And what is there to laugh about?

Laughing is good for the heart, says this news agency report, datelined Islamabad. And, while I propose to begin with it, it is not intended to be the subject of this column. I want to talk about the prime minister’s last visit to the Sindh capital.

But let’s take this laughing matter; this medical prescription for having a healthy heart.

Now, ask me what is there to laugh about in this city, for instance. Islamabad, for that is where this readable story comes from has something to be amused about. Besides, its Margalla environs give to the federal capital quietude and silence also.

I would like to believe that the need to laugh for a healthy heart applies to Karachi, and perhaps elsewhere in the country. Except that what should one laugh about, is something that is hard to find here; even futile.

A colleague was certain that the best option was to laugh at oneself, rather than indulge in self-pity, something that is seen as a routine.

Let’s focus on the story, which reveals that “a good bout of laughter every day provides similar cardiovascular benefits as exercise, because it stimulates the blood flow, said Michael Miller who headed a research team at the University of Maryland.”

It was further stated that laughter produced a “magnitude of change, in the endothelium... similar to the benefit we might see with aerobic activity, but without the aches, pains and muscle tension, associated with exercise.” However, what was emphasised was that laughter should not replace exercise.

It was recommended that a person should try and laugh on a regular basis. Specifically the prescription was: thirty minutes of exercise three times a week, and 15 minutes of laughter on a daily basis is probably good for the vascular system. (A middle-aged banker laughed at the prospect of being able to laugh even once a fortnight, when I asked him to respond to all this). I am not laughing, but instead getting carried away with the thoughts of the benefits of laughter.

Let us look at the prime minister’s visit to the city now, which created the usual traffic jams, and road closures in all the localities that he visited, and the spillover effects of which were in evidence in all the adjoining areas.

I know those who anticipated the premier’s visit and managed to stay away from those areas – residential or commercial. But, there were those who got trapped, and suffocated in traffic jams, and road closures, and once again asked the familiar question as reported in this daily, “What is our fault if the prime minister is going to visit the City Railway Station? Why are we made to suffer?” And this citizen added that if the premier was so concerned about his safety, he should not visit public places and put hundreds of ordinary people to trouble.

What is the image of Pakistan that comes to the surface when you realise that citizens suffer like this because of security measures that are imposed for VIPs? Is this the soft image of Pakistan? By the way, the Information Ministry has advertised jobs for specialists required to help project the soft image. Many of us find this rather amusing. The specialists will have a tough job undoubtedly!

Now, what we underwent when the prime minister came this time to Karachi was nothing new. Police blocked roads, for his impressive (read pompous) motorcade.

Presumably, this image (soft image or hard) is a truly humbling (read humiliating) experience at times, for the pedestrian, or even the motorist or the public transport driver.

Some of the localities that got affected included the Federal B Area, where they removed pushcarts and vendors from Sohrab Goth to Aisha Manzil to Mukkah Chowk. The premier was to go to the Tabba Heart Institute and Nine Zero, Azizabad. Adjoining areas that got impacted were Shah Waliullah Road, Rashid Minhas Road, North Nazimabad and Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

The prime minister went to the Karachi Port Trust and an unannounced closure of roads took place, therefore. Traffic chaos resulted on the I.I. Chundrigar Road, Keamari roads, M. Tameezuddin Khan Road, while spillover effects were felt in Clifton, main road for instance Ziauddin Ahmed Road, and related links roads.

And the City Station? When he went there to inaugurate the first phase of the local train facility (called circular railway) security measures were so visibly high (police and Rangers) that two railway stations in Karachi closed for the public. Trains got delayed, 200 railway workers were sent home for the day and booking and reservation offices were closed. (Soft Image of Pakistan?)

Can you imagine the pathetic condition of passengers who may have had to use the railway stations under such circumstances? For that matter, many of us discussing security measures and road closures in the town expressed the most serious doubts (and fears too) about ambulances trying to reach hospitals, in the days ahead.

For the kind of traffic and roads that the Sindh capital has, and is likely to have, nothing seems to work. And, there appears to be small hope in the immediate future. Trying to reach Jinnah Hospital or Aga Khan Hospital, for example, when a VIP is in town could mean total disaster.

I have read with interest a news report that the Executive Director of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Dr Azhar Faruqui, has been assured that a separate road to the NICVD would be made available. Some citizens point to helicopters as an option as Karachi expands.

Not as an example of this, but to illustrate how the psychology of the Karachiite works is the response to the news that the construction of an underpass is to begin in Clifton.

Just about everyone appears apprehensive at the thought of how much delay will take place before this underpass is ready. How much of suffering will the residents have to undergo? There are others who question an underpass in Clifton where the water table is high. Presumably, and obviously, the experts know more and better.

Interestingly, the news of this proposed underpass and the alternative routes for vehicular traffic were announced the day the prime minister was in town. That was another worrying thought. Would the road be closed from that very day? Double trouble!

The thought of what will happen when the road from Schon Circle to Teen Talwar is closed is a depressing one, and images of traffic chaos sweep through the mind. One hopes for relief, but in disbelief. Karachiites, who currently live with numerous road closures in the name of development, will have to take another suffocating road in their lives.

The road to the Ziauddin Hospital in Clifton is in bad shape. One track is closed. The road from Lasbella to Nazimabad has one track closed, and so is Jehangir Road, which links Guru Mandir to Teenhatti.

These are the faces of development? No laughing matter. Even though laughing is good for the heart (15 minutes a day). Whom do I laugh with? Laugh alone, for the sake of your heart, says feebly, a voice within.

