Hardly anyone would disagree with the fact that driving in Lahore is nothing less than a nightmare. You have to be alert and even a second’s loss of concentration can land you in trouble. Hours-long traffic jams are a routine for commuters who get suspicious when they don’t find any on roads on unusual days.

TNS has carried stories on city’s traffic mess regularly and tried to identify the problems. This week it talked to different people and sought suggestions on how to improve the situation which follow:

Asif Zafar Cheema, SP Traffic, Sadar Divison, Lahore believes the ever-increasing volume of traffic on roads, lack of parking lots and encroachments are the main causes of traffic jams in Lahore. He says every other day a new market or school appears on a main busy road and adds to the traffic woes of the city. The builders hardly provide sufficient parking space to the visitors who have to park their vehicle on the roadside.

Cheema calls for building of multi-storey parking plazas in the city or allocation of empty chunks of lands as parking slots. Similarly, he suggests there should be restriction on opening of schools in residential properties situated along main roads. He thinks it’s hard to avoid traffic jams in the presence of encroachments and suggests these should be removed without discrimination. Once they are removed, the roads will become wider and there would be ample space for the vehicular traffic to ply on.

The SP says construction of underpasses, flyovers, bypasses and ring roads ease the flow of traffic but this solution costs the state a lot. The government must set up this infrastructure but at the same time focus on the education of commuters and the need to bring an attitudinal change in their behaviours.

He tells TNS that Lahore Traffic Police has a special cell that performs this task. It has launched a website rasta.pk and runs an FM Radio called Rasta FM 88.8 both of which guide commuters about traffic situation in the city in real time. I think commuters can come to know from these services about the roads that are choked due to any reason and take alternative routes.

Another suggestion he gives is about enactment of new laws and traffic rules. The existing rules were drafted back in the 60s and many of them are outdated. For example, he says there was no concept of one-wheeling in those times, hence there is no prescribed fine and punishment for this violation. Last but not the least, there should be strict enforcement of traffic laws and improvement in working condition of traffic police, so that they proceed against all violators irrespective of their financial and social status.

Dr Syed Shabihul Hasan Zaidi, Chairman, Faculty of City and Regional Town Planning, University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore thinks the bottlenecks in the city should be removed without delay. For example, he says the canal road has become too congested and its design is such that it becomes a four-lane road at some places and two-lane at others. This results in choking of traffic at multiple spots along this road.

Zaidi says the canal widening project should have been started long time ago but couldn’t due to a movement launched by environmentalists. He says he respects their opinion but would like to bring it to their notice that the loss to environment by traffic jams is much larger than that caused by cutting of trees. Road widening projects are carried out all over the world and some space is intentionally left next to these roads for widening purposes in times to follow.

The faculty chairman suggests the government to fulfil its plan to introduce efficient public transport in the city. He laments Lahore has always been devoid of this facility due to which the number of vehicles in the city is growing at the rate of 12 per cent as compared to the population growth rate of 12 per cent. Though the increase can also be attributed to the availability of car loans and economic growth of city, the major cause of this disparity is the non-existence of public transport system.

He tells TNS many transport companies were awarded route permits on the term that they will bring a particular number of buses on routes. Unfortunately, they have not been able to run one-tenth of the number they committed, he says adding the government should cancel their route permits forthwith for failing to honour their commitments.

Zaidi is also uncomfortable with the sight of repair work going on roads and traffic plying side by side. The commuters should be informed about the ongoing work well in advance and suggested to take a de tour, he says adding, "what happens here is that people come to know about craters on roads when they are right in front of them. They can neither cross over them nor take a U turn."

Hafiz Shahid Advocate, who deals with traffic violation cases, suggests the traffic wardens should be barred from standing away from important junctions and intersections, especially where traffic signals are not working. He tells TNS what happens is that traffic wardens stand in groups of five to ten officials at a safe distance from the signal and stop every other commuter traveling in the slowest lane. They are given verbal targets of traffic challans and they are only interested in meeting these targets, he adds.

Shahid suggests traffic police to focus on controlling vehicular traffic and devise a way to send tickets to them via mail. A vehicle should be followed and stopped only in case of a serious violation. What happens here is that they stop each and every motorcycle and don’t dare to check luxury cars, he adds.

