Once upon a time...

Whenever I have a chance to walk or drive past either on the Service Road-West of Sector F-8 or on the 9th Avenue at this time of the year, I can’t help admire the beauty of nature. And it would be unfair not to appreciate at least two persons who provided the things of beauty to the inhabitants of this city that they can enjoy, probably for generations to come, and that too for free.
These rows and rows of plum and some wild peach and apricot trees in the greenbelt running between the Service Road-West of Sector F-8 and the 9th Avenue were planted by the men of the Environment Directorate led by Director-General Rashid Randhawa. Till that time, the Environment Directorate was not declared a ‘Wing’ with a full Member of the CDA Board to head it. The other person was the then chairman, Fariduddin Ahmed, a very imaginative, strict disciplinarian, and upright officer. It is almost 23 years now that he headed the civic body for a period of around two years or so and yet left his stamp engraved deeply in shape of quite a few landmarks, including the Faizabad Flyover and eliminating the most irksome paper mulberry trees.
The DG (Environment) of yesteryears, Rashid Randhawa had a very interesting approach towards his work. Once he decided to turn the median running between Islamabad Highway (at that time it has not been widened and turned into the expressway) into ‘Rose Highway’.
“We have so many varieties and colours of roses and if we develop one rose-bed at a distance of a furlong we can easily make it a spectacle. The soil is rich and a little attention will give it an entirely different look. We will have other seasonal flower plants and shade trees growing big and tall of course. But these rose-beds will give an entirely different look to the highway,” he said once while discussing the idea.
“People will destroy your efforts. Not only that the people would pluck the flowers and may even uproot these plants but these beggar children will simply turn it into a business, selling fresh roses at every intersection,” I argued.
“Don’t worry about that. We will plant in such abundance that they will never be able to finish those off. And about uprooting those rose plants, well, we will keep replacing those. And, for that matter, it would be good if a person uproots the plant to grow it at his home,” Rashid Randhawa said.
Then he decided to spread the pine trees from the couple of grooves opposite Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan to other parts of the federal capital. (Some economic wizard somewhere in time decided to rename the bank and after thorough research and lot of consultations and brainstorming sessions with intellectuals and historians turned it to be called ‘Zarai Taraqiyati Bank Limited’ A flash of pure genius!)
It was the late prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who planted the pine sapling at this place. So, the officers in the Directorate-General of the CDA, including late Rashid Khan, Mazhar Hussain, who later became Member (Environment) and Rafiq Khattak, put in their best efforts and turned the Jinnah Avenue into a pine-lined avenue.
And when Rashid Randhawa decided to grow fruit trees in the greenbelts, the same argument was presented.
“People, especially children will destroy those trees to pluck the fruits.”
“Who cares about the fruit? Those are the flowers in the spring season which will set the roads and avenues ablaze in spring. Those will be a thing of beauty and I am sure people will love the sight. Surely the children will not eat flowers. And for the fruit, well when we were children almost all of us have stolen raw fruit in our neighbourhood and nobody ever minded. It would be good to give some excitement to children that way if they feel good about it.”
“The best thing will be that these fruit trees have big crowns with dark green leaves. Those will be good to look at through the hot summer and will improve the environment at the same time,” Rashid Randhawa argued.
He was right!