Zarvan
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Messages
- 54,470
- Reaction score
- 87
- Country
- Location
Ok. This is my last will and testament. Family and friends! If I die today, please get a tombstone made immediately afterwards. Carve it in gold, and write on it with permanent ink the following words:
“Dear Departed. Mother of two, wife of one. Died of crossing the Kalma Chowk twice a day every day. She was at the prime of her middle age and full of the vigour of life; until she lost the will to live – right in the middle of a traffic jam, and dropped dead there and then. May her soul rest in peace and never has to venture across Ferozepur Road ever again. Amen.”
Please note that my grave is to be made right in the middle of the Raiwind Road with a sign board that says. “How’s that for a road block, huh!”
Put a picture of me at the side of it, and make sure that it’s one with an evil grin and a twinkle in the eye. Nothing works up the emotions of the people stuck in traffic jams like grinning pictures of others who have actually put them there. The fact that my ghost is seriously going to haunt the Kalma Chowk all the way from Model Town to Raiwind immediately after I die is another matter altogether, but is not to be reported anywhere in public for now. Just get some semi-literate poets to write cheesy limericks about the traffic related dreams of the people of Lahore, and make promises to fulfil them all in good time.
But before I die, I must ask one last question from the makers of Kalma Chowk, this agent of hell out to suck the life’s happiness out of me:
Dear people, what on earth are you digging now? And why did you not think about digging it before? And also, when are you going to stop this madness and start clearing the hell out of my way?
I have got some dying to do you see. It won’t work to be stuck in a traffic jam on my last journey to the eternal abode. If heaven has flyovers, I want to deal with them through my own underpasses and not yours.
Actually you see, I understand that the Kalma Chowk construction is a development project, and I am not averse to development. In fact I like development very much, but only when the development is actually developing into something. Not when all it’s doing for the past couple of years is digging holes all over the roads and putting roadblocks on the ones that remain. Unfortunately for me, I live a stone’s throw away from this whole dug up development project, and I am really sorry to report that I am not amused any more.
I mean, when they started building the flyover almost two years ago to facilitate traffic on a road that essentially was a juncture, didnt they know that an underpass would eventually be needed? Everyone knew that the flyover only facilitated traffic from two sides of the road and that an underpass, or some alternative was still needed for the heavy traffic flow below it. I know this because I had a conversation with one of the transvestities begging near Kalma Chowk, trying to bless me with a holy pilgrimage and a gorgeous spouse. While we bargained over the payment mode for the blessings and discussed life in general, I found her to be better informed about the construction issues than those who claim to be experts in the field.
This was just a question of plain observation. So why was it that all that we got from the genius planners with their fancy credentials was nothing but a few rickety road blocks and some tired looking traffic wardens standing under a 21st century high-tech flyover, waiting for the fates of individual commuters to take their course.
Considering that hundreds of commuters cross that road every day and their fates are not necessarily in harmony with one another, the result of this strategy of the millennium was nothing but catastrophe every single day of the year.
Another thing that boggles me is that if they didn’t think of an underpass before then why this sudden brainwave? One day you go to work as usual, and come back as usual. A very important Skype interview is waiting for you at home, and you are already running late, and just when your home is five minutes away, all of a sudden you realise that the road in front of you is a huge gaping pit. Now, isn’t it the same road that you crossed earlier this morning? What on earth happened here? No warning sign, no alternate route. Just a big traffic mess. Now considering that a Skype interview can be rescheduled, my troubles might not seem as intense as those of the elderly lady with a weak bladder sitting in the car next to mine. Or the baby about to be delivered to a mother trying to go to a well known hospital three minutes away from where we are stuck.
A few days ago I saw a Facebook cartoon showing a Junior Sharif talking to a Senior Sharif over a knotted up bundle of roads. “Abbu, what are you doing?” He asks. “Making a Paris out of Lahore beta,” comes the reply.
So if somebody promises to give me an award for poignant observations, I am willing to make one for the benefit of the abbu and the beta both.
This ain’t becoming Paris, Mister. So why don’t you try your luck elsewhere and make a Raiwind out of Paris instead.