Shahid says it’s strange that traffic police does not stop unfit vehicles like those emitting smoke or the ones altered against rules like in the case of motorbikes converted into rickshaws. The Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1965 disallows this practice but nobody cares, he adds.

Ahmed Rafay Alam, an environmentalist with interest in urban planning, says the mess cannot be cleared without bringing the number of cars down. He says so far Rs 7 billion have been spent on the canal road but jams are still there. This means investment in infrastructure is not the only solution. He laments the Punjab government failed to bring the promised 1500 CNG buses on roads. A few dozen which are there do not have enough strength to cross over a flyover bridge, he adds.

Rafay says the desire of Lahore’s elite to live in bungalows and sprawled housing societies has led to unnecessary expansion of the city. When city expands like this the need of transport rises, he says adding, "We must revert to the style of living our forefathers were used to."

He cites the example of Walled City which is a high density area and says such localities are highly pedestrian-friendly.

These days we all find ourselves standing in front of the mirror asking us certain questions, the favourite one being "mirror, mirror on the wall who is the prettiest of us all" and guess what.. The answer that follows is still the same banal one. We still think that we as the human race are the finest of the entire God’s creation. We are so very used to living in delusions about our own eminence and grandeur that we can hardly ever relate to our devolution, both social and moral, as mankind. We are accustomed to entertain such a lop-sided appraisal of ourselves as humans that every time we carry out odious acts we always know where to place the blame. Sometimes it is on the shoulders of religion, at others on liberalist theories; little have we ever understood that we as humans have such a grave potential to wrong our own kind.

Every genus grows and evolves to its full potential in terms of biological and psycho-social possibilities but no other specie is endowed with such latitude to evolve and such leeway to metamorphose, as is human kind. Man is essentially and inherently designed to function as a very rudimentary primordial being at one time and a very complex and urbane at others. This is his innate faculty to explore either facets of his life form and is free to choose to relate to any and operate as such. He can either opt to serve his animalistic instincts or aim for angelic transcendence. But the retrospective analysis of so many eons down the timeline of human civilisation tells of a different tale. Little ever did man endeavour to achieve transcendence of his finer ethereal self. He has always been a corporeal enthusiast. Anything beyond this physical existence has never really enamoured the basic human.

Leave aside a rather humble number of individuals who are considered as archetypes par excellence who are to be admired at a distance and not to be followed. Man has always submitted in favour of worldly charms and ventured hard to make worthwhile gains henceforth. The history of mankind is replete with such examples. Whichever civilisation got mightier it had its share of unspeakable crimes to its credit. Every brutal civilisation devoured the docile one, as in the survival of the fittest.

If we closely follow the most gruesome atrocities committed anywhere at any time it’s not really hard to construe that all reasons behind these macabre acts were rather excuses and not reasons. Reasons which served no motive beyond the satisfaction of demonic instincts their doers possessed. The instincts to subjugate the lowly populace, the instincts to terrorise the weaklings, the instincts to dominate and control and to sum it up the instinct to become God-like have all made people to fall prey to the enticement and duplicity of self-glorification.

But that was past. Had the situation been only as intense as is insinuated here, it could still amount to just the lop sides of the phenomenon of evolution. On the contrary the type of brutality that we bear witness to, for quite some time now in the near past and present, comment on the social and moral de-evolution of mankind, on the individual and collective levels alike. May they be the perfectly cultured and civilised races of modern world or the barely alive citizens of the third world, we have all stooped to the lowest possible levels of morality and plunged into the abyss of sheer darkness woven in our beings.

May it be the example of prison cells of Guantanamo bay or the grim dungeons of Iraq, and may it be the example of Afghan war lords amusing themselves with the dance of corpses of their own brethren or the self-righteous, self-proclaimed jihadis lynching the infidels and sinners to claim their well-earned well-deserved thrones at heavens; the heroic chronicles of these sanctimonious, priggish demigods resonate with the ferocity bequeathed to them by the legacies left by no less than Pharaohs and Assyrian kings themselves.

