One time capital of Pakistan and home to over eight million people, Karachi nonetheless can be a visual treat for any visitor who has half an eye for the poetry of life and the dancing, singing music of colour. When an artist prepares his canvas before the first splash of colour is brushed against the virgin back ground he builds up layers of ‘gesso’ and sometimes ‘tempera’ as a base for the colours as they are added to form, eventually the finished painting.

Karachi has its own natural gesso of white-walled buildings and bare, brown earth. It’s against this passive and neutral back ground that quite unconsciously the local people, in gesture and in dress, present for the unhurried eye, their theatre of life.

My visit begins in a hotel on the city outskirts. The early morning sun brings a cool yellow light to the stirring city and from the hotel window I see two large hawk like birds twisting and twirling around a nearby building. I watch fascinated as one perches on a ledge close enough for me to notice the cruel curve of its beak and I even fancy the unwavering stare of its eye, that button-like beady eye, is focused directly on me. Making a mental note to find out exactly what species these eagle like creatures represent, I turn to observe the human activity at ground level.

Immediately below workmen are already clambering over the concrete and steel foundations of the hotel’s extension. A group gathered by a giant pile of sand appear to be discussing who’s to do what. In the background on the road all is hustle and bustle and because of unseen traffic lights, there are also regular periods of relative calm. A small white pony, harnessed to a rubber-wheeled cart, trots by with a dignified grace of its own. The driver is a young man dressed in a blue shalwar kameez. An even younger boy in white appears to be enjoying the ride in the rear. The visual effect against the dusty greyness of the road is compelling in its simplicity.

Chaos again as buses, cars and trishaws compete for available road space. The buses, like their counterparts in other Asian countries are all chrome and gaudy colours and usually full to overflowing. The unadorned cars look curiously staid and not a little dull in comparison. And in another lull a mother and three children add yet more colour. Dark and light blue, white, brown, turquoise and red. The shadows of the figures merge into a single shape which seems to almost have a life of its own, following relentlessly the players as they are momentarily recorded in my visual memory.

I turn my eyes skyward to catch one more glimpse of those mysterious birds before it’s time to meet Ali who will drive me around wherever my fancy takes me. Naturally the first question I ask after the ritual exchange of pleasantries, concerns those eagle like high flyers which had so fascinated me earlier in the day. “Yes they do look like eagles,” he agrees, obviously about to enjoy a bit of ornithological one-upmanship. “Not surprising really, that’s what they are.”

I recalled all the fuss and bother one particular eagle had caused some years ago in London’s Regents Park. It had escaped from the nearby Zoo and was given more media coverage than a royal wedding. In Karachi these majestic birds of prey are apparently commonplace and are of little interest except to first time visitors and creatures likely to be suddenly borne aloft by those terrifying talons.

They do add. to the overall ‘Karachi canvas’ however, providing aerial counterpoints of brown against blue to the urban landscape below. From eagles to camels whose brown/grey forms bear saddles covered in cottons that would do justice to a Laura Ashley bedspread and who around their necks wear, with haughty disdain, an arrangement of colourful cotton tassels

We are standing on the rough promenade of the beach area, looking out across the Arabian sea. The camels are trundled along by their handlers who seem ever optimistic that someone will want to pay for a ride. On the curiously blue/grey beach too these baleful beasts vie with a more graceful horse for attention.

The colour and the contrasts here are startling. In the distance a group of women, some with children, seem to be enjoying a picnic. The adults, their heads and shoulders covered with a scarf like shawl are each dressed in a long months previously by the shifting sands. Any sea shore is never an easy place for me to leave. More than anywhere else it’s where nature reaffirms her presence and inestimable power. The relentless rhythm of surf on sand, the feeling of being able to reach out over the horizon to whatever we might imagine, these are powerful and reassuring pleasures and ones I find hard to resist.

I can always resist an invitation to a camel ride however and having given the tourist “No thank you” sign — a glazed, far away expression accompanied by sever al firm, side-to-side shakes of the head, I feel it hardly sporting to take a photograph of the camel in question when the owner is looking straight at me. So I wait until he looks away then take my photo graph.

