Upstarts
10 December 2013
Most of what we Pakistanis do screams to the world that we are upstarts. Consider: several years ago a friend while picking his son from school was introduced to the father of the boy’s classmate. On discovering that the two families lived very near each other, my friend suggested to the father that they form a car pool for the boys’ trip to school and back. The man said, ‘Why do you imagine that I cannot afford for my son to be sent to school in his own car?’
The Punjabi words: ‘Meray puttar nu gadiyan da ghata a?’ This showed not just the upstart mentality but an utterly uncultured ignorance of the need to conserve fuel not just for one’s own economy but for the environment. No surprise then that in any given school, every child, other than siblings, arrives in his/her own car clogging streets for upward of an hour morning and afternoon. Fuel burns, horns honk and tempers fray. But not one parent will consider suggesting the establishment of a car pool or school bus for fear of being taken to be unprosperous.
It is this same crass social backwardness that a person of any means feels ashamed of riding a bus or cycling to work. In 1998, a US Consulate official (a Pakistani) phoned to inform me of the chance of a freebie to USA and asked me to see him immediately. I made the fatal mistake of cycling to the Queens Road place. It being August, my shirt was wet with perspiration when I walked into the man’s office. Hearing that I had cycled, the man asked if I didn’t have a car. I lied that I did not and from his look of disdain I immediately knew I was not getting the freebie.
On a rare occasion that I was recognised, I was in a city bus in Lahore. The man’s shocked reaction, ‘Sir, you in a bus?’ I spent the next fifteen minutes I tried to convince him, one, that I was not rich and, two, that people of means happily ride buses all over the world – even in India. But no self-respecting Pakistani who can afford (or ill-afford) a car will ever be found cycling or commuting by bus.
Our ancestors from the great cities of the Indus Civilisation were smart. They lived in houses made from baked bricks and they paved their courtyards, streets and alleys with the same bricks. Clay bricks, fired in ovens have a thing about them: the slightest sprinkling of water immediately cools them even after the hottest summer afternoon thereby bringing the ambient temperature down.
Today there is not even a three-marla house that does not have marble facing and the ‘drive’ not paved either with synthetic tiles or marble. Chilled in winters, these two paving materials do not lose temperature when doused with water. Since we now live in tiny cheek by jowl blockhouses, these paving materials make a not insignificant contribution in raising the ambient temperature of our cities.
But we are a people who will scoff the notion of using bricks on the drive. Why, everyone will think us poor that we could not afford synthetic tiles or, better yet, marble. And so, mindlessly the entire nation stands enamoured of these materials that either make us uncomfortable or raise our cooling bills. (My drive is brick-paved.)
Conservation of natural gas was our last priority in the past. If we try to save it now, it is only because of its high price. I know families who kept a flame burning low in the kitchen throughout the day in order to conserve on matches! That was until about 25 years ago when gas was foolishly under-priced. Thankfully, this practice seems to have been killed by rising gas prices.
Tell anyone to save water and you’ll get a patent, ‘Water is god’s gift to humankind, how can it ever run out?’ I have heard this more times than I care to remember. If you see fools washing their driveways and even the section of tarmac road outside their homes, it is useless to attempt putting any sense in their heads. For them water is an infinite resource gifted by divinity.
And perish the thought of getting car owners or drivers to use a bucket rather than the garden hose to clean the car. Talk to an illiterate driver or an engineer/doctor/business manager owner about the wasteful misuse of water and you will see a glazed look in their eyes.
My house cannot be seen from outside because of the vegetation all around. There are four large trees and creepers everywhere around the house. The result is a house so cool in summers that first time visitors never fail to ask where we have installed our air cooler. But when I suggest a similar practice to others, the response, if I get one instead of the glazed look, is: ‘We spend so much money on building our house and you want it to be hidden for others not to see it?’
The fundamental problem with Pakistanis is the exhibitionist syndrome: we need to show off our affluence. The irony is we show off even when we are not affluent. Marble driveways, individual cars, avoiding buses and bicycles are some of our ways of exhibiting our riches. This is an attitudinal disease. Secondly, the ignorant among us are also apparently brain dead – and this is the vast majority.
Speak a word of sense to a stranger and you will receive a response that will be a masterpiece of illogic and stupidity. Pakistanis simply do not wish to be shown any light whatsoever. And let no man contest this statement with me for I have tried it on dozens of people, both acquaintances and strangers.
There was something called Public Service Obligation that state-owned PTV once honoured by showing public service messages. But this fell by the wayside when TV channels sprouted like vermin in Return of the Mummy. Without sense being drilled into us several times a day every day, I see no hope of any change in attitudes and our wayward lifestyle that squanders our natural resources, makes for an uncomfortable living and also puts us under economic pressure.
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
8 Comments:
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At 10 December 2013 at 17:48,
Unknown said...
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To add to this already very long list is the unfortunate observation that it will go on as we are ensuring the continuity of all that by encouraging our children to do the same.
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At 10 December 2013 at 18:25,
Salman Rashid said...
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Sad and so true. there seems to be no light in sight.
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At 10 December 2013 at 18:47,
said...
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Thanks for bringing this up. May be that is what needs to be done. And that is the light. Image when no one will care...
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At 10 December 2013 at 18:58,
Salman Rashid said...
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I write and wait to see the earth shake. So far it hasn't!
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At 10 December 2013 at 19:00,
Saima Ashraf said...
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Displaying what we are actually not is our collective virus that leaves the body of truth sick and finally dead. We show what we not, we say what we don't do just to impress others....how 'small' of human beings!
What if I say I am a paindu? Some people will laugh at me, some will undermine my characters/features but if I stay on my own feet and words, they will admit the reality. But we don't act like this. We become 'others' that is they are allowed to live our life. -
At 10 December 2013 at 20:54,
Salman Rashid said...
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Saima, all this stems from our lack of pride in what/who we are. We all have false identities.
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At 11 December 2013 at 02:03,
said...
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All of this is so true but still we should never give up and think of different ways to address the issues at hand. The media can play a big role in conveying the message, for one.
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At 11 December 2013 at 08:48,
Salman Rashid said...
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Anonymous, there is not a single TV channel that recognises its Pubic Service Obligation. Now it is a cut-throat world of ratings where idiots bark and snap at each other like dogs. Expect nothing from the media.
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