Forodhani Park Video
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July 30, 2009 |
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FORODHANI PARK OPENING
AGA KHAN in Zanzibar Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:23:02 -0400 Aga Khan pledges support for Zanzibar
By Costantine Sebastian, Zanzibar
His Highness the Aga Khan yesterday assured Zanzibar of continued support in undertaking development projects, including setting up a microfinance scheme that will provide loans amounting to more than Sh1 billion. Speaking during the opening of the refurbished Forodhani Park, the Aga Khan said the initiative would offer about 1,000 loans to different segments of Zanzibaris. Forodhani Park has been rehabilitated by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) at a cost of $3 million (Sh3.9 billion) from the initial estimates of $2.4 million (over Sh3 billion). The facelift involved the restoration of walkways, landscape, infrastructure upgrading, incorporating lighting, sewerage drainage and civic amenities, and the rehabilitation of the seawall fronting the park. He said that the trust was ready to undertake the second phase of the seafront project to give the area a new attractive look. The Aga Khan said the success of the project was the outcome of great partnership when people, the public sector and international organisations come together to implement a common cause. He was sure that the project would attract visitors and more enterprises, and improve lives of the people of Stone Town, where the park is located. Speaking at the ceremony, President Amani Abeid Karume said that after the successful refurbishment of the park located in the famous Stone Town, a World Heritage Site, his government planned more projects. The aim, he added, would be to make the entire Zanzibar a World Heritage Site. He also supported an idea by the Aga Khan to establish the Indian Ocean Marine Museum, saying the facility would be of more benefit to Zanzibar. Work done by AKTC was also praised by the Zanzibar Association of Tourism Inventors (Zati). Its chairman, Mr Simai Mohammed, told The Citizen that the refurbished Forodhani Park would add value to the tourism products that Zanzibar offers to its visitors. "It will enable Stone Town and Zanzibar to be more attractive and more competitive. There is no doubt that this project is very important as it will improve Zanzibar's tourism profile," he said. The project also saw 57 traders trained in modern business skills. They were picked from among local businessmen, who used to trade at the old Forodhani. The chairman of the Forodhani Traders Association, Mr Salum Mohammed, told The Citizen on the sidelines of the celebrations to launch the new park that the training they had received would improve their activities. "Even our incomes will improve as, apart from the new attractive park, we are now armed with new business skills," he said. The training of the businessmen, which is still going on, started in January. Forodhani, one of the last open spaces in the Stone Town, a densely populated world heritage site, is regarded as one of the most popular places for outings. It is also one of the most attractive features in the Isles. It was once a location for the main port and landing point for the sultans of Zanzibar, but the park has over the years remained a central meeting place for leisure and entertainment. Over the last decade, the park had deteriorated due to over-use, prompting the restoration as part of a seafront upscaling in the Stone Town. The agreement for the project was signed between President Karume and His Highness the Aga Khan. Under the agreement, also proposed for an upgrade as part of the seafront up scaling, is an Indian Ocean maritime museum that will showcase culture, including displays of naval vessels, artifacts reflecting the historic, commercial and cultural contacts between Africa, Middle East and India. The trust has also worked with the Government of Sweden and the Ford Foundation to conduct training workshops on conservation and traditional construction methods for architects. The trust has been active in Zanzibar since 1989, and has successfully completed restoring 11 buildings in the Stone Town. The AKTC is a part of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) which over the last 20 years has championed efforts to integrate culture in the broader economic and social programmes. |
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http://www.akdn.org/publications/2009_aktc_forodhani_park.pdf |
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Nash Khatry
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looking forward to meet old friends at the REUNION. |
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BACK TO THE PAST
Zanzibar Samachar Newspaper - December 1936- Silver Jubilee Issue Right Click to Rotate Page Clockwise. |
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A great Sports Allrounder |
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Here below is an article about Cinemas in Zanzibar by Issak:
The Cinema culture in Zanzibar is mata, mariwyo, murio! While elsewhere the
magic-grip of the moviehouse continued undeterred even with the ingress of
the videos and dvds, - we got busy in the name of progress turning ours into
supermarkets and warehouses.
Talking of moviehouses the first movie house was a tin-shack across the
Darajani bridge on the N'gambo side. Just on the left side corner as you
landed. The remains of the ex-cinema- the tin-shack existed in the early
fifties and I think were used for storage by the potter-community next door.
My tarbushed grandfather proudly pointed out this former beauty to me as I
rode past on his shoulders. "This is where I saw the great epic Raja
Harishchandra, and that moustachioed tramp Charlie!" he would say time and
time again. And we walked on, as he continued educationg me on the stars
emerging in the early night.
Rahaleo Cinema
My earliest recollection of a movie was watching the Indian film
"Awara" at
the Raha Leo Cinema. Any day I hear "Asmaan ka taara huuun, awarahu!"
I
practically smell the raat-ki-rani-sprinkled night when I came out of the
cinema at midnight with my Dad and Mom. The cinema was inside the Raha Leo
Sauti ya Unguja (Broadcasting) building. The building was opened in 1950 or
early fifties with a large regal park in front where people sat listening to
the megaphones which broadcast news, Oum Kulthum and Farid Al-Atrash from
Cairo and once a week "Aapki farmaish" - a weekly half hour Indian
song
request run by a Farouq Malik and a Miss Zarina Patel who had an enchanting
voice. The cinema didn't last long as the house was located in N'gambo
(N'gambo means across on the other side, - in this case across the then
Darajani channel) and there wasn't a great movie-going audience there, and
not in comparison to the movie palaces in the Stone Town.
