EVERY country is a continuum — even one as comparatively young as Pakistan. In 1947, Pandit Nehru cannily chose India, leaving the Quaid to grapple with an acronym. Seventy-seven years have passed. Our country’s seeds, buried beneath the tundra of history, are breaking through the surface.

One seed has germinated in a new museum The Haveli in Karachi, privately funded by Dr Nasreen and Mr Hasan Askari. On display is their collection of ethnic textiles, particularly from rural communities in Sindh and Balochistan. Such textiles, Nehru said in 1949 when inaugurating the Calico Museum of Textiles in Ahmedabad, form the leitmotif of every nation. Founded by the Sarabhai family in their old family home The Retreat, textiles of different kinds — woven, embroidered, or manufactured — cover every wall. A huge Mughal tent serves as a ceiling over the family’s disused swimming pool.

The Hasans’ Haveli is comparatively modest but no less significant. Objects that once adorned rustic women, short-frocked children, rural bridegrooms, even colourful trappings hung on camels have been displayed with ineffable taste. Dr Nasreen Askari has made a career curating such exhibitions here and abroad. In the Haveli, her extensive collection of textiles has found a........

© Dawn