Karachi

A lot of people, including women and children, streamed into the harbour to catch a glimpse of the now renowned whale shark for which the visitors were charged Rs20 a person by the fishermen cooperative society before the carcass was seized by the KFHA here on Wednesday.

The scene at the harbour mimicked the one depicted by Jonathan Swift in his classic Gulliver’s Travels, with the children, like the Lilliputians in the book, walking and jumping on the whale while their parents felt ecstatic over seeing their young play on the mammoth.

Reports about the uninvited visitor had attracted Karachiites, perhaps bored with the Bollywood melodramas, to visit the harbour and see a much natural character. The good news is some foreign marine biologists have shown interest in making a documentary on the whole episode.

So the Rs20 ticket was a bargain. Why not see the character live than wait for its DVDs to hit the market and also avoid paying the GST? Many people were also seen taking photographs and video grabs of the sea mammal to post them on the social media websites.

“I have come here from North Nazimabad along with my two children to show them the sea creature. I have taken its pictures with my children standing on its body, and I’ll post them on Facebook,” Rizwan Ahmed, a spectator, said. He said people rarely saw such large marine creatures, and he decided to take off from work to bring his children to the fish harbour.

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