PART ONE

Lahore and Lahories

Why Not Change the Name of the City Itself?

I have it on the authority of the newspaper for which I write that the Lahore Municipal Corporation, which worthy body meets tomorrow, proposes to rename 34 city localities, roads, and streets.

          Among the rechristenings suggested is that the Badami Bagh Railway Station be named after Data Ganj Bakhash. Those who have seen the dirty place will take no more than half a second to agree with me that no greater insult could be hurled at the patron saint of Lahore. I am sure that if the corporation goes ahead with its ill-advised, illiterate, un-Islamic, and unpatriotic plan; then Data Sahib will withdraw his benefaction, which has helped this city survive a hundred upheavals during the last one thousand years.

          Again, it is proposed to rename Pakki Thatti as Bilal Park. Ye gods in heaven, why don't you do something about it? To name one of the grimiest localities in the world after a name with whose beautiful voice the Holy Prophet himself was in love would be an unforgivable crime. Isn't there anything in the penal and criminal codes to prevent this dastardly act, which its intending authors have had the temerity to advertise in advance?

          Qila Gujar Singh the LMC wants to call Qila Shah Faisal. I don't know what the late Saudi monarch did to deserve this. Qila Gujjar Singh is noisy, dirty, and cheap. The only way to reclaim it is to rebuild it. Another thing, in Islamabad, they named a rather important road after His (late) Imperial Majesty, the Shahanshah Aryamehr. Shahrah-i-Pehalavi they used to call it. After the Khomeini Revolution, this became a bit of an embarrassment, until quietly one morning the Islamabad is found that the road had been discreetly renamed the Shahrah-i-Iran.

          Among other roads, whose conversion to Islam is sought by the LMC is Turner Road. They want to call it Jamil Husain Rizvi Road. Birdwood Road is to be named after Abdur Rehman Chughtai. Raj Garh will be called Al-Faiz Town. Sham Nagar will become Al-Munnawar Street. Manohar Street off Nicholson Road will become Carpet Street.

          There are four Ram Galis in town. The corporation wants to rechristen them Rehman Galis. Shas Bagh Road will become Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Tarranmum Road (Try saying that in one breath.) Rakh Chandra and Kot Lakhpat will be jointly renamed Ghor Dorr Road ; because the Race Course  has been shifted to Bakh Chanura.

          Amanat Ali Khan, the man with the golden voice, used to live in Chet Ram Road. I love Amanat Ali Khan and I want that the city should honour his memory. Let us, for example, build a concert ball with proper acoustics and name it after him. But let us not desecrate his memory by renaming his old street after him. I'm sure Amanat Ali himself wouldn't have approved of the idea.

          The question is: Why does the corporation want to do all this? To please Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, whose passion for Islam is known to all? I don't think that the President will be taken in by as childish a trick as giving old streets Muslim names. What is greater service to Islam: To keep Cooper Road clean and keep it Cooper Road, or to rename it Khawaja Nazimuddin  Road and make it dirtier? What is more Islamic: To keep the street lamps burning in Ram Gali and call it Ram Gali, or to keep it in darkness and call it Rehman Gali? And why tamper with history? After all, the Pakistan Resolution was passed at the Manto Park; not Iqbal Park. But a friend insists that protest is futile. The disease is rooted in the scramble for evacuee property that took place at Partition time. If you appropriated property a hundred times more valuable than that you had left in India, you'd naturally like to forget you are living in Manohar Street.

          My friend (who's actually no one but myself) says let's not oppose the LMC in its name-changing crusade. Let's join it. Let's help it. Here, then, are some proposals: Let's rechristen the locality where the bureaucrats live, Graft Gardens or Avarice Avenue. The Deputy Commissioner's residence should simply be renamed Power House. The WAPDA House should be called House of Darkness and Drought. A certain hall in town (built in 1936) should be called Abeyance Hall. A certain place near the Shahi Masjid should be called House of Horrors. The Akbari Mandi should be called Adulteration Avenue. The City Hall should be called Windfall View, and the street where I live (with apology to other residents) should be called Silly Street . And what about the name of the city itself? Let's name it after the Mayor's godmother.

* * * * *

WE ARE in the middle of a Test match here. Won, lost, or drawn, it will be called Gavaskar's Hundredth, and thank God for Gavaskar. But do you remember Pakistan  going into a Test match with a weaker bowling line-up? Azim Hafiz and Jalaluddin for pace, Mudassar Nazar for military medium stuff, and Tauseef and Raja for spin. It appears Haseeb Ahsan and fellow-selectors had decided to play for a draw the moment they sat down to name the team for the first Test. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why Abdul Qadir was sidelined when a strike bowler was nowhere in sight. Qadir may not always be amongst the wicket takers, but he makes the opposition work and think for their runs. Raja is an occasional bowler who tends to waver in line and length after his first three overs. Azim Hafiz, for whom I have the greatest sympathy, is a great trier, but only with one good hand. He could find the going hard in a five-day match as the spearhead of an attack, which has little artillery and no air cover. It is hazardous making predictions in cricket, especially on the basis of a single day's play (I wrote these lines on Thursday morning), but I'II stick my neck out and say that with Imran, Sarfraz, and Abdul Qadir out, and with Haseeb Ahsan as chairman of the BCCP Selection Committee, this present Pakistan side could find even Sri Lanka difficult to beat, to say nothing of India.

* * * * *

"MAY I have a minute with you, Sir?" he asked. I said he could have two. He was our postman. "Will you support our fight against the new uniform they have prescribed for us? You newspapermen are very powerful. With you on our side, we could knock some sense into important heads," he said.

          Poor chap, I thought. Doesn't realise newsmen are no better than postmen these days. They deliver letters and telegrams and sometimes even money orders. We deliver statements you have already heard on TV the night before. Anyway, I let him nurse his ignorance or innocence and asked him what it was he had against the new uniform. Everything, he said. The new shalwar-kameez outfit in militia with black cap and chappals was suited neither to the weather conditions in most of the country nor to the professional duties of a postman.

          "Just imagine yourself doing a dozen miles a day on a bicycle in a baggy shalwar and having to get down every ten yards and up again."

          It could be extremely tricky, I conceded. Years ago, an extremely talented cricketer in my neighbourhood had died when his shalwar got entangled in the chain of his bicycle. He fell and broke his crown against the curb.

          The chappals make it even more dangerous. You keep loosing your grip on the pedals. "And the black cap makes us look as though we have come form the orphanage, looking for donations. Actually, a couple of my colleagues have been turned away by housewives with impatient ' muaf karos ,'" said the postman.

          "The shalwar-kameez outfit is all right for chauffeur-driven sahibs who have to do nothing but table work, have coffee and attend meetings. It is the worst dress for those who have to cycle a dozen miles a day every blessed day of their lives, come rain or thunder."

          "What do you want?" I asked.

"The old Khaki uniform. Peaked cap, shirt and trousers and shoes," he said. The postman had a point. I hope the Postmaster-General agrees.

October 20, 1984