Read it Live
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Just before one enters Lahore from the M2 motorway, two almost simultaneous phenomena make for a very disturbing sensory impact on the traveler.

1. The thick cover of what looks like a sick umbrella of smoke and dust hugging the roof of the city becomes visible from a distance of around 30 kilometers, and
2. The grossly offensive smell of raw, toxic sewage even penetrates deep inside cabins of all cars and buses.

The making of this almost surreal sight and disturbing smell is not so difficult to appreciate after one has entered the city. Driving along on dusty and smoky roads in Lahore, one is amazed at the pains Lahoris go to, to pollute the once fresh air of this city. As if the tons of thick suffocating smoke generated by lorries, tractors, buses, rickshas, and poorly maintained cars were not enough, Lahoris feel they must do their utmost, and then some more, to make their obligatory contribution towards polluting the very air they (and we all) breathe.

Garbage piles of all shapes, sizes and types including easily decomposable organic waste (e.g. fallen leaves, gardening waste, and mowed grass) have to be burnt. In order to add that special flavor to the sweet-sickening aroma, a bunch of plastic “shopper” bags are also thrown in for good measure. Shopkeepers and offices have to burn all their waste paper and cardboard no matter how densely populated their surroundings. An eerily beautiful mist fit for any Hollywood horror movie engulfs whole neighborhoods. The carcinogen laden smell lingers in the air for hours on end.

The ever increasing numbers of animal driven transport also have, what seems like their sworn religious duty to perform. They have to make sure that donkey, horse, mule, ox, and camel dung is deposited in a pristinely fresh condition on all roads, curbs, and nooks and crannies of the city. There shall be divine punishment if any road of the city is missed on any given day. The dung has to perform multiple functions: it has to be a fly magnet as well as a source of smell to remind us of our animalistic roots.

It is in this kind of air that Lahori kids play, adults work, drive and walk through. This is the air that we all breathe.

Is it too much to ask for people around us to be a bit more careful? Can’t we ask our mali not to burn garden waste or grass? Can’t he just bury the waste? This will turn it into useful rich compost.

Can’t plastic ’shopper’ bags be collected and handed over to recyclers? I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a few enterprising fellows have gotten together and are doing a booming business recycling certain waste products in Lahore. I hear that they are even getting lucrative export contracts.
Can’t animal driven cart people be mandated to have their animals properly ‘dressed’ for duty as was the case in the not too distant past?

Is this all too much and too unreasonable to expect or hope for?