from government buses at nine-thirty. Officers arrived in their own cars, unhurried. After an hour or so, Chacha was told that the Secretary was at a meeting at the CM House (so, it was futile for him to sit and wait for Secretary). The PS, a young man with kind eyes, looked at the old man in the threadbare shalwar kameez, standing patiently in the corridor, and said nothing unkind. He didn’t have the authority to say anything helpful either.

“No problem,” Chacha said, offering a smile of such complete and undefended humility that the PS had to look away. “I will wait.”

He waited.

He prayed Zuhr in the corridor, spreading his handkerchief on the marble floor, drawing brief stares. He ate nothing; perhaps because he had brought nothing, perhaps because hunger had become a companion so familiar he no longer introduced it to others.

One hour. Two. Five. Eight.

The secretariat hummed its daily theatre around him: files migrating between rooms, doctors angling for transfers to cities, MS of hospitals negotiating, special guests bypassing the chit system and walking straight to the inner door. In the files, paper under consideration, notes, remarks and ultimate notifications, doctors were flowing toward hospitals already drowning in them, and away from hospitals that had none. The mathematics of access, practiced fluently by those who understood it.

At four o’clock, the Secretary arrived; and the corridor became a current. Phones, attachés, section officers, a tide of urgency in every direction except toward the old man on the wooden bench.

At ten minutes to six, the PS gathered himself.

“Sir.” He caught the Secretary mid-stride. “The old man has been here since nine. He has come from a village three hours beyond Johi, sir. He has been sitting more than nine hours.”

A pause. A calculation.

“Send him in.”

Chacha Abdul stood in the office for a moment and almost believed it was over. Then something older and quieter in him remembered: journeys do not end in offices.

He pressed both palms together; not the greeting of a supplicant, but of a man who has learned that dignity survives everything, even nine hours on a wooden bench.

“Sain,” he said. “My daughter has died. Please help us; so that no other daughter has to die.”

The Secretary looked at him. Perhaps something moved behind his eyes; it is hard to know what moves behind the eyes of men who process so much human need that it must, for survival, become paperwork.

“Give me your application.”

He read it. He uncapped a pen — a pen that cost more than Chacha’s yearly expenses, a pen made for signing things that matter — and wrote a note. Then he held out the application.

“I’ve written to the DHO, District Health Officer. Take this to him.”

“Sain, I have gone to him many times.”

“He will act on this. This has my writing.”

“Sain, if you could…; post a doctor there, or telephone him yourself—”

“Chacha, I have already done what I can.”

Before Chacha had fully crossed the threshold, the Secretary was already folding himself into the back seat of his seven-seater. The engine turned over. The gate opened. The big car dissolved into Karachi’s evening traffic; toward a destination, as powerful men always have destinations.

Chacha Abdul stood on the pavement.

In his hand, a folded application. On it, a note in a hundred-thousand-rupee pen’s ink; a note addressed to a man he had already visited many times, in a city he had already travelled to many times, about a hospital that had been empty of doctors for longer than he could remember.

He stood there a moment, not in defeat. Not in anger. In something quieter and more permanent than either.

The PS appeared at his shoulder.

“Chacha — I am sorry.”

The old man turned and looked at the young man with eyes that held no bitterness. Eyes that had simply seen too much, too long, to waste themselves on bitterness.

“Son,” he said softly, “I am humbled that you allowed me to meet him.”

He adjusted his cap. He placed the application back against his chest, close to his heart, where it had rested for three days now; since the morning after he buried his granddaughter.

And then he began walking toward the bus stop.

It was only then — watching those slow, certain steps — that the PS understood something he could not yet find words for.

Chacha was not walking toward anything.

He never had been.

The road to Karachi was not a road to justice. The secretary’s office was not a destination. The DHO’s door, which he would knock on next, was not a destination either. The next application, the next signatures, the next journey from the mountains to the plains; none of it was a destination.

The journey was not something Chacha was on.

It was something Chacha was.

Power moves between destinations; offices, cars, meetings, signatures. It departs and arrives. It measures itself in outcomes.

But poverty? Poverty is given only the road. And the road does not end. It simply continues, milestone after milestone rising from the dust and falling behind;  never marking arrival, only marking distance travelled, distance yet to come, distance that will outlast the traveller himself.

Chacha Abdul had not failed today. He could not fail. Failure belongs to those who had a destination to miss.

He had only continued.

Somewhere in Kacho tonight, the mountains stood in darkness, indifferent to everything below them. Somewhere, a hospital sat hollow and quiet, waiting for doctors who had been transferred elsewhere, to cities that already had enough. Somewhere, a young woman’s grave was completing its third night under the stars;  a grave that existed because a dresser is not a doctor, and a note in an expensive pen is not justice, and a journey is not a road that leads home.

