The audience included students from the Oxford Schooling System in Garden and Air Foundation System, Baldia Town. PHOTOS: AYESHA MIR/EXPRESS
KARACHI: At a very candid history lesson, renowned historian and former education minister Hamida Khuhro shared her insights with young children at the Oxford University Press bookshop at Park Towers on Tuesday morning.
The elderly academic walked in with her cane-stick in one hand and the support of her domestic staff on the other, but managed to present a well-rounded story to the young audience in attendance.
"We have a great history that dates back centuries. This is where your ancestors came from and we too are part of this culture and civilization," she said, addressing the children aged between eight to 12 from the Oxford Schooling System in Garden and Air Foundation System, Baldia Town.
Talking in-depth about her four English books titled after the four provinces of the country, she began her talk on Sindh, the province of her birth. "Moenjo Daro [civilisation] was planned 5,000 years ago as a brick-laden house, that's what we know today. They had fresh water running in their homes and even had the concept of public baths. However, the civilization ended all of a sudden and we don't really know what brought about their end."
"Around 2,500 years ago, the Aryans came to Punjab from Central Asia via the Khyber Pass. Their primary occupation was herding cattle. They decided to fend for a living elsewhere and travelled all the way from Central Asia to present-day Pakistan. They gave birth to the caste system," she informed while talking about Punjab.
Years later Islam came to Asia from Arabia and taught us to pray to one God and called for equal rights. The religion strongly asserted not to think of the other as any less, explained Khuhro.
Talking about the present-day Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Khuhro said the area is famous for the Khyber Pass. "Years back when I travelled from Europe to Pakistan via Afghanistan, I even passed through the Khyber Pass. Mughal king Babar came through it to conquer India as well as King Taimur from Samarkand and Changez Khan from Mongolia," she narrated. She also spoke in detail about the region's picturesque mountainous ranges.
On Balochistan, she said, "Do you know that ages ago Karachi was a part of Balochistan?"
Earlier, while speaking to The Express Tribune, when asked why she wrote these four special books for the children of Pakistan, she said, "Actually, my grandson Basil Moore was born in a foreign land. I really wanted him to know about the history of Pakistan, his mother and grandmother's country, and this was certainly the only way I could do it."
Basil Moore was born in 2009 and Khuhro started her journey of writing down the history of Sindh in 2011.
Replying to where she got all these stories from, Khuhro said, "These are all very personal stories that I have narrated. We are really a multi-cultural people, as history shows. Here I have described a bit about the Sufis, the British arrival and the freedom struggle for Pakistan as well."
A fifth book, on Gilgit-Balistan should be out soon, informed Khuhro.
She explained that the idea behind the venture is to not give lectures in history but to share her insights into how diverse Pakistan was, is and hopefully will remain.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2016.
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