The writer is a teaching fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS. Email: adiahafraz@ gmail.com
From Kalma Chowk to Paris - Adiah Afraz
Man it is great piece really funny specially the first part every one please read and comment
“Dear Departed. Mother of two, wife of one. Died of crossing the Kalma Chowk twice a day every day. She was at the prime of her middle age and full of the vigour of life; until she lost the will to live – right in the middle of a traffic jam, and dropped dead there and then. May her soul rest in peace and never has to venture across Ferozepur Road ever again. Amen.”
Please note that my grave is to be made right in the middle of the Raiwind Road with a sign board that says. “How’s that for a road block, huh!”
Put a picture of me at the side of it, and make sure that it’s one with an evil grin and a twinkle in the eye. Nothing works up the emotions of the people stuck in traffic jams like grinning pictures of others who have actually put them there. The fact that my ghost is seriously going to haunt the Kalma Chowk all the way from Model Town to Raiwind immediately after I die is another matter altogether, but is not to be reported anywhere in public for now. Just get some semi-literate poets to write cheesy limericks about the traffic related dreams of the people of Lahore, and make promises to fulfil them all in good time.
But before I die, I must ask one last question from the makers of Kalma Chowk, this agent of hell out to suck the life’s happiness out of me:
Dear people, what on earth are you digging now? And why did you not think about digging it before? And also, when are you going to stop this madness and start clearing the hell out of my way?
I have got some dying to do you see. It won’t work to be stuck in a traffic jam on my last journey to the eternal abode. If heaven has flyovers, I want to deal with them through my own underpasses and not yours.
Actually you see, I understand that the Kalma Chowk construction is a development project, and I am not averse to development. In fact I like development very much, but only when the development is actually developing into something. Not when all it’s doing for the past couple of years is digging holes all over the roads and putting roadblocks on the ones that remain. Unfortunately for me, I live a stone’s throw away from this whole dug up development project, and I am really sorry to report that I am not amused any more.
I mean, when they started building the flyover almost two years ago to facilitate traffic on a road that essentially was a juncture, didnt they know that an underpass would eventually be needed? Everyone knew that the flyover only facilitated traffic from two sides of the road and that an underpass, or some alternative was still needed for the heavy traffic flow below it. I know this because I had a conversation with one of the transvestities begging near Kalma Chowk, trying to bless me with a holy pilgrimage and a gorgeous spouse. While we bargained over the payment mode for the blessings and discussed life in general, I found her to be better informed about the construction issues than those who claim to be experts in the field.
This was just a question of plain observation. So why was it that all that we got from the genius planners with their fancy credentials was nothing but a few rickety road blocks and some tired looking traffic wardens standing under a 21st century high-tech flyover, waiting for the fates of individual commuters to take their course.
Considering that hundreds of commuters cross that road every day and their fates are not necessarily in harmony with one another, the result of this strategy of the millennium was nothing but catastrophe every single day of the year.
Another thing that boggles me is that if they didn’t think of an underpass before then why this sudden brainwave? One day you go to work as usual, and come back as usual. A very important Skype interview is waiting for you at home, and you are already running late, and just when your home is five minutes away, all of a sudden you realise that the road in front of you is a huge gaping pit. Now, isn’t it the same road that you crossed earlier this morning? What on earth happened here? No warning sign, no alternate route. Just a big traffic mess. Now considering that a Skype interview can be rescheduled, my troubles might not seem as intense as those of the elderly lady with a weak bladder sitting in the car next to mine. Or the baby about to be delivered to a mother trying to go to a well known hospital three minutes away from where we are stuck.
A few days ago I saw a Facebook cartoon showing a Junior Sharif talking to a Senior Sharif over a knotted up bundle of roads. “Abbu, what are you doing?” He asks. “Making a Paris out of Lahore beta,” comes the reply.
So if somebody promises to give me an award for poignant observations, I am willing to make one for the benefit of the abbu and the beta both.
This ain’t becoming Paris, Mister. So why don’t you try your luck elsewhere and make a Raiwind out of Paris instead.
The writer is a teaching fellow at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS. Email: adiahafraz@ gmail.com
From Kalma Chowk to Paris - Adiah Afraz
Man it is great piece really funny specially the first part every one please read and comment
