Posts Tagged trees

Published in The Friday Times
Lahore’s problems are not intractable, says Raza Rumi after visiting an exhibition organised by OCCO
Attiq Ahmed, the unassuming leader of the Office for Conservation and Community Outreach (OCCO), encompasses both the old traditions of public service and the modern impulse for change. Among his many initiatives, his passion is OCCO. Comprised of a group of motivated urban designers and architects, the organization is a voluntary effort, financed by donations from individuals who refuse to ignore the responsibility that the bizarre “development” of Pakistan, and Lahore in particular, has thrust upon them. (more…)

In response to my article on Lahore’s vanishing trees, a reader reminded me of one of my favourite poems in Urdu composed by the lesser known genius, Majeed Amjad. I am posting this poem though I am not sure if everyone will be able to read the Urdu script. I am taking a chance at translating the opening lines:

For twenty years, these trees stood at the doorstep of a singing canal

Gallant guards at the borders of swaying fields

Shady, enticing, blossoming chatnars

All were sold for a mere twenty thousand rupees

In the last stanza, after all the trees have been chopped, the poet cries

Now I stand by the singing canal and muse

In this murderous environment, only my thought sways

Adam’s descendants ought to chop me, why not? (more…)

	The ‘Lahore bachao tehreek’ may be ‘too little, too late’
	Traffic snarls like this one are a common occurence in Lahore
	It is absolutely unacceptable that Lahore is the most polluted city of Pakistan. New data … reveals that Lahore takes the cake when it comes to air pollution and the attendant dangers to public health

My piece published in The Friday Times

Moaning about Lahore’s most elitist enclave, GOR-I, is a contentious undertaking. On the one hand, it was, until recently, the best of what the British left us – lovingly adorned with diverse species of trees, home to glorious specimens of ecologically-friendly architecture and an old-world-charm unparalleled for its simplicity and elegance. On the other hand, it was also a symbol of the extractive, Punjab-centric colonial state of the nineteenth century, lorded over by the agents of the Indian civil service.

But when one has lived in those sublime environs, not as the scion of a landed, aristocratic clan but rather as a member of a middle-class, professional family, what is one to do? GOR-I was a lonely plant of sorts amid the sprawl of Lahore, with trees, birds and orchards one would not have expected to find in an Asian mega-city. In the spring, we strolled amid the just-bloomed shrubs; in the summer, amaltas trees and shady, mythical jamuns greeted us at every corner. In winter, GOR-I was a misty, freezing locale, reminiscent of the little hill-stations nurtured by the British while they controlled the destiny of India.

We would often step out of the little lanes of GOR-I and walk all the way to Ferozsons bookshop on the Mall to browse through the new titles. This was an age when video games had not captured the energies of the young, when the internet had not even been dreamt of, and when the television, in those dark years of General Zia-ul-Haq, was a daily booster shot of boredom. This is not the case anymore, for by now one has already mourned the loss of Lahore to rampant and senseless greed, the vagaries of the land mafia and the absolute failure of the civic authorities. It is inconceivable now to walk anywhere along the Mall without inhaling toxic fumes, or worse, being hit by a speeding vehicle. Decay is all around us. Its foremost manifestation can be seen in the way the Lahori elites and residents have slowly poisoned their city.

Much could be said on the suicidal tendencies of the natives in general, for it is not with Lahore alone that we are concerned. Suicide is evident all over the place. From a young, brainwashed lad who blows himself up in search of paradise to a state that is its own worst enemy, our irrational behavior is simply mind-boggling. One had learned from dear Darwin that evolution was about the survival of the fittest. But the global destruction of the (more…)