THE entrance to the prestigious Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) greets one with the stinkiest of brooks. The area, managed by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore, has a seriously strong, pungent smell floating around. The university has lodged complaints more than once, but DHA Lahore has not moved an inch towards taking any action worth its name.

To ease its woes, can an expert and learned environmentalist step in and give solutions to LUMS as to what should be done about it? If not an environmentalist, then anyone with a creative mind has any solution for that? I can suggest growing pretty water lilies in the brook, but my knowledge about nature, indeed, has its limitations. I am pretty sure someone can figure out what can be done about not only this particular brook, but may be all of them present anywhere in the country.

Unfortunately, the smelly brook in front of a university is a living example of a typical Pakistani attitude, where we just want to keep our very own yard clean, but do not bother about the environment we live in. Even if we care about the problems in our environment, we do not know how to have them fixed.

Durre Fatima
Lahore

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2024