Final destination?

Lahore’s public transport: Not for the faint-hearted

The Surgeon General has determined that anyone naive enough to rely on Lahore’s public transport system for his travel needs runs the risk of being reduced to an incoherent and raving nervous wreck within the week, satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back.

For starters, when there is gas aplenty, there are few or a completely inadequate number of buses available, and when there are shining new buses galore, there is no CNG to fuel them.

Then there is no rhyme or reason or any concept of punctuality in running a modern transport service, and on some numbing days waiting for a bus which never comes are like waiting for the long hoped for revolution in Pakistan and the Red Dawn. And with all the VIP movement disrupting normal traffic by choking off main roads, one never knows at which unlikely destination one may finally end up, as drivers on such occasions take the path of least resistance.

All things considered, the most widely used modes of travel in the city are definitely not for the faint-hearted, and most certainly not for those easily spooked by their own shadow or prone to start at sudden noises.

The meek shall definitely not inherit the Lahore transport network and may also use it at their peril.

The biggest difference in the world, it would seem, is not between the rich and the poor, the literate and the thumb-markers, the military and the ‘bloody’ civilians, the elite and the peasantry, the happily married and the lonely bachelors, but it is between those who own their own vehicles and those that survive on smoky rickety wagons and coffin-like buses, enduring with an almost saintly patience the daily humiliation, maddening antics and weird road sense of the infernal men behind the steering wheel of these vehicles.

It can well turn out to be literally a world of difference, for in the wrong hands at the wrong time and with one’s lucky stars out of sync for the day, there is a short-odds possibility of being suddenly and rudely transported to the hereafter to guiltily confront a reproachful Maker.

The occupational hazards which have made travel in a wagon, bus, coaster or rickshaw such a thrilling and adventure-filled enterprise may include the possibility of one’s being blown to smithereens by a bomb thoughtfully hidden beneath one’s seat by a well-meaning and no doubt, enlightened, stranger to whom one hasn’t even been formally introduced; being a victim (metaphorically) of repeated highway robbery at the hands of the transporters who ‘revise’ their fare on the three days of gas load-shedding, and (literally, but rarely) on the Motorway by the local madcap versions of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; the uncomfortable feeling engendered in one of not really belonging to the human race, but of being a variety of fish (the sardine comes readily to mind) judging from the density of passengers per square foot packed in a cramped space; crashing one’s vehicle (while racing recklessly with another Formula I oriented driver ) into a moving body travelling with equal force from the opposite direction, probably hoping to verify one of Newton’s laws of motion.

Ever since they were deprived of gas three days a week, the owners and drivers of the public transport buses, wagons and rickshaws no doubt felt it was only sporting to introduce a new ‘Russian roulette’ element in the equation, the common gas cylinder. Except it is not so common in their hands, or handling, as explosion in sub-standard devices have reportedly reduced the population by about 2,000 stout yeomen.

But it is the eccentric or outright crazy drivers who take pride of place as the principal ‘midwives’ responsible for one’s change of state to the ethereal. The members of the Drivers’ Union talk with awe and in hushed undertones of the legend that the driver attains a state of ‘nirvana’ at some stage during the course of a 500 foot sheer plunge down a mountain ravine and into the fast-flowing river below, with no survivors. A received wisdom, acquired from watching countless macho Punjabi movies and Maula Jat stereotypes, is that, if you have to go, take along as many of the brethren as you possibly can.

The basic requirements for being a public vehicle driver (apart from the mandatory near-sightedness and hearing loss) are a caustic tongue quick in repartee with a passenger, in romantic flirtation with someone sitting on the front seat beside him, or in backchat with the conductor (all of the above while winding through traffic at breakneck speed), a perpetual scowl, a low forehead and close set eyes, and above all, a sardonic manner for that traditional Lahori riposte delivered with dripping sarcasm.

But most of the driver’s working day is spent in keeping an eye open for the custodians of the law, the traffic wardens, and in determining how to outwit them by breaking every law in the book (and some not even in it!). More than three driving tickets in one day merit a special mention award from the Union (the Drivers’ Union, that is, not the Traffic Wardens’) and is proudly displayed as a talisman by the ‘winner’, who also swaggers horribly. In the neurosis department, the public transport driver must be a supreme egotist, with a ‘road hog’ mentality and an easy tendency towards road rage. A habit of sleepwalking is most welcome as it provides excellent training for the next day’s trance-like driving.

To emphasise the danger inherent in riding in a public transport vehicle many of the latter carry invocatory slogans like Khuda Hafiz (goodbye to all that?), mother’s blessings and praises, or a melancholy couplet of the driver’s own hallucinatory inspiration. On one occasion one even saw a bus bearing the rather unlikely and hopefully unintentional legend, ‘Lady Diana Coach’, and from there it is but a step to a Titanic Coach or a Bermuda Triangle Bus Service.

In extensive war gaming of our various conflicts, it has been established beyond doubt that if a mechanised brigade of our public transport wagons was included with the armoured forces, it would have broken through any enemy defences, however impregnable, with a mathematical certainty. After all, the infant future drivers of public transport vehicles have learnt on mother’s knees how to ride roughshod over, around and even (if possible) under any obstacle in their path. Even in the congested city streets their battle cry is vorwarts always vorwarts. However dense and impassable the traffic tangle, they magically make it through dancing and weaving at high speeds – though not always so, as the tragic scenes of wreckage shown later on the television channels confirm! Sadly, the study also found that the enemy (and not only the enemy) would have to padlock the pockets of the dead to prevent their personal belongings being looted by our brigand WagonGruppe Lahore.

So, all in all, our present public transport system is not at all suited for the weak-kneed and the prudent or fussy types, and they should endeavour to give it a wide be-rth for medical reasons (their sanity)!

The writer is a freelance columnist.