Daily Times

To be able to write with a passion one has to be swept by a powerful stimulus. It has to be a surge or a pulse that must continuously create sparks in one’s conscious mind. This could be triggered by incidence of an idea, a physical object of unusual impact, simply an inspiration or a combination. However that is not important but the kind of emotions it ignites matter and become the locomotion for effective writing. Attock Oil Refinery has invariably created a surge of sentiments which is a mix of admiration, nostalgia and gratefulness in amazement .

In our neighbourhood in Rawalpindi we have this sprawling premises of Attock Oil Refinery set up by the British somewhere around 1920’s.Then it touched the GT Road and was served by a loop of railway line from Chaklala Railway Station. I am sure in those times the area comprising the Refinery must have been a complete wilderness with typical Pothohar low forest canopy except the small hamlet of Morgah perilously perched over a steep bank of a tributary of the deceptively quiet Swan River. A narrow country road led off from the GT Road to the sleepy hamlet, around which quite strangely the infrastructure of the refinery seems to have been developed. This fact must have forced the Refinery administration to literally split their infrastructure in the middle to let the road pass and even more queerly permit locals to travel through an otherwise prohibited area. Its boundary wall is still replete with warning notices and an electric fence running along the crest of the high wall that encloses the Refinery’s main installations. They have a much larger area walled off but lying largely disused. That must have been with a view to further expansion which has not occurred much so far.

This is where the remarkable tale of Refinery’s founders and its subsequent administrations’ benevolence really begins. It is an inspiring saga of thoughtfulness, lawful conduct ,compassion and care for the welfare of the less privileged neighbors. The very layout of the officers colony, staff quarters, markets, hospital ,school, bank , post office, play grounds and offices speak volumes about civic sense and just dispensation of the planners’ mind. They even thought of a grave yard and made sure a covered space for prayers and a keeper was available. An aviary and botanical park with a pond was also set up and is maintained ,which must have been a first in the entire swath of land upto Torkham and perhaps beyond. The Refinery made sure that clean drinking water was piped to the village and small hutments around, a dispensary with staff and a well appointed school was also constructed for them .One can still see typical olden times brass water taps protruding along the boundary wall for locals to fill their pitchers and pots .A very thoughtfully constructed covered bus stand in the middle but close to the Refinery’s lower staff living quarters and neat rows of staff quarters around the play grounds can also be seen.

All internal roads are lined with thick shady trees and officers bungalows are real class. Single storied red brick sparingly built colonial residences with lavish verandahs, big lawns, garages and appropriate number of servants quarters

All internal roads are lined with thick shady trees and officers bungalows are real class. Single storied red brick sparingly built colonial residences with lavish verandahs, big lawns, garages and appropriate number of servants quarters. Access roads from the gate to the porch designed to give a good view of the officer’s botanical taste. Refinery’s main office is again a colonial structure of a respectable grandeur surrounded by an arched red brick verandah. It radiates quiet power, a dignified aloofness and decent functionality. It has a kind of stylish simplicity which stays with the beholder. All in all a drive or preferably a walk through the premises is a visual treat, an education how to aesthetically layout a set up as mundane as an oil refinery and how really to be socially responsible in a major undertaking of this sort. One is yet to see anything close to this type of civic awareness and ready benevolence in any of the quite a few industrial units I happened to visit in the country.

That was what happened originally but what followed is equally commendable. Their colonial style Cricket ground and Hockey Stadium produced a star studded legion of world class sportsmen like Shoeb Akhtar, Shadab Khan(Cricket),Nasir Bunda(Hockey) and on to Basket Ball and Squash. A few years ago one saw very large official looking structures coming up in the eastern part of their outer perimeter. It turned out that the land was provided for offices of the Rawalpindi Intermediate Education Board, and a modern High School each for local girls and boys. There is just one regret which is that growing need for a modern office block unfortunately consumed their original Cricket ground, which they did relocate within the eastern limit of their compound next to the grave yard but the lure of the historic past has been lost and buried.

It will take lot more space to speak about many more of their public facilitation undertakings which one can leave for some other time. This brings me to a different but not such a glamorous though expensive undertaking of another sort right in its neighborhood. It is the vast gated community of a Services residential colony. One saw it coming up from a scratch. Contractor’s heavy machinery like dozers, excavators, bowzers, flatbed large trucks carrying iron bars ,cement and construction materials plying incessantly over the only country road connecting the surrounding smaller colonies and villages with the Refinery and the GT Road. By the time the Officers’ houses began to take shape the colony had developed Refinery’s western approach road into their own access road. And then an uncharitable thing happened. By then the tiny country road had been crushed into dust and locals were using a parallel double road happy in the thought that they would continue to use it , where as it was the colony’s own circular road. The administration suddenly walled and blocked the local’s access leaving them to a badly pitted, non-existant dusty track to bump along. A wave of indignation began to rise, petitions were made, delegations went back and forth but nothing happened. Locals had to slog it out for the next two years till old Ch Nisar got the country road reconstructed, yet the lasting ill will towards the colony by the locals has persisted. A related senior officer when approached had very curtly refused to accept the suggestion to repair the road so damaged and turned down the request off hand. It was just a little more than two kilometers’ ribbon stretch. The difference in the sense of civic responsibility between the founders of the two neighboring undertakings is conceptual, stark and far apart. One has been benevolent and exrtrovert, therefore well regarded, the other predatory and feared. Sir Ganga Ram will be respected by Pakistanis for ever for his superlative acts of public welfare but hardly the perpetrators of Orange Train, that is the difference for those who understand.

The writer can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com