We would stand very erroneous here if we had believed that such tendency of inflicting malicious judgments followed by vicious verdicts is restricted to the high-ups alone. Sadly enough each one of us has managed to become a judge unto himself. We act as judges in our everyday relationships with our kinfolks, our friends, our colleagues, our neighbours, our servants and most annoyingly we do not even refrain from judging the ones we have never really known. We harbour a ruthlessly strong propensity to exercise dominion over any other coming from a rather lowly social class.

Misuse and abuse of our social positions to cause harm to others and rob them of their rights and honour being the concealed, stealthy yet the grossest of all the acts of brutality have hardly ever been dealt with as crimes reprehensible.

We have succumbed to such moral destitution and penury not only do we know how to be callous to the other, we also know how to add injury to the insult and how to strip someone of his very self respect. We have also learnt so well how to shun down the alarms of conscience making them false alarms. We love playing gods to the mere mortals. Little do we realise however that by so doing we actually join hands with our demonic selves and drift far, far away from the glorious goal of the realisation of our spiritual edification. So much for the zenith of humanity down the millions of years of growth and evolution.

* Exhibition titled Slice at Zahoor-ul-Akhlaq Gallery till Sep 22. Slice is an international project that presents twenty new artworks created in collaboration with UK and Pakistan-based artists.

* Tri-annual Young Artists Exhibition

at Nairang Art Gallery till Sep 22.

* There is weekly reading

by the Feminist Study Circle at Cafe Bol on

Sundays at 8:00 pm.

* 2nd Pentales event at Cafe Bol

on Tue, Sept 20 at 6:30 pm.

* Reading & Living Values for children at The Knowledge Factory (TKF) at 91 (Basement), T Block, Phase II, D.H.A on Sat, Sep 24 at 11:00 pm.

* Weekend Cycle Ride to start today at 5:00pm from Zakir Tikka Restaurant, Sarwar Road, Lahore Cantt.

B Theatre Productions presented ‘The Odd Couple’ in Alhamra , Mall Road, from September 7-10. The play is written by the Tony award-winning playwright Neil Simon and directed by Awais Azhar. It revolves around two newly divorced middle aged roommates.

Oscar Madison is lethargic and indolent and the other, Felix Ungar, is a neat freak bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder. Both are struggling with a recent divorce. Oscar is flirting and dating already, is more relaxed and playful about life partly because he is also indifferent to his family. However, Felix is perturbed; the divorce was unwanted on his part and is still not finalised. He is more sensitive, depressed and unstable. This difference in nature and situation causes conflicts between the two. The original play is a comment on the US family set-up in the 60s when the sexual revolution and its concomitant "summers of lover" were in the air.

The theater team was youthful the director from National College of Arts. It was amusing to see young actors playing poker, apparently still teenagers, discussing their marriages. The youngsters brought to it a new vivacity and spontaneity; they carried out the comedy of errors fluidly with natural comic timing. The two main lead actors, Sanwal Tariq as Oscar and Waleed Zaidi as Felix appeared very embedded in their characters.

Oscar and Felix, have a double date, which becomes a comedy circus in itself, because a friend of the girls and a friend of the guys crash the date one by one. Anam Ahmed and Mahnoor Khan appeared as the Pigeon sisters. Their role is rather stereotypical, since the plot is very male-centric. Two very candid, funny but small characters were Melanie (Lamia Samdani) who crashes the date as the desperate seductress and Vinnie (Sachal Tehseen) a frail and slightly vulnerable poker player who becomes the brunt of many macho jokes at the poker table. The cast further included Umar Butt (Roy), Omair Nazir (Murray) and Huzefa Akbar (Speed). All these were the poker friends who added a lot of slap-stick humour to the play. However, the American accent needed more rehearsing and polish.

The whole play is enacted in a living room with a poker table, a couch, a window, a bathroom door, a closet door and an entrance. The set reflected the boisterous and sloppy appearance an all-boys apartment is likely to have. While the set-up was of course guided by the original script, the props used could have been improved. The delivery improvisation on stage was commendable except some minor flaws, like a few characters occasionally showing their backs to the audience.

