Daily Times

In Lahore of 70s and early 80s, some sights used to register on people’s consciousness almost unconsciously. Take for an example the visit to fabled Anarkali Bazaar. Back then, it used to be the Vatican of shoppers from all socio-economic backgrounds — the rich, the not-so-rich middles classes as well as the poor and less-privileged Lahoris.

One of the sights all these versatile groups of shoppers had to contend with and which is inscribed deeply on my own memory’s tablets from shopping sprees in Anarkali is that of stray herds of cows. The cows would roam the main avenue and side alleys of Anarkali Bazaar without any fear of molestation or reprisals.

Alike many urchins of those days, my heart too would be infused with mixed feelings of surprise, awe and mischief on the sudden appearance of a duo or triumvirate of lazy, straddling cows. A conclusive no, in a near rebuke fashion, would be ordained by one or both of accompanying parents as those sudden impulses to tease the cows by squeezing their long, dangling tails or ears had to be held back. Exactly from where, these cows emerged or what destination they headed for remained an unsolved mystery for my childish mind in those days.

And these promenades of free-wheeling cows were not peculiar to Anarkali — as I now recollect. Majority of older neighborhoods of Lahore — Raj Garh, Sham Nagar, Krishan Nagar, Dev Samaj Road, Nehru Park, Laxmi Chowk, Gunpat Road, Jain Mandir, and Dyal Singh Mansion — all would boast of their herds of cows; white, liver coloured, black spotted — all nibbling the garbage heaps peacefully and resting under shadows of many, wide canopy, broadleaved trees, which formed a regular feature of Lahore’s roads in those days, especially during sweltering summer afternoons.

Recollections of these loitering herds of cows, imbuing a collective sense of revered restraint came galloping as I was sitting in a seminar held on the occasion of International Bio-Diversity Day celebrations in a five-star hotel of Islamabad. “Respect for life in all its manifestation — animal, bird, plant — is the essence and banner theme of bio-diversity day”; “in diversity, lies the future, the emancipation of humankind and mother earth”; “let’s not deprive the coming generations of animal or bird bio-diversity” — were themes recounted by speaker after speaker. Meanwhile, my mind sped back in past to recount the many losses which, I then started to figure out, were actually losses in bio-diversity. Our collective apathy to diverse forms of life for reasons unknown or perhaps best known to us alone.

And moving on from roaming cow herds of old Lahore, one may ask where are the sparrows of yesteryears gone now? Who amongst us Lahoris has not experienced that fairy tale spectacle of a sparrow fledgling falling off nests made of straw in some nook or cranny of the verandah of almost all houses of a few decades back? Many false starts and rounds of shrieking would ensue as kids of home tried to place back that crackling, beleaguered, miniscule mass of a sparrow hatchling back in the nest — oftener a failed enterprise which nonetheless provided much needed fun for kids bored by school summer vacations.

Gone are the days of sparrows and their falling young alike the verandahs and the many ventilating spaces in old houses where sparrows would make their nests. Bio-diversity experts tell us that indiscriminate use of pesticides and many other kinds of pollutants — fertilizers included — have led to near extinction of house sparrows from many of our cities, never to come back. Really?

Gone are those days of nests of common sparrows in old city houses; honeybee combs in mighty canopies of local trees; hornet hives in now obsolete verandas and ventilating holes

Another recollection of my childhood days in Lahore pertained to pitched battles, waged by teenage boys staged around many beehives — honey bees and hornets included. It was not uncommon for each house, especially in old localities of Walled City of Lahore, to boast of its share of beehives. Abundance of beehives in all likelihood resulted from abundance of indigenous trees — Jamun, Mangoes, Simbal, Siris, Dharek Neem — each producing profusion of flowers and fruition in various seasons of the year.

Swollen eyes to the point of complete closure are one sweetly painful recollection of many ordeals which involved beehives of hornets and honey bees. It would provide great midsummer afternoon fun to groups of roaming teenage boys of Lahore to dislodge occupants of these hives through an unending volley of stones and then run in all conceivable directions to escape the wrath of these agitated, furious hornets and honey bees. Great fun to warm up already warm summers during school vacations.

Gone are those days of nests of common sparrows in old city houses; honeybee combs in mighty canopies of local trees; hornet hives in now obsolete verandas and ventilating holes (roshandan, which have no place in our modern building designs); freely roaming herds of revered cows and their gaoshalas (to my utter surprise, I came to realise much later that some sort of gaoshala existed in many smaller cities of Punjab from times immemorial); city vultures hovering azure blue skies of an unpolluted Lahore; and the rich household coveys of domestic poultry before advent of the artificially bred cousins from poultry farms.

Colourful scions of all-knowing civil society were most articulate in bemoaning loss of bio-diversity on the International Bio-Diversity Day by citing examples of African rhino, Brazilian parakeets or Bengal tigers. To my utter disgust, none of the speakers made even passing reference to pillage of bio-diversity in our own backyard that has cast its sinister spell on all and sundry. House sparrows, honey bees, butterflies, city vultures, freely roaming and harmless cow herds, local trees with deep shadows, gaoshalas — the list is unending.

Loss of bio-diversity in our case has been deeper and lasting as is the ensuing pain. After loss of plants, animals, birds, insects, and historic names — little guess is needed to figure out who is next on line.

Writer is a public policy and environmental expert