LETTER TO EDITOR

May 19^th, 2008

Sola Crore Awam

The other day  my 19 year old grandson went to attend a walima inside the once walled city of Lahore now mostly inhabited by the upper middle class. Having parked the car some distance away he noticed the road inundated by the water gushing out of a broken municipal tap, forcing pedestrians to raise the bottom of their trousers to avoid soiling them. He asked some locals as to for how long that tap had been broken and causing such nuisance, apart from wasting the precious water. "About a month", was the answer to his horror.  "And no one had reported it to the corporation?", he asked the people standing nearby.  "Oh, chhado ji, kameeti waley aapey kisi din theek kar jaan gay", was the nonchalant response of the bystanders.

Later, while narrating me the story, he poignantly asked , "Agha jee, do you think that the kind of sola crore awam who are not even mindful of the wastage of their own water, are really aware of the subtleties involved in the restoration of judiciary?".  I had no answer for him.  Do you have one? 

Truly

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)

30, Westridge-1

Rawalpindi 46000

Tel: (051) 546 3344