ONE of my deepest regrets has been that my generation came of age at the wrong time. When Pakistan was more at ease with itself than it is now, we were too young or down-at-heel to fully sample the amenities on offer. As a second lieutenant posted in Karachi in 1969 I with my salary of Rs 550 could only look at places like the Palace Hotel and the seedier Excelsior (the names stick in my mind) from the outside. Years later when I was in a position to walk into them with more confidence in my pocket, those places of repose for the thirsty and the lonely had disappeared forever.

My other regret is about taxis. Once upon a time when the old discipline of the Raj still lingered in our midst, they used to have properly-functioning meters. Not anymore. With haggling and extortion now associated with this form of travel the joy has gone out of it.

My third regret is about what we have done to our railways. They provided a civilized mode of transport but have since fallen on bad times which is why anyone with a choice before him no longer uses them. One of the saddest things to have happened to Chakwal is the dismantling of the railway track which going past Chakwal ended at the picturesque village of Bhoun at the foothills of the Salt Range. Anyway, General Musharraf's government is making noises about improving the railways. But whether inducting military officers into this department is the best way of restoring its lost glory remains to be seen.

My last regret is about the vanishing of decent bookstores. In all the major cities - and not counting Dhaka, we had four of them: Peshawer, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi - good books used to be available. The habit of reading is in any case on the decline but reinforcing this trend is the disappearance of the old bookshops.

Inviting saloons, convenient public transport and the availability of books are essential to any idea of civilized living. Having systematically stripped itself of these amenities (or should I say necessities?) Pakistan has succeeded in driving out whatever little culture it had in the first place.

Material progress we have undoubtedly made since 1947. We live better and despite the economic downturn we are seeing, there is more money to go around. Villages (most of them at least) have been electrified. Roads have been laid. On the land there is an abundance of tractors; in towns and cities no shortage of consumer goods. But against these plus points must be weighed the crassness and vulgarity which have come to dominate our collective thinking.

That this cultural degradation is not simply a matter of abstract idealism but a downward trend with serious political consequences is to be seen in the changing outlook of the classes which historically have held the reins of power in Pakistan. While it is true that these classes could never lay claim to an excess of virtue or piety, their civic behaviour in the old days was a model of rectitude compared to what it was later to become.

From the sixties onwards, and here Ayub Khan's martial law has to carry some of the blame, the political class which collaborated with the Ayub regime was slavish in its outlook and also guilty of minor forms of corruption like getting route permits and other concessions from the government. But much worse was to follow. So much so that by the eighties, in the midst of our longest and most destructive spells of military rule, greed, acquisitiveness and ostentation had become the defining passions of the privileged classes. Since architecture is often a faithful mirror of the human soul, it is hardly surprising that the mock-Roman pillars which are to be seen everywhere now, meant no doubt to convey the expansiveness of our architectural thought, made their first appearance then.

These pillars also adorn many new army buildings especially, since it is so visible, the Armour Mess on the road from the old presidency to GHQ in Rawalpindi, a telling reminder that the new spirit pervading the country had affected the military as well. If further proof of this was needed it was provided by another circumstance. The frugality and austerity hitherto associated with the armed services gave way to a new-found preoccupation with cars, houses and other forms of real estate.

How could politics remain unaffected by this mood? General Zia-ul-Haq indeed turned financial inducements into a prime instrument of policy. The political virtues he prized most were silence and acquiescence and, provided anyone who could be a political nuisance paraded these virtues, the doors of the public sector banks were opened for him. Stuck-up loans which the Musharraf regime is now trying to recover owe their origin largely to that period.

While the political elite was never made up of angels, corruption was now becoming a way of life for it, indeed the moving spirit of politics. In Punjab, the power-house of Pakistan, there arose a new class of predator-politician best exemplified by the Sharifs and other lesser stars who found themselves enrolled in the resurgent Muslim League which, just as the Convention Muslim League had created a civilian constituency for General Ayub Khan, gave a civilian face to General Zia's regime. Old traditions die hard and so it is not a little quaint to see many years later Zia's son, Ejazul Haq, trying to strike a deal with another military regime although to Haq's discomfiture his overtures, frantic at times, have gone unanswered.

But to return to our theme. While political corruption had spread, its triumph could not be wholly complete as long as Benazir Bhutto and the PPP, both standing for the spirit of defiance and idealism, remained outside its charmed circle. But with Benazir returning to the country and soon thereafter becoming prime minister this omission was made up with a vengeance. For the next decade the choice before the people of Pakistan was between two varieties of corruption. Tired of one they could settle for the other. Only in October this year was this cycle broken. But whether this means a return to civilization and some honesty in public life we do not know because this latest experiment is in its infancy and has yet to play itself out.

But what has this to do with saloons, orderly taxis, trains on time and decent bookstores? Perhaps a great deal because these are some of the symbols of a civilized form of existence which was to be found in Pakistan at one time and which, when it disappeared, made public life in this country poorer and a prey to greed and the acquisitive mentality.

The corelation between culture and politics is greater than Pakistanis generally care to assume. What after all is the function of culture? Primarily, to mellow human beings and to soften their rough edges so that they come to the realization that while material things are important, because without them existence becomes impossible, there is also something beyond the mere material. In other words, it brings idealism with it which in politics distinguishes the statesman from the mere politician.

What has happened in Pakistan? In material terms it has progressed but culturally it is more impoverished than ever before. As McDonald joints proliferate and the sounds of advertising get shriller (surely two of the worst afflictions to hit humankind this century), is all lost and is there no hope for the future? I do not know. This century has seen marvellous leaps of technology but it has also produced a great deal of junk and erected temples to the new gods of consumerism and wasteful consumption. Pakistan too has been hit by this destructive religion with none of the civilizing influences that are to be seen elsewhere to balance the outcome.

But if so much remains uncertain, of one thing I am pretty sure. For all its maddening frustrations - and lack of saloons and proper taxis - this remains a great place to live in which, and this is a personal choice, I would not exchange for the south of France. So as the bells toll this evening and the sounds of revelry spread across the globe, it is to this sum of frustrations that I will be raising my glass, sure in the conviction that the next century can be no worse for it than perhaps, on a cynic's reckoning, the departing shades of this one might have been.