Burns Garden Karachi

Burns Garden Karachi

c. 1930

"After the merciless grind of a rough day," wrote the Sindhi writer and nationalist Ibrahim Joyo (1915-2017) in his short story In the Name of Allah, "how soothing it is to feel the balmy breeze in Karachi's Burns Gardens, especially on a fresh spring evening! How refreshing it is! Enough to want to live, once again, yet another day! In the daytime, beautiful little birds flap energetically, winging their way to faraway places for a few grains. But as night falls, they return to the trees and congregate among the branches. There's place enough for everyone at night: some little corner, a branch, a leaf. After a dreadful day, the sad earth comes to the closing hours with such quiet resolution, it's like coming to the end of a mystery novel!" (in Unbordered Memories Sindhi Stories of Partition, edited and translated by Rita Kothari, p. 141).

Burnes Garden in Saddar, downtown Karachi, was opened in 1927, and reopened in 2022 after renovation. The National Museum of Pakistan is also within the garden complex.