And somewhere on a late Karachi bus, an old man sat with a folded application against his chest, and did not sleep, and did not despair, and was already thinking of the next village elder whose thumb he would need, the next sentence he would write in careful Sindhi, the next morning he would rise before dawn and begin again.

Not because he believed the milestone was close.

But because the journey had long ago stopped being about the milestone.

It lived in him now; this journey. As permanent as his bones. As necessary as his breath. The journey of the poor does not ask to be completed. It only asks to be continued, carried forward in old bodies and careful handwriting and folded applications pressed to tired hearts.

Power arrives. Power departs.

The poor simply walk.

And in the walking; unwitnessed, unrewarded, unfinished, there is something that no secretary’s pen, no seven-seat car, no locked mosque door has ever been able to cancel.

A dignity so deep it does not even know its own name.

Chacha Abdul rode through the Karachi night, his eyes half-closed, the city’s lights moving across his face like milestones he had long since stopped counting.

He was already on his way.

He was always already on his way.

For every Chacha who carries the journey within; not as burden, not as hope, but as the only home the poor are ever given.

Read: From Vasco to Hormuz: Maritime Might

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The author is a water expert, for member of Indus River System Authority (IRSA), and a prolific writer

The post The Journey That Never Ends first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Farooq Sargani

A.W. Hughes was a British civil servant and writer who authored several detailed accounts of Sindh and Balochistan. Having traveled extensively across the region, he compiled the comprehensive Gazetteer of the Province of Sind, published in London by George Bell and Sons in 1876.

This review offers a critical assessment of the Karachi Taluka (sub-district) section of Hughes’ work, while also exploring the palaces, historical sites, rivers, and mountains of the region—many of which have vanished due to urban development erasing the hills of Kohistan.

Administrative Geography and the Local Irrigation System

When Hughes arrived in Sindh, Karachi was classified as a Taluka containing just two Dehs (administrative units): Malir and Hub. At the time, the urban population of Karachi town was only about 800 people.

Hughes described the region as a vast area bounded by the lofty Khirthar Mountains in the north and the Hub River in the west. He noted that whenever it rained, the arid landscape transformed into a lush, green, and fertile region:

“There are no canals here, only the lofty, beautiful peaks of the mountains; from these, several rivers originate, such as the Malir and Lyari.”

However, Hughes was unaware of the “Wangi,” the indigenous local irrigation channel system used by native inhabitants.

Contrary to Hughes’ observations, British archival records—specifically the “Settlement Report of Malir Tapa Karachi, 1889″—confirm the existence of 37 irrigation channels locally known as Wangis. These channels successfully diverted water from the rivers to irrigate the agricultural lands of Malir.

The Famous Khamchand Wangi Case

A notable historical example of this indigenous system is the Khamchand Wangi case. A Wangi originating from the Malir River diverted water to cultivate agricultural fields in the Darsano Chhano area. However, when the Karachi Municipality subsequently diverted the river’s water for urban use, Khamchand’s lands turned barren.

He took the matter to court, and in 1936, the judicial authorities awarded him 110,000 rupees in compensation. Today, the site of the former Khamchand Wangi falls within Education City and has been allocated to Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology.

Environmental Degradation of the Malir River

The Malir River originates in the Khirthar Mountains and is known by various names along its course. For most of the year, it remains a dry, seasonal riverbed. Historically, local farmers excavated the riverbed to tap into subsurface water for their crops. Eventually, the river empties into the Arabian Sea through the Gizri Creek.

Historically, this confluence formed a rich delta with dense mangrove forests. However, rapid and unregulated urban development has acted like a monster, destroying the Malir River creeks.

The establishment of industrial factories, excessive sand and gravel mining (Reti-Bajri extraction), and the deforestation of mangroves have severely degraded the ecosystem and displaced indigenous fishing communities.

Exploring Manghopir and the Gadap Valley

Hughes also explored Manghopir, referring to the broader surrounding region as the Gadap Valley, located approximately 16 kilometers north of Karachi town.

To him, Manghopir was a fascinating place. Situated 6 to 7 miles north of Karachi, the area was characterized by dry, low-lying hills. Hughes was astonished to observe the local crocodiles (alligators) living in peaceful coexistence with other animals, such as bathing water buffaloes.

When Hughes attempted to approach the crocodiles for a closer look, the local Baloch residents stopped him, warning that it was dangerous. Additionally, Hughes noted that despite its distance from the main Karachi town, Manghopir was incredibly beautiful and featured natural hot springs. The rich myths and folklore surrounding these crocodiles were later detailed by Gul Hassan Kalmati in his seminal book, Karachi: The Glory of the East.

