It’s not about new vistas or anything grand. It’s about things mundane, rather boring which we see repeated ad nauseam in our social life. They are now so common that they are no longer noticeable. Thus they are quietly tolerated. Raising tolerance level for things and practices which are otherwise unacceptable has been part of human survival strategy.

Our species’ defining quality is adoptability that has paradoxical nature; it embodies simultaneously the best and the worst features. The best has enabled us to adopt to our changing conditions, natural and man-made, in our long journey of evolution and has ensured our survival. But at the same time the best is the worst as it has forced us to live with things and in conditions which negate what makes us human.

Humans acquiesce to accept what would dehumanise them provided there is a chance to exist and it proves the bane of their life as it disregards how mean and miserable such an existence could be.

Does one need to remind how Egyptian slaves groaned under their blocks of stone? Have Jews forgotten how dehumanised was their existence under Pharaoh’s royal whip or how they were uprooted and transported like animals to the alien land of Babylon? Have we forgotten how Sanatan Dharama of India created caste system in which even a shadow of an untouchable could pollute members of priestly class and upper castes? Can we ignore how Arabs and Europeans abducted African men and women and sold them all over the world?

The simple point is that humans choose to live even when the worst comes to worst. Instinctive hunger for life trumps human desire for dignity and freedom. To borrow words from Marx, the human history has not yet begun because we are being ruled by instinct that we share with animals; to survive at any cost.

Secondly, when humans live in inhuman conditions for long, they tend to lose the notion of an alternative or the concept of humanised living. This is the kind of situation we are forced to experience day in and day out in Lahore, our metropolis, much praised in history -- from poet Mas’ud Sad Salman to Queen Noor Jahan to Levi Strauss. The people here have developed dirty – in its widest meanings - habits and practices which have become part of our metropolitan culture. Take traffic which is bane of urban life. It’s free for all. Motorcyclists fearlessly jump traffic lights putting their own and others’ lives in danger. If you confront them you would be shouted down. If such a violator is stopped by traffic policeman, he would abjectly plead with the sergeant to let him go because he is a poor man. The sergeant wouldn’t let him off the hook unless his palm is greased. That’s a glimpse of new culture you would see on the roadside.

The man behaves like a predator and a moment later like a sheep. Here is another glimpse. Ahead of you on the road is a SUV worth 20 to 30 million. Suddenly you will see a hand out of window throwing a polythene bag full remains of fruits or used cans of carbonated water smack on the road. If you dare to stop the driver, he would use his choicest expletives for you and if you persist, his guards would shoo you brandishing their guns. Don’t crib about your metropolitan corporation and the rules. Thank your stars you are still in one piece.

Yet another glimpse! You are about to come out of your bank. You see a woman about to come in. You open the door for her. She enters without saying simple thank you. She doesn’t even look at you. You feel as if you have done something indecent. Another scene! It’s evening in a middle class neighbourhood. Eateries line up the road. You feel pungent smell of chilies and spices. The wafts of coal-burnt meat swirl around you and smoke hangs in the thick air. In the open air there are rows and rows of guests gossiping and talking loudly. They are all men. Nothing but men. There is not even a single woman among them. It reflects new male culture.

The city landscape has drastically changed; Cinema houses have been converted into gaudy shopping plazas. The public libraries, which were already a few in number, have been replaced by medical stores from where you can buy any medicine, literally any medicine, without prescription. A few pavements constructed decades back have been made parking lots forcing vehicles to move in a single file at a snail pace. So this is the new culture of Lahore which is less than a culture and more than chaos.

Lahoris, I mean the old Lahoris, are not to blame. They are peaceful, fun-loving and hospitable lot proud of their long urban history. A cultural free-for-all has become a norm. Such a scene of my way or the highway is largely created by new money and the outsiders, the new settlers, coming from the countryside and towns. They have to make a show to be noticed. Lahore faces somewhat similar problem Karachi, our biggest metropolis, has been grappling with for the last five decades. The most cosmopolitan city has to deal with people thronging it from the tribal areas and the boondocks. They bring with them their primitive cultural habits which are at odd with contemporary urban living. They live in the lingering age of Jirga with anachronistic notions of gender, patriarchy and vendetta. Hence a road traffic accident can turn into a tribal feud, for example.

Lahore similarly faces an unending flow of people from Punjab’s countryside and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They bring with them their rustic manners and feudal/tribal view of life not compatible with urban way of life. No effort is made by the administration to educate the new comers and people with new money about ways and manners of urban culture. One of the reasons for such indifference is that members of civil service who hold key administrative positions are themselves from countryside as the affluent urban classes have lost appetite for civil service which was once a thought to be coveted trophy. So beware of Lahore. Instead of making its newly arrived rustics urbanised, Lahore has stated reflecting rusticity. May be to accelerate the pace of urbanisation seems to be a boondoggle to those born to the manor who lord it over the city. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2023