Of good roads

Published December 18, 2012

Of late I have been travelling across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa mostly by road. These roads are a joy to drive on. Recently I went from Islamabad to Peshawar on M-1 and returned in the evening. It rained all the way.

I could not help but notice that all the rain drops would fall on the screen, flatten out, convert into a sphere and because of the car speed would travel from the bottom of the wind screen to the roof top smoothly. These hundreds of water droplets would then convert into colourless Tadpoles with a spherical head and a long watery tail.

The M-1 road between Peshawar and Islamabad is probably the best I have travelled in Pakistan so far. The smoothness of the road can be measured by the fact that these hundreds of tadpoles would maintain their perfect vertically trajectory without anyone of them overtaking or colliding with the other. Since there are no bumps on the road, no tadpole jumps over its predecessor. Same would probably be true for M-2.

It has been exactly 15 years since M-2 was built. One hopes to see similar roads in Balochistan and Sindh where other Pakistanis can enjoy tadpoles on their windscreens during the rain.

S. NAYYAR IQBAL RAZA Karachi

Opinion

Editorial

Punishing evaders
02 May, 2024

Punishing evaders

THE FBR’s decision to block mobile phone connections of more than half a million individuals who did not file...
Engaging Riyadh
Updated 02 May, 2024

Engaging Riyadh

It must be stressed that to pull in maximum foreign investment, a climate of domestic political stability is crucial.
Freedom to question
02 May, 2024

Freedom to question

WITH frequently suspended freedoms, increasing violence and few to speak out for the oppressed, it is unlikely that...
Wheat protests
Updated 01 May, 2024

Wheat protests

The government should withdraw from the wheat trade gradually, replacing the existing market support mechanism with an effective new one over the next several years.
Polio drive
01 May, 2024

Polio drive

THE year’s fourth polio drive has kicked off across Pakistan, with the aim to immunise more than 24m children ...
Workers’ struggle
Updated 01 May, 2024

Workers’ struggle

Yet the struggle to secure a living wage — and decent working conditions — for the toiling masses must continue.