Lahore’s Latest Folly

APRIL 2001 - If Don Quixote could be appointed the head of TEPA or Traffic Engineering & Transport Planning Agency if you are not an ardent fan of the agency and don’t reside in Lahore, he would be hard pressed to outsmart the boys who actually mastermind the zany schemes they bounce up every now and then. The victims of these fanciful and largely harebrained schemes are quite expectedly, the road-plying public. The charades last months, starting before 30th June and funds elapse. At the end of it all, everyone is exhausted – the people, the residents and the bankrupt exchequer (which is truly ex, having no cheques whatsoever).

Kalma Chowk is the object of desire once more of the bright spots at TEPA who are now hard at work, demolishing and remodeling a structure that should not have been built in the first place. For the last four years, Lahorites have watched with growing wonder the antics of the goon squads as they arrive every few months to remodel Kalma Chowk. What they find so fascinating about this particular intersection is not known, but we can safely cross out spread of Islam since the intersection has no such noble calling attached to its name or manifesto. Why they cannot simply leave it alone, is another puzzle.

Perhaps the sight of the structure with the curling column rising above the gasoline-drenched fumes of Ferozepur Road sends planners into a benzene-high and they lose sight of all reason. Perhaps. It may be the structure’s close resemblance to Tahira Sayyed’s delightful upward tilt of her ring-decked fingers as they floated on imaginary musical notes, that sets pulses racing at TEPA whereupon the boys set out with a song on their lips and a purpose to their stride, breaking new ground – surely, and giving to the public yet one more variation on a theme. Kalma Chowk Mark 3 or Mark 4 or whatever mark the blighted intersection has earned. And while on a binge with guessing games of what drives the minds that whir at TEPA, surely a call to build anew at the site emanating from Saudi Arabia, can be immediately shelved. So what lunacy possesses otherwise fairly reasonable chaps with whom one could consider having a cup of tea without actually murdering them with long spikes and poisoned tips? Who knows what strange thoughts dwell in the beasts that roam planet earth?

The city’s favourite Windmills project has so far put the Punjab economy into another ecstatic spin. Yes the rumours are true. There is an economy in some kind of a plasma existence, having had a traumatic experience at the hands of a little bald man, brother to another bald man. The baldies, not to be associated with baddies, polished off the provincial resources set aside for health, social welfare and education into social and welfare. Their welfare of course. They built roads with the same passion that possessed Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel. These roads were favoured by the nation, particularly motorists who were able to step up from 55 miles an hour to 85 miles an hour with a few thuds and bumps on the way to break the monotony – the sounds obligingly produced by metal hitting bodies at high velocity. The bodies belonged to travelers not traveling in high-speed vehicles and were therefore, expendable in the greater scheme of things.

Current estimates revealed so far – there will be many estimates as summer draws on and then there will be a final estimate to end all estimates, when the great project is completed, when all estimates so far announced, will be replaced by one big bill and everyone will suck in their breath and hold it there till nature intervenes, inform a largely shell-shocked citizenry, that the new escapade will set us all back by a walloping Rs 45 million, which added to the Rs 15 million reportedly blown on the same spot since 1997, when this great quest started, will add up to Rs 60 million. For what? Improve traffic? Not one bit. Experts are already on record that it will add to the congestion, won’t solve a damn thing and will be a bloody nuisance and cause blood pressures to peak out all around. While a flyover would solve the problems of this very congested intersection, none is on the anvil – if there is such an animal at TEPA, which excuse me, has always reminded me of a Red Indian wigwam. The master planners surely have some secret up their sleeve and they may reveal it to earthlings at some point in time, as soon as they receive a signal from their Mother ship that it is appropriate to do so. Otherwise who other than aliens gone berserk on our planet would go on digging and enlarging, then digging and narrowing, then digging and enlarging the same spot over and over again, unless there was a cosmic meaning to the entire mystical experience? If this is so, I demand a joy ride in their flying saucer or flying spoon if their saucers are in a Fly by the Book mode currently.

There are soothsayers who are on record quoting ancient texts that a huge fortune is buried where X marks the spot as in all good, decent pirate books and the government has given TEPA special powers to mount these expeditions every now and then. It is rumoured that if found, the fortune is large enough to build a national refrigerator which will be able to make enough ice to overcome the water shortage, except that Dr. A.Q. Khan has refused to commit himself to how they will ever make ice if there is no water. An egg and chicken situation, but as Dr. Khan has succinctly observed, you can’t make ice out of a chicken. On the egg, he has so far not spoken. There are other stargazers who claim that at an appropriate level, they are hoping to find the blueprint of plans by which Nawabzada Nusrullah hopes to take over the government while the CE is playing with his dogs. Stranger things have been reported in this country so most of us are prone to believe things like these. After all who can tell these days, except judges who can’t remain discreet on the phones and then have no comments left.

What has however given everybody who has a head left these days, a great headache, is why is it that all parts of Lahore this side of Lower Mall are constantly getting the TLC touch whereas the rest of the city gets sunk in by tones of refuse that rises up from the polluted waters that abound or descend from an environment where more cow dung floats in the air than mosquitoes – of which variety, we have The Terminator II variety that nothing can quite kill. The reason why all development takes place, and we must use development in its very loosest sense, in selected areas is because this is life and if you are on the wrong side, that’s life too, so eat your heart out because no one is stopping to give you a hug. Through the clouds of dust that will engulf citizens from now till June, will rise another folly to human intelligence gone soft in the head.