SouthBound

#motorway #Pakistan #Driving #pleasure #peace #tranquility

By

Nadeem Akram

Folks it’s motorway time. Again! After an absence of nearly four months, as Willie Nelson would put it, I was back on the road again.  I must admit that I am in love with the Islamabad-Lahore motorway.  It is one place in the land of the pure where one really appreciates the true meanings of the words ‘freedom’ and ‘respect’. Every time I hit motorway, southbound in particular, I thank Allah for giving me the opportunity to get away from the confines of the modern day living and appreciate what He has so magnanimously bestowed upon us. That is the way He wanted the world to be: tranquil.

It was a beautiful sunny day when I started my southbound journey. The intent was to get away from the hustle and bustle of the modern day living and spend some quality time, as the cliché goes, with my loved ones in a peaceful hamlet; this time about one hundred kilometers from Lahore. Driving has always been my passion. It is little wonder that I cherish driving on the motorway as opposed to be driven.  I have often wondered why people would spend a fortune to acquire sophisticated pieces of machinery and then simply hand them over to their drivers. The irony is that these so called professional ‘drivers’ operating in all parts of country have an I.Q. whose parallels would only be found in the botanical forms of life, but let that be another story left for a different occasion. For now we shall motor along and enjoy the scenery that changes every few kilometers only to get better.

Little has changed, and thankfully so, since I last ventured on this road. There were a few hick ups around the salt range, but I am sure they would be fixed in no time as have been in the past.  Vigilant and ever courteous motorway police was as visible as ever. I smilingly waived at them every time I crossed a speed gun totting police officer. I had made a solemn pledge to myself that I will, for once, keep my speedometer in check.  A few bucks saved here and a few bucks saved there would come handy while distributing the ‘eidee’ on the Eid day, besides it would be a total waste if all those fresh and crisp notes are consumed on paying for a speeding ticket.  I successfully negotiated three check points, even the trickiest of them all. It is nearly impossible to maintain the prescribed speed limit of fifty kilometers per hour on the slippery slopes of the salt range, yet the motorway police, rightly so, insists that the enforcement of the speed limit is intended for the safety of the motorist rather than a ploy to collect fines.

There was hardly any traffic on the road as I gathered speed. The emptiness of the road and the pristine beauty that lay beyond the fence which protects motorway from trespassers lifted my spirits as I sat back and started to enjoy the uninterrupted flow of thoughts.  But this did not last for long.  A rather disturbing observation made me really uncomfortable.  The road leading to Bhera and beyond was full of scarlet blotches, skirted by tire marks, every few kilometers. That was a clear indication that either men or beast, maybe both, have managed to breach the fence and that part of the motorway was no longer safe to drive on, especially at night. The unsightly skid marks and blotches continued to appear on a regular basis for the next fifty odd kilometers. I guess something has changed since my last visit.

Another quite visible change was the extra-ordinary presence of the good old keekar on both sides of the motorway. One has to recall that the only deliberate plantation carried out by the National Highway Authority was primarily that of the dreaded Eucalyptus, and a few patches of sheesham here and there, but definitely not keekar. There are few patches where keekar has actually overshadowed its dastardly compatriot, the Eucalyptus. Watching all those indigenous trees swaying ever so slightly in the autumn breeze filled my heart with a sense of pride. The ‘son of the soil’, so to speak, was giving its foreign brethren a run for its money.

My state of happiness did not last very long, as is the case with most happy moments; they do not stick around for very long. What I witnessed for the next two hundred or so kilometers may be of little consequence for a casual traveler, but for a person like myself, who had been associated with motorway long before it opened its gates for all and sundry, this is definitely something to worry about. From the looks of it motorway is hemorrhaging. It is being pricked and prodded from all directions and if this continues at the present pace, it is only a matter of time when motorway will cease to exist in its present shape and form.

For instance there are three new interchanges undergoing construction within a space of 49 kilometers between Pindi Bhatain and Khan Garh. There is nothing wrong with having additional interchanges to facilitate motorist entry and exit from the motorway, however having two interchanges within a space of seven kilometers both heading towards similar direction defies logic in any language, even vernacular.  Similarly, a sloppily put together interchange at Mid Ranjha only twenty kilometers short of Pindi Bhatian and twenty two kilometers from Sial Chowk again does not make much of sense especially when another interchange leading to the same city has already been built late last year only fifteen kilometers short of Kot Momin interchange. Now I am not much of a geography wizard nor do I claim to have the rudimentary knowledge of our highway system, but as a person of reasonable intelligence, I fail to see the logic of putting up so many interchanges at the cost of millions of rupees and loss of thousand of acres of prime land simply to please a few big wigs of the land!

I wish someone up there would do a simple analysis such as ROI before undertaking such costly affairs, but then if wishes were candies and nuts, we all would have a very merry Christmas!