Majestic cinema
The old Majestic Cinema burnt down even as we stood watching it, helpless
but all excited. This was my second grand fire, the first being the
makuti-roof of our next door neighbour at Misufini. When the new Majestic
reopened, I guess in the mid-fifties, Seyyid Khalifa bin Haroub bin Sultan
came to the opening and while I did not sit in the balcony where His
Highness (Zanzibar's longest ruling monarch) and Seyyida and the princes
sat, I sat right below them and watched as the grand curtains opened and a
brand new screen came on. First they delighted us with rainbows that fanned
the screen with an aurora borealis-like magic.I do not recall the film, - it
was some American movie. The new Majestic was modern (probably art nuveau
style)? But the both the extrerior and interior were charmless. The
white-washed old charmer was gone from sight forever, - (and if we are not
careful we will soon see the good old architecture dusting the ground to
give way to the sky-scraper mania that is invading our countries)
Empire Cinema
Aaah, the Empire Cinema! The Empire Cinema always remained my favourite. It
was cosily and romantically couched between other houses with an aura of
dark interiors that is the trademark and soul of the movie. Movies, which
immitate life, cannot exist in bright day light as competition with real
life out there is quite tough. Empire Cinema had besides, the Zenana show, -
i.e, ladies afternoon show once a week, - on Saturdays? (Zenana is a Turkish
word, meaning a ladies section in a house or harem). Here, as we watched Raj
Kapoor's "Boot Polish", squeezed between sisters and mothers,
kids screamed
and mothers wept aloud fanning themselves and blowing their noses with
their Trabizuna-dabbed kerchiefs as the street-kids drama unfolded in black
and white. The year I saw a supernarket where the moviehouse used to be I
wept. For this is the movie house where my Dad took me to see
"Shabistan", a
movie of which I remember only the end part. The heroe and and his girl
riding away in patina on a beach as the sun sets and waves lash on the
beach. The hero falls off the horse immediately after the shooting of this
last scene was completed, and he died on the spot, my Dad told me. I have
searched for this movie on video without avail. Empire is also where I saw
Shakuntala, and many years later Lawrence of Arabia.
Sultana cinema
At the Sultana there used to be ticket boys, who who fought a beehive battle
around the one ticket guichet. And we stood and cheered our personal
ticketboy each time his head popped up above the pile of hands, legs and
heads scrambling on top of one another around the golden hole to secure
tickets for you. Here is where the picture Anarkali unfolded with the
atrociously seductive songs of Lata Mangeshkar, and a bussload of my
relatives arrived from Makunduchi to see it and buy, the next morning,
vinyls of the songs for their grammophones. But the most unforgettable
experience at Sultana was watching Vittorio de Sica's Neorealist masterwork
The Bicycle Thief (from 1948) (probably "Il Ladrone di Bicycleatta? in
Italian). No other film ever after trailed for so long in my memory, and
this was the movie that created the urge for "story" in my then young
head.
The Sultana also had Arabian movies. Oum Kulthum was very popular and
everybody in the theatre cried Ya Habibi, ya Habibi in tears, as the Queen
of Song sang on forever and forever of love, of unrequited love.
One evening they had to carry out an unconscious fan, - who was so overcome
he could only exist in the world of the unconscious. He was simply dumped by
the tree outside the cinema to be attended to by the passers by. American
and British movies were generally shown during weekdays. We stood often
argueing with pals about our heroes and those vichinchiri heroines by the
cinema-poster corner at the Marketi Mkunazini. And we bought and exchanged
picture cards which came with chewing gum, - Roy Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Alan
Ladd, Sophia Loren...
There were also Sunday matinees at the cinemas, - the one-shilling all
round, the ten-in-the-morning shows. Those were the days. Hitchcock's Dial
M. for Murder, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame were matinees. My best
friend Subash and I had ticket reservations to see The Ten Commandments the
morning of 12.1.1964 at the Majestic. We never saw it, not then.
But nothing can match the joy as we kids rushed at the sound of UlaghaiTu
(Only Cheating), - the mobile cinema as the van turtned into the football
ground in the red-soiled country to spread its screen between the baobas and
enchant us with newsreels of Her Majesty in her royal buggy waving at the
hoipollois, to be followed by Chale (Charlie
Chaplin) and Majuha Wawili (Laurel and Hardy). We were regaled, we rampaged,
we screamed! We sat on the grass or barren earth, all flying in an
unbeatable dream world. There are no more of UlaghaiTus left.
They stayed with the era gone by.
What the moviehouse also gave me were the songs. The songs remained long
after. Today when I hear a song, I do not necessarily associate it with a
movie, but more with a situation, with an incident, with a whole scene from
days gone by. The Indian songs especially. They shed their indianness. In
fact no one ever associated them with India. They became part of a scene in
Zanzibar, part of an indelible memory landscape. "Barsatme" from the
film
Barsat takes me to Miembeni where my Mom's relatives had a grammophone, and
it reminds me getting wet in rain to get get there fast. When I hear
NoorJehan from Anmol Gadi I smell sweets loaded in cardamom and heavy milk
syrup being prepared by a hare-lipped woman who always gave us children
sweets free. You play a Talat Mahmoud song and I am standing on the beach
with my Aunt, standing stiff posing for my first picture.
Ah, that was the Cinema!
ISSAK
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Pictures sent by NISAR SHERALY : for those who are in their 70's and late 60's
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Many faces and talents of Nisar Sheraly: |
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