The baradari watches the decay of a great library

WHEN the subedar, or governor, of Lahore, Nawab Wazir Khan, started building his famous and exquisite mosque in 1634 inside the walled city in the reign of the Emperor Shah Jehan, he also started laying and equally beautiful garden half a mile eastward from Lohari Gate. It was known then as Bagh Wazir Khan.

When asked why he was trying to copy the famous Shalimar Gardens being built then by his emperor, he said: “I am a humble ‘subedar’. The mosque is for man to try to appreciate the unseen beauty of Allah. This small garden is to help man to appreciate Allah’s beautiful nature.” Many experts believe the original ‘bagh’ of Wazir Khan was a much more beautiful garden than the legendary Shalimar. It is almost like comparing the Badshahi Mosque to the mosque of Wazir Khan .But today that garden is no more. The only trace of that exquisite creation is the Baradari of Wazir Khan. Every time you cross The Mall opposite the museum,or the old campus of the Punjab University, you are trampling on where the garden once was. The ‘baradari’ remains, a testimony to that great builder of Lahore. It eventually got to be the starting point of one of the finest libraries of the sub-continent.

The story of the Punjab Public Library is one that must be told, again and again, and lessons extracted, and action taken, concrete action, by private and public persons and institutions, for these actions could, eventually, determine our place in history. The ‘baradari’ of Wazir Khan has seen the history of our city unfold since 1634. The moghals collapsed, the Afghans pillaged and raped, the Sikhs suffered immensely and ultimately rose to power.

The beginning of their zenith started in the baradari of Wazir Khan, where the aspiring Sukherchakaria chieftain from Gujranwala waited before his troops stormed into Lahore in 1799. The baradari watched 40 years of utter pillage as it served as a garrison building for the Sikh elite officers of the French-trained the Fauj-i-Khas. The garden was looted of its fountains and flowers.

Then came the British and they also camped in the baradari. After the British took over in 1849 it first served as a Settlement Office as the East India Company set about expanding its writ in the Punjab. It next served as the first telegraph office in Lahore,connected directly to a point on Jahangir’s baradari in the River Ravi at Shahdara. Once consolidation was complete culture returned and it served as the very first building to house the Lahore Museum, which moved out after it got its own beautiful building just behind it.

The British then started the ‘Anarkali Book Club’, and the board stated, as one account of Golding tells us, “for Europeans only.’ When the Lawrence Hall was built and became part of the Lahore and Mian Mir Institute, now called the Lahore Gymkhana Club, the library was moved there. Thus the ‘baradari’ became available once again. At this stage the Lt. Governor of the Punjab, Sir Charles Atchison, wished that a library to reflect the immense history and literary traditions of Lahore be built in the baradari. This was named the Punjab Public Library. The committee formed to undertake this project met for the first time on November 12, 1884, in the French-built Secretariat building. Sir Charles donated his entire library and other well-connected people followed likewise. Well-known collections from, Munshi Naval Kishore, from Sardar Attar Singh and the huge and rare collection of Fakir Syed Jamaluddin, came the library’s way.It was an impressive start. On the December 21, 1885, Sir Charles Atchison inaugurated the library.

But the greatest contribution of Sir Charles was the fact that he made sure that it remained out of the clutches of bureaucracy. He got the library registered under the Charities Act, declaring its intentions as being ‘non-profit oriented’. This single step guaranteed its success. Great librarians then headed this unique library, which was seen as one of the finest libraries in northern India.

In 1886, the great Lala Kirpa Ram became the chief librarian, setting the highest stands of service and working day and night to make sure Lahore had the finest library in the entire sub-continent. He served for 27 long years and was followed by Lala Labbha Ram who served another eight years till 1921. By then these two had collected the finest set of rare manuscripts and books in India.

In 1921 another well-known librarian, Vidya Saggar Gorewara joined and served for just two years. In 1923 came Lala Ram Labhaya, who worked till the midnight of August 14, 1947, a solid 24 years of effort work that made sure Pakistan inherited one of the finest libraries in the world. In 1947 the first Pakistani Chief Librarian of the Punjab Public Library, Khwaja Nur Elahi, took over and served for 19 years till 1966. His greatest contribution was that he managed to keep the bureaucrats at bay, expanding the library in the process. As the library grew, so did the need for space. New buildings were built in 1924 and 1939. In the space of 80 years, just five librarians headed this great institution, which is testimony to its solid growth and direction.

The martial law of Gen Ayub Khan had by then set in a new malaise, a sort of aversion to learning and knowledge. Come to think of it, no library worth the mention, let alone an excellent bookshop, has managed to raise its head in Lahore over the last 40 years. Today the Punjab Public Library has a massive collection of 375,000 books, most of them rare ones.

For example the well-known book India: the Transfer of Power 1942-47 in 12 volumes, edited by Nicholas Mansergh, lies in the chief librarian’s office. That alone is worth a fortune. The very rare collection of ancient manuscripts number well over 850 collections, each one definitely worth more than money can measure. There is so much more in this library that only a massive effort of the donor agencies can help to save, what to my mind, is our finest institution gone all wrong.

On the dusty floors of the library rest some of the rarest books and manuscripts in the entire sub-continent. It is our history left to die. There is just not even enough money to get old and rare books rebound. The use of modern paper preservation techniques is missing. The lack of space, absence of funds and expertise, let alone a passion to save the true and rare heritage of this ancient city and the land, add to the tragedy called the Punjab Public Library.

The real malaise set in when the Punjab Government took over the library and placed it under their ‘education’ department, a violation of the trust in which it was set. The baradari still stands out for it houses the facilities to read newspapers and magazines. It watches in silence the decay. Even the young sensitive students of this city no longer protest, or feel, or even see, the slow, very slow, and silent death of one of Lahore’s greatest institutions. — Majid Sheikh