close
Friday March 29, 2024

Decades of decline

Memories of childhood, that most magical and irrecoverable time of our lives, remain printed indelibly on a canvas that lies somewhere beneath the surface of our consciousness. At times though, a sight, a sound or a scene from our present may open a portal into this netherworld of memories, allowing

By Khayyam Mushir
February 25, 2015
Memories of childhood, that most magical and irrecoverable time of our lives, remain printed indelibly on a canvas that lies somewhere beneath the surface of our consciousness. At times though, a sight, a sound or a scene from our present may open a portal into this netherworld of memories, allowing us to relive a multitude of sweet remembrances from days gone by, rejuvenating, revitalising and shaking us out of the coma of routine that forms our lives.
My recollections of life in Islamabad date back to the late 70s. Residing in sector G-6/2, in a quiet neighbourhood and on a narrow street with bungalows on one side and government quarters on the other we were in the old centre of Islamabad city. The local market was named after a bustling café – Café Erum – housed somewhere within its boxlike concrete structure, that began with a chicken shop at one end and went through a progression of vegetable vendors, butchers, tailors, general merchants and chai shops before ending with a mosque at the other.
Café Erum is virtually unknown today to most residing in Islamabad, suffered as it has the fate of all the city’s smaller markets, unable to face the competition from the larger, flashier markaz and super markets in the posh areas of the city, and fading thus into obscurity. However, it does have a claim to fame unlike any other: the corner chicken shop mentioned was owned at one time by a former law minister, who, being a man of the people that he is, would, upon noticing a rush of customers in the shop, nimbly spring atop the raised cement platform that served as the worktable and seat of the master butcher, and join in the process of slaughtering chicken after chicken. His brother, once the erstwhile ex-advisor on law to an ex-PM, was a yoghurt vendor in another shop nearby.
Melody Market, close to Café Erum, was a super market in the 80s and would match the ones in sectors F-6 and F-7 (the super and Jinnah super markets). The well-known Truworth’s chemist shop and pharmacy, the first one as I recall to stock imported toiletries and cosmetics, to Lawrencepur fabrics, Dean’s bakery, John’s barber shop (the first barber shop in Islamabad), the Sardinia Café owned by Karim Bhai, Melody Cinema, Shami’s café and video and audio centre, the unforgettable British Council Library, the first Old Bookshop of Islamabad owned by Mr Siddiqui, Zenose café (the first barbeque and karahi joint of the city) and the Tanveer Optical Company, were among the prime attractions of this marketplace.
Between the Melody cinema entrance and Shami’s café, the ground was hollowed into a concrete rectangular courtyard, with concrete blocks in the middle that served as benches and with staircases for access on each side. Here couples could be seen sitting together, holding hands, eating, drinking and enjoying, undisturbed.
The British Council ensured that the marketplace would be thronged by eager young students who could be seen reading, researching or chatting in and around the market place during the day time. The library itself had much character and an affable atmosphere most conducive to academic pursuits. Its interior was always kept in pristine condition, the scent of books new and old heavy in the air and with its obligatory silence punctuated only by the steady clop clop of the librarians date stamp, issuing and receiving books from members.
With the closure of the British Council and then the American Centre Library, there is now no easily accessible library in Islamabad for the public. Today the Melody Market is in a shambles. Out of the above attractions only the Zenose café, the Sardinia Ismaili Samosa Shop and some others have weathered the test of time, with all other establishments having been sold off, burned down or scrapped depleting the marketplace of its once unique character.
In the 80s, living in a hostel for government servants in the area adjacent to the site of the Serena Hotel, I would take walks down the service road adjacent to the Ataturk avenue. Crossing the dark brick building of the MNA hostel and the first USAID headquarters, one would encounter a stone bridge over a stream in between the MNA hostel and the USAID building, under which ran the clearest of watercourses, originating somewhere in the Margalla hills and making its way across the breadth of Islamabad. It was an attraction because its banks were populated with a bale of turtles, large ones as I remember, often seen idling in groups by the water.
There were originally four or five such streams in Islamabad. Two of two these, which cut through the middle of sectors F-6 and F-7, are no more. At some point in the 80s through the wisdom of local government, the sewage problem of katchi abadis adjacent to these streams was solved by diverting it into their water, transforming them into a putrid sludge of human faeces, eventually destroying the natural habitat. In summers now, when the sun beats down upon these nullahs, a foul smelling miasma of decay permeates the air in and around them, much to the discomfort of local residents.
Fast forward to the 90s; there have been similar projects detrimental to the city’s beauty all executed in the name of development and progress that have sought to strip it of its natural greenery through deforestation and encroachment onto its green belts. The resulting roads, bridges, ever increasing residential sectors and plazas have turned what was once a quiet green city beneath the hills into a near asphalt jungle.
And the damage continues to be done with impunity: take the recent destruction of the 9th Avenue and the Jinnah Avenue for the metro-bus project which has paralysed traffic and upset life and movement between the twin cities. The outcome and utility of this mega project is moot. Take traffic as a case in point: the congestion that occurs in the mornings and afternoons during the school rush hour in Islamabad is primarily along the north-south length of the city on the Nazimuddin and Margalla Roads and the Jinnah Avenue, owing primarily to innumerable schools and offices being established in the adjoining residential sectors. Any project for public transit, like the metro-bus project, that runs an east and west course will not do anything to resolve this recurring gridlock.
With immigration from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, the population of Islamabad has burgeoned from a mere 350,000 in the early 80s to around 1.2 million in 2011. This increase has meant more demands on the civic infrastructure of the city and its economy. It is ironic that older cities like Lahore have now begun to receive the attention they deserve, with renewed investment in their physical and civic infrastructure, but Islamabad which is younger than any other major urban centre in the country, and which has the capacity to become a model city, continues to endure a state of decline. Reminiscing is great for the sake of nostalgia, but almost always is also quite painful.
The writer is a freelance columnist.
Email: kmushir@hotmail.com
Twitter: @kmushir