Daily Times

The Lahore I grew up in was so different from the Lahore of today that it is hard to believe it is the same place. It had tall trees and long days. Clear skies and cool shades.

There were kites circling in slow, lazy rotations, riding the currents higher and higher. The grass was green and the roads clean.

The ride from our house to Aitchison College took us along the Mall past the Punjab assembly building where the canopy for Queen Victoria stood alone, as the Summit Minar had not yet been built. The road was quiet and the traffic calm. The cars so different from the cars of today. The brands almost washed out of memory of today’s youth.

We would open the small, triangular glass window in the front door, as it would rotate on its axis to open and immediately channel fresh air into the cabin. And the long bench seats meant we could easily fit three persons in the front and four in the back!

School itself was inviting and enjoyable. The headmaster strict but reasonable still. The teachers actually taught us the syllabus and more. The students were fun loving but always respectful.

Civility was everywhere. From traffic policemen on the street to the salesman at M Yasin Khan and Sons where we would gleefully stop to buy pastries. The sponge cake layered in jam and covered in firm icing was my favourite. The shop itself was unchanged from British times.

We used to live in my grandfather’s house; it was a huge sprawling place that was just perfect for a young boy to grow up in. The house had secret rooms with entrances through closets and ancient trees that soared up into the sky. When the season came we would harvest several buckets full of fresh honey from the humongous beehives in the tall trees.

When war broke out with India, we had trenches dug in the east lawn. There was such an intense debate on whether the trench should be dug in a V shape or a W. And we all sat there giving our view on which was more survivable if a bomb fell on us. The discourse on how to apply paper tape in the shape of an exact X on every glass window was livelier still!

But even through these discussions we were not afraid. There was no trauma indelibly etched in our brains or on our personalities. Why is that, I wonder? Why are most of my memories pleasant ones?

I saw the riots that removed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and inhaled the teargas that was fired on the Mall. I saw the people clambering over our boundary walls to escape the gas, but even they fled with civility, apologising to us for intruding, and exiting from the gate in order.

In fact, I don’t recall any place where respect and civility was not the norm.

The first time I saw the American Consulate it was on the Zafar Ali road, and there was no blockade in front of it. It was only later that they put in a bulletproof glass window on the guardroom at the gate.

And I don’t recall any barbed wire anywhere in Lahore. At all. I mean, we did get to see around our farmlands, where it was used to keep wild animals out, or maybe to fence larger pens, but that’s about it. No barbed wire anywhere else. It was never to give schools the semblance of prisons. Except these wires are meant to keep people out.

And that brings me to the title of this piece. Martin Niemoller, “a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps,” is best known for this quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

In my country, they came for the communities and the sects, and we did not speak out. And now they are here for us.

And our children.

The writer is a businessman, and can be reached at muqtaza@gmail.com