Endless comedy

Published September 12, 2012

THE waiter came, took my plate, stopped to brush a few crumbs off my tablecloth, and hurried to another table. I was seized with regret about this day, not only because it had been futile, but because not even its futility would remain, it would be forgotten along with this table, along with the fly buzzing around my head, along with the yellow pollen scattered on the tablecloth by the flowering linden, along with the slow, indifferent service that is so characteristic of the society I live in, even that society would be forgotten, and even its mistakes and errors and injustices that had hypnotised me, that I had suffered from, that I was consumed by, and that I had vainly attempted to redress, to punish, and to undo -- vainly, because what had happened had happened and could never be redressed.

It would not be fair to restrict Milan Kundera’s foregoing thoughts from ‘The Joke’ to any one people, but then these so adequately communicate the sufferings and the predicament of the people born and bred in the land of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Life has never been a cakewalk in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; but living had never before been marked by such disquiet and discomfort. No single aspect of life has been left untouched by the base and the ridiculous so starkly manifest in the present times.

Amjad Afridi is a young educated tribesman from the strife torn Bara in Khyber Agency. He lives in Peshawar and is known for his strongly accented English that he brandishes with the flair not dissimilar to the manner in which his ancestors would flaunt their deeply oiled double barreled guns in the old days. Amjad, however, is not known for giving in to emotions. It was thus quite unusual to read a foreboding text sent by him one of these days. It read: ‘Pa sabab da zalimano hakimano, oor o gor o Pekhawar dre wara yo di.’ (Because of the despots and the powers that be, fire, grave and Peshawar all three are the same.)

Since living in Peshawar there is no escaping our fait accompli, one must always look for shades of comic relief in this grim climate of ignorance, a complete absence of vision, bureaucratic ineptitude and unforgiving incompetence.

The long awaited flyover on the Grand Trunk Road has finally been reopened for traffic, but it does not seem to have eased the city’s traffic problem even a wee bit. Since it is unlikely to achieve the desired objective, the authorities must now consider reserving the flyover for young skaters, who could otherwise be seen perilously skating on some of the busiest roads.

The ground area under the flyover is, of course, designed and destined to be taken over by the pushcarts and addicts. The agony undergone through the long phase of construction has already been forgotten.

Traveling through the University Road, Peshawar had never been any fun; it promises to be so now if one has extra reserves of patience. The ongoing construction of two underpasses provides enough entertainment for the fun starved motorists. The construction sites have been attempted to be covered from the prying eyes of the public with green curtains that have more holes in them than any sieve made for any purpose.

People at all hours of the day could be seen peeping through those holes in a manner that reminds one of a cylindrical shaped tin box of the olden days with tiny slits for viewing stills mostly of the holy places, accompanied with commentary by the entertainer.

Some ground digging is going on behind those wretched curtains for months now. The work at the two sites is so slow that it would really be seen offensive to the snails if it is attempted to be compared with their pace. Traffic cops, their faces and uniform covered with dust, could be seen helplessly grappling with the frenzied ever growing flow of traffic. The mess at the two sites in unrelenting weather conditions, reign of terror and the continuous wailing of the ambulances in the front and rear would also be forgotten, but not without making our transient existence even more turmoil ridden by another couple of years.

The Peshawar Development Authority has hundreds of gardeners on its payroll but the barren median on the University Road would suggest all those gentlemen have proceeded on French leave. The median is devoid of a single blade of grass and in fact looks more like a beaten pathway in an old cemetery. The visionless chief of the authority must earnestly be advised to consult a doctor for all types of eyes related ailments.

After the closure of the main arteries running through the Peshawar Cantonment for reasons of security, the Sunehri Masjid Road is now the only link between the city and the cantonment, the University Road and Hayatabad. This sole link has virtually been taken over by an enterprising security agency both for its offices as well as its commercial establishment that has hundreds of shops dealing in spear parts of motor vehicles.

The said road remains closed at least a dozen times in the peak rush hours; at times for a peon tasked with fetching refreshments for his bosses to pass safely through the traffic mess. On each occasion of an arrival at and departure from the office by an official the panicky constables whistling excitedly and gesturing, with their heads, arms and legs, present quite a funny spectacle. It looks as though they are acting to keep the public away from an unsafe building that is being brought down by the municipal authorities with the help of dynamite.

A fearless officer used to live in this office until about a couple of years ago before he was stabbed in the back by the cowards among us. The officer was endowed with supernatural qualities. He had removed all symbols of modern and conventional security from his sight as he loathed causing inconvenience to the public. By this act, the officer had indelibly endeared himself in the wider perception of the public. Instead of accepting his challenge to a duel which the officer fancied like nothing else in the world, his enemies eliminated him from the scene in the most dishonourable manner recorded in the annals of warfare.

Something that cannot be cured must be endured, so goes a popular adage. Yet another book by the Czech born author Milan Kundera is titled ‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.’ We in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa must live our lives in accordance with the title of the aforementioned book so as to avoid serious harm to our endangered sense of proportion.

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