Climate, Wildlife, and Agriculture

Hughes observed that due to its proximity to the Arabian Sea, the climate of the Karachi Taluka was pleasant and attractive.

The region originally boasted a diverse array of wildlife, including leopards, hyenas, wolves, jackals, foxes, and bears, alongside numerous bird species. Unfortunately, unchecked urban expansion and a hunting culture eventually displaced or decimated these populations.

In terms of agriculture, Hughes highlighted the high productivity of Malir, where large quantities of sorghum (Jowar), pearl millet (Bajri), barley, and sugarcane were grown.

The region was also famous for producing highly flavorful vegetables. However, agricultural conditions in Malir have deteriorated significantly since then.

The Rise and Fall of Cotton Farming

An interesting historical footnote is the cultivation of cotton in Malir. In 1861, a farmer named Mr. Jacob Bethcom established a 22-acre cotton farm. He successfully cultivated premium American and Egyptian cotton varieties, earning a 500-rupee prize from the Bombay Government.

Despite the high fertility of the soil, the cotton industry in Malir ultimately declined. Frequent, destructive flash floods in the Malir River repeatedly wiped out the crops, discouraging farmers from pursuing large-scale agriculture out of fear of recurring losses.

Modern Challenges and the Call to Action

Today, roughly 80 percent of Malir’s agricultural land has been destroyed. The seasonal Malir River and its tributaries have been heavily damaged by sand mining and land reclamation. The remaining fertile lands have been seized by capitalists, feudal lords, and real estate developers.

In the name of “development,” invaluable historical sites and natural hills have been erased. It is now critical to protect the remaining ecology, agriculture, and environment of Malir and the Khirthar region.

Powerful developers, local chieftains (Sardars), and capitalists have now turned their sights toward Khirthar National Park. If left unchecked, they will do to Khirthar what they have already done to Malir. With political backing, there is an ongoing exploitation of both the indigenous people and their ancestral lands.

To counter this destruction, we must resist. We must use our voices—through art, literature, and regional theater—to expose the exploitation taking place in Malir and Khirthar. It is vital for the educated middle class and progressive activists to stand in solidarity with the indigenous communities to protect their heritage and environment.

Read: Malir: Farmlands, Heritage at risk

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The author is freelance writer. He has graduated from Karachi University

The post Nature Sacrificed at Development’s Altar first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro

Exploring the mountains of Sindh reveals a landscape where both past and present are inscribed in stone, transforming the terrain into a living archive of human history and experience. On these rugged terrains we see unfolding Sindh’s cultural heritage, particularly rock art. For centuries, people inscribed their beliefs, rituals, journeys, and worldview onto the rocks. Rock art is distributed across many of Sindh’s mountain ranges.

Since 1998, I have been travelling to these mountains to document rock art, aiming to share personal discoveries that highlight Sindh’s rich cultural heritage and engage readers in its significance. The most notable valleys, referred to as Nais, where I discovered rock art sites, include Seeta, Mazarani, Keharji, Gerelo, Radh, Buri, Khurbi, Makhi, Sallari, Gaj, Nari/Nali, Kukrani, Angai, Thado, Mol, Baran, and many others.

Each of these rock art sites offers a window into Sindh’s diverse cultural history, with artwork ranging from prehistoric hunting scenes to modern engravings of choppers and aircraft, inspiring admiration for the region’s vibrant artistic traditions.

During my more than two decades of fieldwork in Khirthar, I discovered and documented thousands of petroglyphs and numerous rock paintings. The themes found in Sindh’s rock art are diverse, including hunting and warfare scenes. Most magnificent are engravings of bull domestication, a subject not seen in any other rock art region in Pakistan.

The rock art of Sindh features a diverse range of animals, including bulls, bison, camels, horses, goats, deer, cats, leopards, and wolves. Additionally, birds and plants are depicted in the rock art of Sindh. Human figures and geometric patterns are also common themes. Particularly fascinating are the depictions of Buddhist stupas, Zoroastrian fire altars, temples, symbols, and various shrines.

Religious symbols and structures have always been one of my favourite subjects in Sindh’s rock art. To date, I have discovered over two thousand images of Buddhist stupas in Sindh. Apart from these stupas and Zoroastrian fire altars, a variety of shrine petroglyphs can be found, which belong to different periods. Some of these shrines may date back to the time of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

Engravings of shrines can be found in several valleys in Sindh. In Dadu’s Gaj valley, I discovered a depiction of a Buddhist shrine at the Loi Dan rock art site. This shrine is a square structure with an entrance on the east. Its roof is adorned with four decorated finials, each featuring three designs resembling tree branches. Inside the shrine, three individual figures are depicted. Two of the figures stand close to the northern and southern walls, respectively. The figure near the northern wall is holding a whip, while the third figure is shown standing beneath a niche. It may suggest that the shrine is dedicated to three deities.

