THE sun is a mere mellowed pale disc as another day in the last week of the year 2013 draws to a rapid end. Hundreds of motor vehicles of all descriptions are converging at the FC Intersection during the briefest evening hours of the day in one of the briefest cold spells experienced in the recent years.

Winter rains appear to be nowhere in sight, and hence the environs are draped in an unremitting pall of dust and haze.

A middle age traffic cop in navy blue pants and royal blue shirt, with a visible limp in his stride, is standing in the middle of the intersection, directing vehicles with the now wild, now feeble swing of his arms.

As he shuffles from one position to another, the poor cop with a wry smile on his weather beaten face appears to be aping the Pakistani fast bowler Junaid Khan when the latter takes a bouncy jump midway in his run up to the bowling crease.

The rest of nearly half a dozen cops, apparently looking to be of much stronger physique, are standing in all four corners on one of the busiest thoroughfares of the city.

The recently installed traffic signals have been turned off to allow hassle free daylong brisk movements to convoys of very important people, seized with untangling the knots that otherwise seem to be defying all attempts at being untangled.

It is also hard to comprehend why in the presence of so many healthy cops loitering around the lengths of the intersection how a lesser fit man has been left to deal with the mess, but then that appears to be the most serious act in this comedy being played on our soil.

FC Intersection is the heart of Peshawar or rather nucleus, if the former tends to be too grotesque a metaphor. It is only after reaching and being stuck at this intersection for a considerable length of time that allows one some time to reflect on the immense importance of this point.

Located at some distance from the western mountains lining the Durand Line with Afghanistan and scores of tribal settlements to its north and south, Peshawar’s current geography is the result of its perennially troublesome and internecine past and in equal proportion to its present and must perhaps be so for all times to come.

The FC Intersection to its south branches off to where lies one third of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Scores of gentlemen -- and no lady, from the southern districts of the province have made it to positions of absolute power in Peshawar and elsewhere in Pakistan providing them opportunities to travel via FC Intersection to and from their places of origin.

Quite obviously, these holders of powerful positions were regularly provided undisturbed passage, but did it not occur to them even once that such regalia was but just fleeting and that sooner than later they too would have to suffer like the ordinary mortals in the scorching sun and biting cold at the FC Intersection. One may thus assume that they did not have enough grey matter to be remembered for.

The small patch of road leading to its east running along railway station at Cantonment has quite unimaginatively been named Sher Shah Suri Road after the founder of Suri Dynasty in India and the builder of the Grand Trunk Road from Kabul to Kolkata. Whosoever conceived the idea must then have ensured its proper maintenance and whatever possible beautification.

But since it is not so, this road is helplessly rutted and remains so throughout the year so that even cabby drivers are forced to comparing it with the dirt roads in their far off villages.

Come evening time, Sher Shah Suri Road slowly starts wearing a deserted look till it is completely closed at its entry point from the FC Intersection for the east bound traffic leading to massive traffic jams on the remaining roads. During the day hours the flow of traffic on this road remains sluggish due to a plethora of protest demonstrations in front of the press club.

The western branch of FC Intersection in fact remains the most theatrical for it is where the headquarters of the FC Platoons are located wherefrom the intersection draws its name. For most hours of the daytime and at times until late evening hours the intersection remains under the control of the FC personnel, who virtually push the traffic cops to the sidelines rendering them mere background singers.

One FC guy, with an elephantine figure and a steel whistle stuck between a thick set of dark purple lips, could be seen guarding the entrance to the headquarters with his resounding presence.

He could be expected to jump in the middle of the road at any odd moment to block the foraging flow of traffic with a mere twitching of his physiognomy to enable a cyclist from his office to have his way.

After attaining his objective, the behemoth retires to his allotted position of duty with as much authority as allowed by his vast frame, letting the drivers from the tribal agency of Bara in their broken down buses deal with the occupants of smaller vehicles in their customary fashion.

It is no less interesting to keep noticing through one’s ordeal at the FC Intersection a medley of colours in the shape of a variety of uniforms on display.

While the western trajectory of the intersection leads onward to Afghanistan and Central Asia, its last northern arm extends and disappears into the military and non-military portions of the Cantonment which have been rendered restricted areas by our adverse circumstances.

A massive lackluster shopping complex has been constructed in this direction on the site where once sat the sprawling Deans Hotel that lent a romantic aura to the place. The new construction has disfigured Peshawar’s skyline beyond redemption.

The owners of the shopping complex who had promised to make amends for their trifling experiment in modern architecture by providing avenues of entertainment to the fun starved Peshawarites have let themselves be cowed down by the extremists.

Some driving around the FC Intersection and one is so painfully reminded of how Peshawar and indeed the rest of this province have been trapped in Time.

A few years ago the authorities concerned appeared to have planned to decorate the balustrades on the railway overhead bridge branching out of the FC Intersection, but they stopped short of completing it. Perhaps they considered that would go down as an abnormality amid all that is so primitive broken down and in shambles. Not the least our antiquated mindset.

Such unfortunately appears to be the destiny of a land where time finally appears to have ended after 7,000 years of its proverbial existence.