The time-period depicted through the attire and props was confusing. It could be anytime between the 60s to 80s. It wasn’t clear through the sets and maybe a budget shortage has a role in this. But the time period was not very significant to the underlying plot anyway. Nonetheless since there were some attempts to "date" the play by deliberately using an old radio and other props it could have been better if the time period was more clear.

There was no tickets to be bought. Entry passes were available earlier free of cost, thanks to a sponsor. But just before the play the sponsor, a pharmaceutical company gave a presentation. This made the crowd jeer, rather unsportingly, but then this also led to the presentation being winded up quickly. The hall was full, with around two to three hundred people, mostly teenagers but some families also. One often heard a chortle, giggle or chuckle in the audience, besides the many outbursts of hysterical laughter.

Over-all, this adaption of the script probably held its own and was rather well-crafted and well-received against its more "professional" adaptions. Such corporate sponsored private productions and more young theater groups may be the hitherto missing key to successfully resuscitate the endangered passion for theater amongst an increasing number of urban Pakistanis.

The man whose gates opened to people at 7 in the morning and who would be there on his seat to receive them by 7:30 am throughout the week, be it Sunday or Ramazan, is no more there. Homeopath Dr Abdus Salam Sheikh met his creator during Eid holidays. The city has a number of doctors but he stood out among them in many ways.

He gave 20 days medicines for Rs100 only which means one day medicine for Rs5 only. Where in the world would you get this for. He was doing a service to humanity. People would visit him from distant districts of Punjab and his medicines reached to all parts of Pakistan. A colleague would take medicines for his relatives in Bahawalpur from Dr Salam by citing the symptoms.

Since homeopathy treats ailments through symptoms, the more accurately you state the symptoms the more chances you have of getting the right medicines. Doctor Sahab seemed to hold magic for his patients. The rush at his clinic increased with every passing day.

Every time I went to him to get medicines for myself or my children I observed certain things which were peculiar to him. He would greet people with great warmth most of the time and would talk to them as if they were his own family. After listening to his patients, he would many a times open a book lying by his right side on the table and while he did so he would say, "Ya meray piaray Rab". What he said after that would be in his heart and we did not hear that. Once I asked what was that and he said he always invoked God’s help before prescribing a medicine. It is He who cures people, he said.

Dr Abdus Salam would take only one off day in a month — the first Saturday of every month. He used to receive patients from 7:30 to 10:30 in the morning daily after which he would leave for a college in Garhi Shahu where he taught. At 3:00 pm he would again be there on his seat in his clinic to see patients. In the first hour he checked patients who came without appointment. At 4:00pm came the turn of people with prior appointment. He would see patients till 9:30 at night and would leave his seat only for few minutes to offer prayers. His clinic would always be filled with people who came there not just from the city but from different parts of the province. He saw patients till the day before Eid.

I went to his clinic a week after his death and was shocked like others who had come there to know Doctor Sahab had left this world. I first went to him more than 13 years back. I had a skin infection for which I had taken allopathic medicines and which was then a month old without cure. I was told by the first doctor that the healing would take a year, that I would have to apply a solution on my whole body twice a day for a year. It seemed impossible. I had little twins who were barely five months old. When I went to Dr Salam he gave me medicines and told me the infection would go for ever in six to eight weeks and in six week’s time I was absolutely fine again with no trace of any ailment. It never recurred till this day. I had great faith in Dr Salam. Later when my twins took to eating soil they were rid of the habit by his medicines. He was a benefactor of countless people.

Humility is what defined him. He would be called by people to give bath to the dead which he would never refuse. There were some who left his clinic with money instead of paying the doctor. A very God fearing man he was.

He had worked for ten years in Australia, had his education from various countries and was a store house of knowledge. There are two doctors among his sons that I know of. The case studies with him which are in huge number are most valuable and need to be recorded and preserved for the benefit of the future practitioners and students of homeopathy. I wish there was a library where people like me could read cases of successful cures and could benefit from them. Just to mention one, many people who came to his clinic when I first went there knew of one Qazi Sahab’s case whose both kidneys had failed 100 percent according to allopathy and whose both kidneys started working 100 percent after taking Dr Abdus Salam’s medicines.

