When cities age, every piece of architecture, marketplace, garden or park, face, road, etc… everything begins to exude the essence of the bygone years, and the impact those years have made on the particular city. In the case of Lahore, one can see the remnants of the colonial era on the Mall road, and in the architecture of the buildings. In places like the Shalimar gardens and the Lahore fort one can see the grandeur of the Mughal empire and can easily envision their lifestyle. The Lahori culture and tradition, the mannerisms of the people, the dynamics of the Lahori people, everything has been created over a course of hundreds of years.

Islamabad being a relatively younger city has a long way to go in creating it’s own ‘history’. One can think of this city as morphing into a concrete metropolis with skyscrapers crammed up together on every major road, flyovers flying over our heads, millions of cars plying the erstwhile empty roads, and more places of amusement in every major sector. One can even think of it as turning into a highly industrialized city with smoke spewing out of every building in every corner, with a plethora of cycles and cheap broken rickety cars creating havoc on the mismanaged roads, and with people walking around with gas cylinders mounted on their backs and gas masks on their heads.

Ok that was just an exaggeration… but how would YOU like the Islamabad of the future to be? What changes do you think are going to take place in this city over the course of the next one hundred years?

Since the long march fever is in the air, I would like to make my first post on this blog related to this astonishing show of power on the streets by the people of Pakistan. The enthusiasm and determination of the leaders and the marchers looked promising since the beginning, and everyone had a feeling that something was definitely about to change. And changes did happen. People are merrymaking throughout the country after the recent decision made by the worthy premier. Now they have a bright future ahead of them… a future full of hope, prosperity, and reformation. But you never know what might come up next, and people have learned to add that tinge of unpredictability in their list of items which they expect to happen in the future. Nevertheless, this event has certainly boosted the morale of the nation, and the once dying hopes have been rekindled.

There was a deathly silence in the air yesterday morning when I set out to buy some groceries and vegetables. The veggies were almost all sold out, leaving me to choose from an unsavory assortment of rotten little onions and tomatoes hidden in a heap of onion peel. The people sure were in a shopping mood yesterday morn, some of them even pushing themselves in front of the line at the shopping store to get their stuff checked out quickly. I met a policeman who lives in our street, and he told me that I hate to do what we have been told to do, but it’s our job. Poor guys. I feel sorry for them sometimes… as much as I occasionally hate them.

This event, this long march, will certainly go down in history as the time when the people of Pakistan rose up and pushed their way through all blockages and hurdles and raised their voice against injustice and oppression. In a time when we wonder what the future would hold for our children, and our children’s children, we now have something that we can feel proud telling them about. We can tell them how the revolution began, how the fire that once burned in the hearts of the Muslims of the sub-continent burned in the past few days of every single person in the country, and we can tell them to be strong, to be brave, and to work hard to make things right.

But let us all remember one important thing. Even though the future events would not turn out as expected, or something else happens, something worse, we should not consider ourselves failures. We should not think that our efforts were all in vain. What we did was for the world to see and hear. We proved ourselves that we will not cower in the face of oppression, and we will not suffer for something which is not our fault. We have showed all international powers that we are a peace loving nation, that we stand united to make all things right, and that we have hearts which cherish freedom, love, peace and happiness immensely, the fundamental characteristics that define who we are… the indestructible and powerful people of Pakistan.