The legend of these three deities is also depicted on coins from the era of Huviskha, a Kushan ruler. Gold coins discovered from Gandhara depict the three deities: Skanda-Kumaro, Bizago, and Mahaseno. The figure of Mahaseno is shown standing under a canopy or niche flanked by Skanda-Kumaro. The engravings at the Loi Dan in Gaj valley site likely represent the legend of these three deities from the Kushan period, when the Kushans ruled over upper Sindh from 78 to 175 AD.

To date, I have discovered over two thousand images of Buddhist stupas in Sindh. Some of these shrines may date back to the time of the Indus Valley Civilization

Representations of several shrine petroglyphs can be found in the rock art of the Angai valley in Dadu district. These engravings are truly magnificent and are unique, as similar depictions are not found elsewhere in the Khirthar Range. In addition to the shrine motifs, I also discovered various ethnographic petroglyphs in the Angai valley. The main motifs include handprints, footprints, shoe prints, and a variety of weapons. Interestingly, the rock art in the Angai Valley also depicts choppers, aircraft, fighter jets, vehicles, and a variety of guns. Based on these recent and earlier discoveries, I have decided to write two books: one on contemporary rock art, titled Understanding Rock Art with Ethnography, and the other on shrines, titled Signs and Shrines in Sindh’s Rock Art.

In addition to shrine petroglyphs, one of the most recurrent themes in both modern and ancient rock art from Sindh is the depiction of handprints. Handprints and hand stencils are linked to the earliest forms of cave art. This motif in rock art has captured the attention of artists throughout history, as the practice of engraving handprints has continued from prehistoric times to the historic period across the globe.

In Sindh, handprints are not only found in rock art but also in memorial stones in Tharparkar, making Sindh’s art uniquely characterized by the presence of handprints across prehistoric, historic, and contemporary contexts, unlike other regions.

Handprint engravings and paintings have long captured the attention of researchers, prompting a range of interpretations, from ritualistic symbolism and territorial markers to mobility. However, some of the most illuminating insights arise not from theoretical frameworks but from the lived experiences of communities that continue to practice this today.

During my ethnographic interviews with shepherds in Sindh, I learned that the practice of leaving one’s mark on stone is far from a relic of the past. Many shepherds continue to engrave their hands onto rock surfaces, and the stories they share illuminate a rich cultural logic behind these markings. Before a shepherd begins carving, he seeks recognition, a desire to see himself inscribed in the landscape. The first impulse is often to engrave a handprint or footprint, direct and intimate imprints of the self. With handprint carvings, the shepherds also write their names.

Afterwards, the shepherd may carve an object that defines him, such as his weapon—traditionally an axe, though in recent decades even the outline of a gun appears. The next step often involves engraving a footprint or the outline of a sandal.

Together, these three motifs-handprint, footprint, and weapon- form a personal signature of the shepherd. They embody identity, memory, and belonging, linking the shepherd not only to his immediate environment but also to a centuries-old continuum of pastoral tradition.

As a shepherd becomes more proficient at producing these initial engravings, he progressively expands his repertoire to include additional motifs—such as depictions of his water bottle, mirror, comb, animals, birds, and whatever he observes around him, from truck to bus; nothing goes unnoticed by his gaze. Ethnographic data offer critical insights into the social and cultural functions of these symbols within contemporary pastoral communities, revealing how material culture, daily practices, and identity are encoded visually. From a theoretical standpoint, such evidence aligns with semiotic and anthropological perspectives that view signs not merely as representations but as active agents in constructing meaning, memory, and social belonging.

Although ancient rock art motifs cannot always be interpreted with certainty today, insights from present-day rock art producers (shepherds) help bridge this gap. Their practices show how older symbolic traditions continue while new forms of imagery also emerge, reflecting the semiotic idea of cultural continuity and change. By combining ethnographic observations with semiotic theory, researchers gain a broader and more grounded understanding of rock art in Sindh. This approach allows us to study contemporary rock art traditions in relation to both lived experience and broader theoretical perspectives.

Read: Mystery Cup-Marks on Babro Hill in Maher Valley of Malir, Sindh

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Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro is an anthropologist and author of several books. He tweets at: @Kalhorozulfiqar

First published by The Friday Times Lahore on December 1, 2025

The post Discovering the Rock Art across Khirthar first appeared on Sindh Courier.