I have recently met someone who spent a few years in the USA and moved back to Pakistan a couple of months before 9/11. This gentleman is very fond of pointing out how we less developed nations are different from the North American or Western European nations, normally in a bad way. I often find myself disagreeing with his pronouncements, as I feel that the comparison is not a fair one, especially as the ‘decadent westerners’ are as bad in some respects as we are in other. However, he has set me thinking into the different ways in which we Pakistanis approach certain things as compared to the aforesaid westerners.
I witnessed an excellent example of these divergent approaches this morning. On my way to work, I, for the first time in over a year, noticed that a bus lane had been drawn on the street. I am positive that this lane had not been drawn overnight; it is just that it came to my attention only today, for reasons which follow.
Rush hour traffic had started but the intensity of the traffic was not at its peak yet. That, however, did not stop the average Karachi commuter from judiciously using their horn to clear a path for themselves down the main thoroughfare. A traffic policeman (wearing a helmet even though he was on foot, for some reason) was doing his limited best to cajole, coerce and censure the motorists into come semblance of order. Then, suddenly, he dropped all else and bolted across to the left of the road and began a bizarre combination of semaphore and Sheema Kirmani at her foot-stomping best.
Sleep deprived though I was, his frantic actions did manage to penetrate the fog surrounding my brain to the point where I was impelled to turn my head in the direction where his attentions were focused in order to find out what the fuss was all about. The object of the officer’s attentions was a city Green Bus. At least, it had been green once. Now the colour on the outside was a mere shadow of its former self, much like the air conditioning and level of comfort inside. However, instead of asking the driver of the said bus to pull over so that he could extract his morning pound of flesh, the policeman was frantically waving at the bus driver to divert from his present course, and to use the bus lane instead of the main thoroughfare which he had thusfar been driving unconcernedly along.
His actions immediately reminded me of the returned native of my own recent acquaintance, and the differences between our nations and the nations of the West that is, depending on your point or view, either enlightened or decadent. Bus lanes in the West are designed to help bus commuters avoid the worst of the morning rush caused by motorists, whereas here their raison d’etre appears mostly to keep the pesky buses sequestered to a part of the road where they can be of least inconvenience to the motorist. Then again, maybe I am being gratuitously cynical. Maybe bus lanes are a pill that must be forced down the throats of commuters who use public transport, for their own good. You’ll thank me in the end, you know.
Before I could spend any more time ruminating on how the same situation can be grasped from both ends of the stick, however, my attention was further distracted by another example of the Great Pakistani Business Establishment (Creative Naming Division). The premises in question was that of the Abraham Lincoln Ayurvedic Hospital. Philistine though I am, I am pretty certain that the 16th President was never one for curing diseases though the use of secret herbs and spices, although he is said to have held a séance at the White House, if the History Channel is to be believed. Incidentally the herbmeister-in-chief at this establishment was called Ibrahim – probably the happy coincidence that prompted the unusual moniker.
I have to say that Mr. Abraham, in choosing Ayurvedic medicine as his profession, missed his true calling. Had someone spotted where his true talents lay at the appropriate age, he would surely today have been a Creative head a major advertising agency. Of course, he is advantaged by the accident of location in that the peepul tree outside his establishment not only provides shade (and countless ingredients, presumably) but also a perfect position on which the hoarding boards professing his wares can be arranged for maximum effect with the minimum of fuss.
Regardless of the positioning, though, it is the design of the boards that always bring a smile to my face. For instance, their miraculous weight loss product is advertised through a billboard which shows a thin woman, of the type that is said to reside in every fat one, stepping out of the skin of their erstwhile host by unzipping her much like a ‘fat suit’ from a bawdy Hollywood situational comedy. This is just one of many similar adverts for products as wide ranging as a bracing tonic to unleash your inner muscleman (graphically represented by a person skinnier even than I effortlessly lifting an enormous barbell) to a hair growth product (with a satisfied customer driving along in a convertible, wind sweeping his enviable locks), which are placed in pride of position on the tree and then on other parts of the sidewalk on a strict rotation basis. Of course, a perennial favourite is Ayurvedic Viagra, a bargain at Rs.10 per capsule. They (the ads, not the capsules) never fail to perk me up(!) in the morning, in preparation for the day ahead.
That morning, though, what really made my day was the sight of a couple driving to work in their Suzuki Alto. What makes it so special, I hear you ask. Well, the lady of the house was at the wheel, while the gentlemen rolled gently about in the passenger seat, snatching a few extra precious moments of sleep. I can only hope that the roles get reversed on a strict rotation basis, with both husband and wife getting equal opportunities to doze and drive.
