Last year I travelled quite a bit in Pakistan,
traversing through urban centres and into the very heart of rural settlements.
The thing that struck me the most was the decay or the 'in ruin' state of any
structure I saw. Travelling from one destination to another, the landscape,
though always amazing, columns upon columns of not yet ripe but laden mango
trees in Sindh and Punjab; blind dolphins sun bathing in the river Indus;
fields upon fields of lush green or golden wheat shimmering in the sun; yet any
shop, house, hospital, Basic Health Unit, police station, flyover or anything
that was constructed that I came across was in a state of 'not yet finished' or
crumbling. Very rarely did I see anything being constructed, everything I saw
was either unfinished but in use, or in use but almost on the verge of falling
down.
On the contrary, my observation was completely
different in India, especially, Mumbai, there was construction taking place at
every corner. High rises, flyovers, roads, residential complexes, malls,
everywhere I looked there was something being built, developed. People were
busy beatifying what was already built and wherever they found space (which
wasn’t much) they were trying to fit in another structure. It presented a
contrast to what I had seen in Pakistan. Even outside Mumbai, on the small
island where there were elephanta caves or on my way to Pune through Khandala,
the situation was similar. Roadside structures, mostly shops and restaurants,
though not rich yet had a finished, lived-in and ‘planning to live here for a
very long time’ look. It had none of that temporary makeshift look I had
noticed in Pakistan on my many travels.
It is difficult to explain what I mean unless you
venture out of Islamabad and look at the countryside and see how people live
and the kind of relationship they have with their built environment. Of course
government has the main responsibility to develop its people and set guidelines
and policies for construction but I think the problem has a deeper root and
lies in the detachment that people feel owing to the deteriorating state of
affairs in Pakistan. People are losing hope and that is reflected in any
structure that they build.
The contrast brought to me what I had not been
able to name until then, it was ‘an investment in the future’ that was lacking
in Pakistan.
While in India, I came across many ‘slums’, some
of which had already been pointed out to me before my travel and were on my ‘to-do’
list but I could not find a slum where conditions seemed any worst than the Afghan
basti slum between Islamabad and
Rawalpindi which I have passed many times when going to shop at ‘Metro’, or the
stories that I have heard from our kaam
walis over the years of how after even the slightest increase in rainfall,
they have to stay awake all night to keep an eye on the rise in the little
canal of drainage water sweeping their few precious belongings and worst, their children! I feel that there
might have been a time in Pakistan when our poor fared better than the poor (or
ultra poor or ultra ultra poor) in India but that time has long gone. We are
standing on comparable footing now and slipping fast...
On a brighter note the next blog will not have
any comparisons and will only be about India!
To be continued....
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