THE third metro bus service in Punjab has just kicked off and the ‘famous’ story has just been told for the third consecutive time.

It is said that a group of prominent local figures went to meet a most important man in power about his plans to introduce a red bus system in the city. They were trying to convince him not to go ahead with it when the time for prayers approached. A bit annoyed by the antics of his pestering guests, the important man advised them that they should pray for his removal from the scene, for as long as he was around the project would be moving nowhere but towards its completion.

The’ incident’ was reported in detail when they were putting together this red bus in Rawalpindi and Islamabad — accompanied by emphatic words as the narrator swore by the accuracy of his information. And if memory serves one right, something similar did the rounds in Lahore at the time when the metro bus service was being bestowed on the city with fanfare befitting a pioneering effort.

Multan is still too dazed to comment on all the aspects of the new invention.

It is a handy story because it best describes the inevitability of the red metro bus entering your midst once those who had the powers had deemed it necessary for growth. There was little room for debate after the mind had been made up. The public appreciation that justified the bus, the whining by the elite who travel in their own transport, the pointless criticism by the opposition parties, all of this came afterwards.

The bottom line is that they wanted Multan to have it and while there may have been some delay in the execution of the idea, which has been blamed on a dharna in distant Islamabad, it was only a matter of time. The once sleepy southern town was destined to join the illustrious club of Punjab cities which enjoy this trademark Shahbaz Sharif privilege.

Multan, it appears, is still too dazed to comment on all the aspects of the new invention. There are a few objections still in the air, most of them a repeat of the old criticism.

There is the obvious issue of priorities. For instance, the conditions of hospitals in and around Multan have once again been discussed in an effort to highlight the preferences of the rulers. This is the kind of debate which does keep the groups of concerned citizens occupied in a healthy exercise — without ever threatening to bring about the slightest change on the part of the government.

What clinches the argument is whether or not a reasonable number of people are benefiting from the scheme. It may be an expensive project, at Rs28.88 billion. At Rs20 a trip, it is no doubt a hugely subsidised service anchored by the handful of taxpayers of this country. But it does cater to a sizeable number of travellers-people-voters. Close to 100,000 commuters will be able to use it daily which is a huge number even when estimates say Multan has quietly grown into a city of four million souls.

For purely the sake of debate there could be a discussion on whether there was a lack of effort to find a route which could have benefited a larger number of people in the city. There seemed to be much weight in the suggestion that the money could have been better spent on connecting through the metro bus public places such as hospitals and courts.

Maybe that will be achieved in the later phases but the first and original route inaugurated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday has Bahauddin Zakariya University and little else to show in the column of prime destinations that justify big fancy transport schemes. Indeed, it could in time turn out to be the preferred mode of travel by students. For the moment, however, it is not difficult to find thankless Multanis claiming that, the subsidy and the low fare offered by the metro bus notwithstanding, travelling by the university bus is much cheaper.

But then, these are debates not too relevant to the modern realities that have descended on Multan. Not only has the first phase of the bus service been accomplished, the second phase has been announced with an aim to complete it before the general election scheduled next year. This promises to take the initiative deeper into the city’s heart and into its narrow lanes and congested localities. There is going to be some destruction as Multan strives to shrug off its old, historic tag and braces to travel into a modern wonderland.

Maybe, there will be a few pangs felt at the loss of heritage. Some of the recent things will also be cancelled or severely tampered with but with the same sense of inevitability that has characterised Multan’s journey to the bus and, before this, the projects in Rawalpindi and Lahore. For example, the legacy of bridges and roads that Yousuf Raza Gilani left behind will be drastically reduced and allowed to exist only on the margins like their maker.

But to borrow a thought from a journalist colleague in Multan who has already been taken on a ride on the bus, the feel of modernity has its own thrills and justifications for the ‘small-town’ man who lives in awe of the big world out there. It does give you a kind of a high to be sitting in this bus and “watching all these houses beneath you” — and, in an age where all cities follow the same model, to be told that this happens to be the longest elevated stretch for a metro bus in the country.

Folks in Multan are always keen on letting us Lahoris know about the volume of development there: how they have been blessed with such and such chain only bigger in size. With that in mind, the elevation will place Multan not just at par with, but above and ahead of Lahore and Pindi. We must all learn to appreciate these extra little benefits to go with what had been long written in our fate. To wish otherwise would be to pray for disaster.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2017