And people still say that we are a backward, regressive nation!
I witnessed an excellent example of these divergent approaches this morning. On my way to work, I, for the first time in over a year, noticed that a bus lane had been drawn on the street. I am positive that this lane had not been drawn overnight; it is just that it came to my attention only today, for reasons which follow.
Rush hour traffic had started but the intensity of the traffic was not at its peak yet. That, however, did not stop the average Karachi commuter from judiciously using their horn to clear a path for themselves down the main thoroughfare. A traffic policeman (wearing a helmet even though he was on foot, for some reason) was doing his limited best to cajole, coerce and censure the motorists into come semblance of order. Then, suddenly, he dropped all else and bolted across to the left of the road and began a bizarre combination of semaphore and Sheema Kirmani at her foot-stomping best.
Sleep deprived though I was, his frantic actions did manage to penetrate the fog surrounding my brain to the point where I was impelled to turn my head in the direction where his attentions were focused in order to find out what the fuss was all about. The object of the officer’s attentions was a city Green Bus. At least, it had been green once. Now the colour on the outside was a mere shadow of its former self, much like the air conditioning and level of comfort inside. However, instead of asking the driver of the said bus to pull over so that he could extract his morning pound of flesh, the policeman was frantically waving at the bus driver to divert from his present course, and to use the bus lane instead of the main thoroughfare which he had thusfar been driving unconcernedly along.
His actions immediately reminded me of the returned native of my own recent acquaintance, and the differences between our nations and the nations of the West that is, depending on your point or view, either enlightened or decadent. Bus lanes in the West are designed to help bus commuters avoid the worst of the morning rush caused by motorists, whereas here their raison d’etre appears mostly to keep the pesky buses sequestered to a part of the road where they can be of least inconvenience to the motorist. Then again, maybe I am being gratuitously cynical. Maybe bus lanes are a pill that must be forced down the throats of commuters who use public transport, for their own good. You’ll thank me in the end, you know.
Before I could spend any more time ruminating on how the same situation can be grasped from both ends of the stick, however, my attention was further distracted by another example of the Great Pakistani Business Establishment (Creative Naming Division). The premises in question was that of the Abraham Lincoln Ayurvedic Hospital. Philistine though I am, I am pretty certain that the 16th President was never one for curing diseases though the use of secret herbs and spices, although he is said to have held a séance at the White House, if the History Channel is to be believed. Incidentally the herbmeister-in-chief at this establishment was called Ibrahim – probably the happy coincidence that prompted the unusual moniker.
I have to say that Mr. Abraham, in choosing Ayurvedic medicine as his profession, missed his true calling. Had someone spotted where his true talents lay at the appropriate age, he would surely today have been a Creative head a major advertising agency. Of course, he is advantaged by the accident of location in that the peepul tree outside his establishment not only provides shade (and countless ingredients, presumably) but also a perfect position on which the hoarding boards professing his wares can be arranged for maximum effect with the minimum of fuss.
Regardless of the positioning, though, it is the design of the boards that always bring a smile to my face. For instance, their miraculous weight loss product is advertised through a billboard which shows a thin woman, of the type that is said to reside in every fat one, stepping out of the skin of their erstwhile host by unzipping her much like a ‘fat suit’ from a bawdy Hollywood situational comedy. This is just one of many similar adverts for products as wide ranging as a bracing tonic to unleash your inner muscleman (graphically represented by a person skinnier even than I effortlessly lifting an enormous barbell) to a hair growth product (with a satisfied customer driving along in a convertible, wind sweeping his enviable locks), which are placed in pride of position on the tree and then on other parts of the sidewalk on a strict rotation basis. Of course, a perennial favourite is Ayurvedic Viagra, a bargain at Rs.10 per capsule. They (the ads, not the capsules) never fail to perk me up(!) in the morning, in preparation for the day ahead.
That morning, though, what really made my day was the sight of a couple driving to work in their Suzuki Alto. What makes it so special, I hear you ask. Well, the lady of the house was at the wheel, while the gentlemen rolled gently about in the passenger seat, snatching a few extra precious moments of sleep. I can only hope that the roles get reversed on a strict rotation basis, with both husband and wife getting equal opportunities to doze and drive.
And people still say that we are a backward, regressive nation!
Originally published in The Friday Times, circa 2006
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