Dr. Abdus Salam Sheikh was not just a very capable and a great homeopath, he was the most kind and humane person one could come across. His clinic is presently being run by his students who assisted him. One of his sons is most likely to take his seat though in near future, I learnt from his staff.

In a bid to curb dengue in Lahore, the Punjab government on September 13 announced the closure of all education institutions including private schools and colleges in Lahore for 10 days. Unlike all other vacations, these seem to be coming tough on both children and parents alike.

"I used to take my children to park and to swimming pool at evening during summer vacations. They expect me to keep the routine. I try to explain to them that it is impossible because of dengue as the Health department has issued warning to people to stay indoors from 5 to 9 in the morning and from 6 to 9:30 in the evening. But they hardly understand me and we are having huge problem everyday at home," says Muhammad Imran, 39, father of three school going sons aged between 8 and 13 years. He lives in Shadman, Lahore only two kilometers away from Jillani Park.

His house also has a medium sized courtyard and he tries to make sure children stay inside their rooms morning and evening. "They get up early in the morning and want to play in the courtyard. It is a gigantic task to keep them in the rooms. My wife and I always keep watch on them. It makes them frustrated and finally they start fighting with each other." Imran has to focus on other but more costly ways of outdoor entertainment like going to cinemas or dining out in expensive restaurants to pacify his children.

With fast spread of dengue fever in the city, almost all parks and gardens are fast losing its number of visitors. According to Lahore district administration over the last two weeks, the parks of ‘City of Gardens’ has lost almost 60 percent of its usual visitors. The park-goers have ceased to visit parks and gardens. Despite tall claims of Punjab government, to work in cooperation with the health department PHA, Wasa, CDGL, LDA and other authorities of city and claiming spraying and fogging to curb the spread of dengue in parks and open spaces, the terror of dengue has only gained momentum. Vacant parks speak volumes.

Shakir Ali, 40, resident of Muhammad Nagar Lahore who is a regular visitor to Jinnah Park at The Mall tells TNS that it is the first time in his life that he has left going to park because of some threats. "Dengue has forced me to change my lifestyle. I used to go to the park morning and evening to freshen up and recharge myself a practice I started as a school going child 25 years back with my father. Now my children don’t allow me to go there. Jogging gives me pleasure and provides opportunity to meet new people but dengue has snatched this freedom. I hope it will be controlled soon and I will resume my jogging again," he says.

There are more than 3000 parks and gardens in Lahore. "Dengue’s active time is morning and evening and parks used to be crowded in these hours. Now there are less people but its not that parks are wearing a deserted look. There are people who still visit parks", PHA additional director general Captain (retired) Usman Younus tells TNS. "We have been fumigating parks and open spaces everyday to make sure that dengue does not become a threat to park visitors," he says.

A senior official in Lahore tells TNS that hat massive fumigation and chemical spray to hold dengue in check is misdirected and unplanned. "Today the Sri Lankan team of dengue experts has taken water samples from Jillani Park and the canal and they have found larvae of dengue mosquito in these samples. I think it will be good for people to stay away from parks and gardens at least for a couple of weeks," he says.

Despite the fact that dengue breeds on clean water, golf courses, parks and other open spaces, they are watered regularly. "Water ponds and artificial lakes in parks and gardens and golf clubs are not drained out. They become dengue breeding grounds. All the departments are focusing on different localities, streets and households and ignore open places and parks," he says.

Ahan, Aik Hunar Aik Nagar, is an initiative of the Federal government and is aimed toward working with rural artisans from all over the country. It helps artisans develop value-added products such as jewellery, ceramics, textile, home accessories and other such products.

Ahan is opening its first flagship outlet at Xinhua Mall, Lahore on Tuesday, September 20. This outlet will be the first time Ahan will be directly dealing with customers.

Rizwan Beyg, one of the designers who has worked closely with Ahan, says; "Ahan has been at the forefront of social development for many years and it gives me great pleasure to see a dream materialise into reality. The opening of the first retail store will go a long way to promoting the wonderful craft Pakistan’s rural sector has to offer."