In our school days one of the delights was a walk on The Mall to see an odd car pass by. Cars were rare in those days. But then when the Victoria coach of Judge Sheikh Mehr Haq passed from Racecourse Road to his court, everyone would stop and look on in awe and respect.

Our family knew the judge’s family well. We children were friendly with Nikka - the ‘kochwan’, a short for ‘coach man’ who would, given a chance, give us a ride. The Victoria was one of five different horse-drawn carriages that plied on the streets. The buggy was used by officials and richer men. Everyone else used a ‘tanga’ or a ‘rehra’. There were double-decker buses, the bodies of which were manufactured on the British Bedford chassis and engine at the Ferozepur Road depot. The famed Zulfiqar Taha had created the LOS – Lahore Omnibus Service – and it was an efficient and profitable service which the military government in 1959 took a loan from and destroyed forever. Lahore has since not had public transport, a rarity – and a shame - for a city the size of Lahore.

Just how much has Lahore changed over the last 50 years? In our school days we walked or used bicycles, all of them with front lights and back reflectors and pillion riding was banned. The city actually had footpaths. My wife - a neighbour - went to college on a bicycle. In our school days, and I am talking of the late 1960s, our class was a healthy mix from spheres we cannot imagine today. We had 24 Muslims, seven Christians, a Parsi, a Hindu and, shock and awe, as I was to learn recently, a Jew.

Today such a mix would surely invite a communal mob. The ‘communal backlash’ of Partition had not yet taken hold, so we were not bothered about the beliefs of our friends, let alone details of their sects, what to speak of the complexity of their sub-sects. The personal details of friends was strictly a personal matter as it is all over the world. The ‘Inquisition’ had not yet arrived.

It often makes me think just what has gone wrong? For starters Lahore has grown too big to handle. Even a city like London with seven million inhabitants has strict limits to its growth. It has over 9,000 double-deckers buses and an amazing underground Tube train network, yet it still claims to have a transport problem. In comparison Lahore is inhabited by 14 million persons and does not have any buses like it did when we were young. So people have found a solution in the 4.3 million motorcycles they ride. With two for every household of seven, it is the world’s densest ratio - and an evil the city would be better off without.

But as the urban sprawl engulfs our ‘civic’ life, it would be of some interest, as a demonstration, to examine just how did my class of the late 1960s fare. Who was our main hero at school, as also the villain? Among our school seniors was the supreme athlete Shabbir Sharif, who won all the prizes at the annual sports day. He also stood first in class. When he passed by he was held in awe. The anti-hero was another Sharif who went around with almonds in his pocket challenging anyone to wrestle with him. In school he met a sad end when the hockey team more than roughed him up. Now that, ironically, sounds familiar.

But then let me dwell on where our class fellows are today. Of the 24 Muslims, 13 have migrated abroad. A few words about the Anglo-Indians. The D’Silyas’ and the D’Souzas were of Portuguese-South Indian origin who had moved to Punjab once the British took over in 1849. The British-origin Anglo-Indians mostly had their origins in the pre-1857 era, and they considered themselves more Anglo and less Indian. Once the Suez Canal was built marriages between Indians and the British had come to a virtual halt.

The age of discrimination had started. But they remained more Anglo and less Indian in behaviour as they inter-married among similar persons, mainly their Christian faith being the common factor. But credit to them they kept the North-Western Railways running. In Pakistan with time they became more Pakistani and less Anglo.

We had a lot of friends, neighbours and class fellows who were Anglo-Indians. What makes me sad is that all six of my Christian school class-fellows have migrated to Australia, the USA and UK. My Parsi friend moved to corporate Karachi, where he thrives in a fast dwindling community. Today Lahore has only 21 Parsis. The Hindu had a brother in a nearby missionary school, who was stabbed. Their family moved to India a few years after that incident. Amazingly the Jew, who we always thought was a Muslim with a Muslim name, stuck around, that is till their family sold their massive Queen’s Road house on the Golding Road corner and moved to Israel. I am not surprised and wish him the very best.

Now let me analyse my Muslim class fellows. Of the 24 Muslims, I have been informed by a friend that they belonged to six different sects. Gosh, is that important? My friend said: “Two sects are today known as non-Muslims, with one officially designated so”. Imagine! It was not important then, nor is it to me still. Sadly, two of my classmates committed suicide for reasons I am not aware of. As Pakistan changed probably they could not cope with the new morality where if your parents are not corrupt, they must be stupid.

A lot of my class fellows joined the Pakistan Army. Two of them retired as Lt. Generals, two ended up as Colonels, and three retired as Majors. It is surprising how religious three of the Majors became, mainly because of the Afghanistan experience. One of them recently refused to talk to me unless I grew a beard and visited his mosque. He had, as he himself claimed, spent a long period with the Mujahideen.

As I research the origins of Anglo-Indians, it seems we are not aware of the famous among them who we knew about. The singers Cliff Richard and Engelbert Humperdinck were the heroes of our youth. It now transpires they were ‘pucca’ Anglo-Indians who moved to England after 1947. Our late cricket manager Bob Woolmer was one, as was the famous American actor Cary Grant and the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. But then so is the actor Ben Kingsley of ‘Gandhi’ fame. The list is endless.

Sadly, with India also these days slowly sinking into a ‘pre-Partition’ mindset, it is a scary situation that needs to be analysed. From a tolerant multi-cultural society the sub-continent today is a ‘communal-nationalistic’ mob. Even our constitution has degenerated in that direction. The philosophy of Jinnah as clarified in his 11th of August, 1947, speech, is for many ‘silent blasphemy’. The contrast is simple. Reason and science has no place, faith dictates piety, and charlatans claim to run cars on water and energy through ‘djinn’.

It is in such trying times that one is forced to look back to our school days. To examine the larger picture, without doubt, is sensible, but is it not time that we all re-examine the journey of our ancient land by looking back at our own life journeys. Within this could lie the path to a prosperous future.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2018