Karachi, the present boisterous and pretentious city, bubbling with furor, frenzy and fury was once, like all present cities, a small placid village. Historians tell us that its old name was “Kolachi” after the name of an old woman who was head of the village. The other view is that it was a village of Kolachi tribe, who are Balochs on maternal side and Soomras on paternal side, and because of that tribe it was called “Kolachi”.
In my view, its name was “Kalanchi” or “Kalachi”, which was in currency even up to the period when Shah Abdul Lateef Bhittai (1690-1752), the great mystic poet of Sindh, was composing poetry and immortalizing folktales, legends and historical and semi-historical characters of Sindh. He had also used “Kalachi” as name of the village Kolachi in his poem “Gha atoo” meaning “killer”.
It is linguistic rule that letter “L” changes to letter “R” and vice versa. For example, letter “L” of Urdu word “Suli” (gallows) to Suri, in Sindhi. It was according to this rule that, with passage of time, letter “L” changed to letter “R” and old Kalachi became Karachi.
I think Kalanchi is combination of two words “kalan” and “chi”. Kalan means “big” and chi means settlement or a village. Another Sindhi word “Pore” is also used as suffix for a village fortified with mud walls. It is used all over the sub-continent and even out of sub-continent like Singapore meaning the village of lions (Sanga = lion + por = fort). There are many towns and villages in Sindh carrying chi as suffix like Dhabechi, Golarchi etc.
Melody of Killer (Sur Ghatoo)
Translation by: Madam Amina
In my view, its name was “Kalanchi” or “Kalachi”, which was in currency even up to the period when Shah Abdul Lateef Bhittai (1690-1752), the great mystic poet of Sindh, was composing poetry and immortalizing folktales, legends and historical and semi-historical characters of Sindh. He had also used “Kalachi” as name of the village Kolachi in his poem “Gha atoo” meaning “killer”.
I think Kalanchi is combination of two words “kalan” and “chi”. Kalan means “big” and chi means settlement or a village. Another Sindhi word “Pore” is also used as suffix for a village fortified with mud walls. It is used all over the sub-continent and even out of sub-continent like Singapore meaning the village of lions (Sanga = lion + por = fort). There are many towns and villages in Sindh carrying chi as suffix like Dhabechi, Golarchi etc.
Melody of Killer (Sur Ghatoo)
Translation by: Madam Amina
