The Monster riseth

VIEW: The monster riseth —Kamran Shafi

Some weeks ago I had requested the builders of the Salt Range cement plants, great big nabobs all of them to be sure, to please stop construction on their factories and gift the area they are about to violate to the people. Might one ask the powers to do likewise to the Shakarparian Monster, which should be demolished sooner rather than later, and the area converted into a wildlife park, which is what it always was

Driving along the rutted and overcrowded and badly policed and unsafe, but extremely grandly named ‘Kashmir Highway’ into Islamabad the Beautiful the other day, I finally saw it! There it was, the Shakarparian Monster, slowly raising its ugly head above the woods of the once lovely hill on and around which I used to walk years ago, taking an evening break from work at the PID.

It is a confused behemoth of a concrete structure: part fascist, part Mughal, part Gothic; “a monument to the Pakistani who has given up his today (or was it yesterday?) for a better tomorrow” or some such unintelligible tripe. God, how ugly it is! It will dominate the south/east part of Islamabad the Beautiful and will be visible from miles around whenever the noxious smog clears up enough to see more than half a kilometre, a fitting addition to Islamabad the Beautiful which has more than its fair share of ugly buildings.

I mean we do have the ugliest building in the world, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat; the second ugliest, the MNA’s Hostel; and the third ugliest, the Convention Centre, there too. As we have the Blue Area, surely the ugliest commercial area in the world. So welcome, o’ ye monstrous monster, welcome; this is where you belong.

This is early afternoon, Wednesday, and I have just been to the funeral of Mohammad Anwar, ‘Anno’, who was the gardener and then the cattle-herd at my uncle Farrukh Hyat’s across the road. Anno, and his older brother Miskeen, who passed on some years ago, were objects of the affectionate and concerned curiosity of a young child as I was when I first knew them, for they had a congenital defect in their eyelids in that they didn’t open upwards making both the brothers tilt their heads way back to look at you. They were only slightly older than I, and I remember them as the most pleasant, kindest, gentlest, meekest people around.

As we stood there, praying for Anno’s soul, myriad thoughts went racing through my head. Here we were, burying someone who never in his life hurt anyone; who never ever broke the law; who, because he had no children of his own, looked after his nephews and nieces and anyone else who needed what help the poor man could give. Yet, whenever he needed help such as medical attention; getting an electric or gas connection; anything for that matter, there was none forthcoming from the state and its venal officialdom; leaving Anno looking to his employers and neighbours and friends for help. What “stake” did poor old Anno (and countless millions like him), I thought to myself, have in the state of Pakistan; what had the government of the Citadel of Islam ever done for Anno? Precious bloody little was the immediate answer.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the Shakarparian Monster could possibly mean for the Annos of this country? Whilst our Anno was lucky to have the kind employers he had who provided for his every need, what about the others who toiled night and day just to scratch out a living for themselves? Those who live at the mercy of the louts and the Yahoos of the Qabza groups; those who tremble nightly at the very real prospect of their homes being violated by thieves and robbers; those who do not venture to go out of their homes for fear of being waylaid by highwaymen? What possible help could the Shakarparian Monster be to a poor man who cannot afford to pay doctors’ fees and medicine and hospitalisation costs for his only child?

Does it put more boiled lentils on their plates? Does it give them one more roti? Better healthcare? Better law and order? Wah thankfully has plenty of clean drinking water from its springs, but does the ugly concrete eyesore give clean drinking water to the millions of other Annos across the country? No it does not. The monument is nothing but a testimonial to the oversized egos of our leaders, no more no less.

Some weeks ago I had requested the builders of the Salt Range cement plants, great big nabobs all of them to be sure, to please stop construction on their factories and gift the area they are about to violate to the people. Might one ask the powers to do likewise to the Shakarparian Monster, which should be demolished sooner rather than later, and the area converted into a wildlife park, which is what it always was?

Of course, neither will happen. Our industrialists are too rapacious; our ‘leaders’ more so, if that is possible. More than that, the government of the Islamic Republic is arrogant, and NEVER ever wrong. How can it resile from anything it has ordained, no matter how foolish or needless or wasteful?

Which reminds me: the CDA has completed the fountain at the roundabout on the corner of F-9 park and F-10/4. Whilst it has turned out as ugly as one imagined it would, much more can be done to it to make it uglier: I suggest sky-blue and pink bathroom tiles, interspersed all over it in zigzag fashion. And coloured lights that blink, all along its edges.

Let me now thank the good person who has had the missile at the F-9 park and E-8 crossing removed. This missile, if you will recall, was “inaugurated” by a big noise in our nuclear set-up and came fitted with a red light in its bottom that flashed whenever a high personage passed along the road.

Thank you, whoever you are, and while you are at it will you please also remove the model of the Chagai mountain that glowed white when our bums were detonated in its bosom; or when it “rumbled”, according to a gushing scribe? The model makes us look like idiotic children, showing off for no reason at all and needs to be removed immediately. If the government/CDA doesn’t do anything about it, could a kindly soul who has the good name of the country close to his heart just go and burn the damned thing down? Just like somebody did in Karachi? It is highly embarrassing trying to explain the thing to visitors.

Let me end by wishing my readers a Happy New Year; and our riven country, peace and calm and unity.

Kamran Shafi is a freelance columnist. His writings can be accessed at http://www.kamranshafi.blogspot.com