Back in All’s car we’re off to look at another of Karachi’s colourful sights, those horse drawn carnages that look like a cross between a gipsy caravan and a pea king on wheels. We pass by an interesting display of carpets, strung between the branches of trees near a roundabout. They are certainly more interesting to look at than an advertising hoarding. Stopping the car suddenly to take a closer look is however, not recommended.

Outside one of the city’s bigger hotels, in the shade of tall trees is a line of the horse carriages we’ve come to see. Glistening and twinkling in the dappled sunlight that filters through the lofty branches they are at once works of art and glorious reminders of more leisurely times. The painted motifs, flowers, tigers, birds are all carefully executed and everywhere is embellished with highly polished metal work studded with all manner of brightly coloured glass ‘jewellery’. The horses, as horses do, stand patiently still, occasionally flicking at a fly but otherwise maintaining complete indifference to my photo graphic antics. They had, no doubt, seen it all before.

From the gentle pace of horse-drawn carriages we are transported to the colourful animation of the main railway station. To be more precise, to the outside of the building. “If you’re interested in colour,” said Ali, “I think you’ll find the coolies a colourful lot.”

And colourful they certainly are. Both literally in their red and white attire and figuratively in their animated gestures and expressions among themselves. Theirs is a waiting game. Waiting for a train to depart, waiting for their turn and waiting for a luggage laden traveller to accept their services.

They sit in a long, self regulated line in the shade of a tree lined wall, occasionally silently reorganising themselves in a giant reshuffling process. It’s as if they’re being marshalled by some invisible Sergeant Major. Red and white figures rise in succession from a squatting position and reform in a slightly different line-up. Watching, I can see no logical reason for these manoeuvres but it’s fascinating to observe and yet another example of Karachi’s wonderful theatre of life.

City life in all its throbbing, humming, hooting vitality seems almost to vibrate beneath my feet. Standing on an iron footbridge, watching the melee in the streets below I feel like a gatecrasher. This is somebody else’s party and I’m the uninvited guest. Nobody seems to mind however. The young occasionally stare good naturedly and some even pose for the camera. Policemen on a small island are dressed in pristine white uniforms quaintly topped by a safari style pith helmet. If they intend to shoot anything it can only be an unfortunate driver who fails to obey the silent instructions of their white-gloved semaphores. It seems as if half the population of Karachi have descended on this part of the city at the same time. And against an overall sea of blue and grey, impressionist blobs of colour once again catch the eye and gladden the heart. A pyramid of oranges on a cart that somehow survives the jostling, weaving crowd. On a railing, lengths of cloth of every colour are displayed, and threatening to scatter everything in its wake, a highly decorated bus edges its way through.

There’s a natural rhythm to the ebb and flow of human movement as if some unseen choreographer is orchestrating a great drama. No artistic director however, would be able to match this piece of human theatre. Colour, movement, a hundred different cameos are all here in one fascinating spectacle. I linger longer than I intend and only when I spot an anxious looking Ali in the side street below do I realise how much I was being gradually drawn into the scene myself.

Saving what he says is the most impressive sight as our last place to visit, All, apparently relieved that I’m safely back in the car, nods politely while I enthuse about the view from the bridge. We’re heading apparently, to possibly the most prestigious and costly building in Karachi. The hill-top monument to the founder of Pakistan, the Mausoleum of Quald-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

It is certainly an impressive building and in the early evening light quite the most spectacular backdrop against which the final act of this city’s drama of colour and movement can be witnessed. A vast marble forecourt provides a giant stage for shoeless visitors who have paid their respects in the cool interior and all kinds of people to stroll around. And in this setting perhaps more than anywhere else can the kaleidoscopic colours of Karachi be seen in all their dramatic glory. The guards, in sand coloured uniforms and wearing bright red berets and waist bands, stand, one on each corner of the building and themselves seem to be like carefully placed points of references around which the ‘actors’ make their walk-on appearances.

Two young women stroll by, one in blue, the other red. A group of young men, casually and coolly elegant in their shalwar kameez. They appear to chat to one of the guards who doesn’t seem to mind their casual approach and who smiles in response. Everywhere groups of people, some with young children, sit or stroll casually around. And everywhere there’s a continuous panorama, a pageant of colour, all against the marble and soft yellow stonework of this imposing building. In the background, beyond the rolling and landscaped slopes and in the blurred distance is the city itself.