Of dengue, road constructions and Shahbaz Sharif
It was annoying for those who asked me who I was going to vote for in the upcoming elections as I told them I would vote for Khan sb for the National Assembly, and for provincial, only and only PML-N. “Why?” they would ask. The reason is very simple. We, the people living in Punjab, can never get a better chief minister than Shahbaz Sharif.
He is responsible neither for the inflation, the biggest problem we are facing, nor can we accuse him of the terrorism. However, he deserves due credit for what he did for the wellbeing of Lahore. (Yes, I live in Lahore, and can think selfishly.)
I take Ring Road every day, and reach my destination in twenty-five minutes compared to before-Ring Road time, which was forty-five minutes. Shahbaz Sharif has influenced my life directly as I move about on beautiful roads, witness a clean Lahore. In the last couple of years, whenever I went to Karachi, the filthy roads even in Clifton and Defence reminded me what a gem we have in the name of the CM.
He is blamed to be a workaholic, who rises before dawn and wants his cabinet to meet him at CM office sometimes as early as 5 am. I love to visualise them bickering and muttering while fixing their ties. He also gives deadlines for projects and refuses to take any kind of excuse. Punjab has sustained the pressure of centre only because of him.
Lahoris have been subjected to the worst ever load shedding, 18 hours a day in scorching heat. This guy shifted his secretariat in a camp in Minar-e-Pakistan grounds, claiming he wanted to associate with the suffering people of Punjab, who are a target of the centre. Drama or not, but it’s difficult to do so when you perspire from head to toe for three consecutive summer months.
When used to hearing all kinds of absurd and careless statements by the leaders, these kinds of news brings some relief. (Don’t care about what people say that he should better have been a Mayor.)
Then came dengue. Everyone in the city dreaded the thing. The faraway people, like those living in Karachi for example, did not believe the seriousness of the disease. They thought it was propaganda. But the truth was that more than 3,000 people were reported to have died of it, with many more unreported deaths. Everyone you met told about a close relative succumbing to death after dengue fever. People hunted Papaya trees as its leaves’ juice improved blood cell count. In every family there were patients, if not of dengue then of Chickanganya, another form of dengue type virus.
The mosquitoes had become immune to the sprays and you had to spray them individually to kill them. When a mosquito was killed, my children inspected it with magnifying glass to check whether it had white spots.
In those times, no Lahori can forget the campaign of our CM. He used every means to eradicate dengue. Worked 24/7. We saw the fruition of his efforts last year when there had been no deaths by dengue. So not voting for him seemed thanklessness to me.
He is known to have shortcomings but he does deliver on many fronts.
Nothing had changed until I saw what could make the environmentalists’ eyes bleed, and could make Wordsworth commit suicide.
It was merely a chance that I had not visited the other half of Lahore in the past few months. I used the canal route to reach my dentist and when I entered the Ferozepur Road where there would have been a beautiful entrance to the Gaddafi Stadium, amidst the greenery of the neighbouring nurseries, there was this horrible looking grill which blocked my view. I cannot say if I was more horrified or stupefied on what has been done to this place but I wonder how the people who live in that very place feel.
How on earth can you do this to a city and not feel bad? The place where the bus service would start in Qainchi, which was already a clutter, such things are not a problem. But at such points, where you need to be aesthetically correct, you should have lowered the path of the bus service.
In his enthusiasm, he totally forgot that he had just made Kalma Chowk again, had widened all connecting roads, and that Nawaz Sharif Park that ran all along Ferozepur Road will not be viewed anymore.
From the new IT Tower to the Canal Chowk, what was pleasing to the eye has become an eye-sore.
How can this lover of Lahore dump it like this? And why is it so difficult for the people to admit they too can be wrong for once? You can abandon the project, modify it, or at least do so at certain areas. Why could he not think of Monorail, or Skytrain, whatever they call it? It could cover the whole of Lahore, if used on the four main parallel roads and the canal crossing them.
Lahore bears an ugly scar. Lahore cries.