At any given Sunday, what does a man or a woman in Lahore do to entertain oneself? Watch a movie; go out to dinner or lunch with friends or a partner, or what? What else can a person do to have fun! Do we undertake yet another pilgrimage to the Meccas of shopping, the Liberty Market, Fortress Stadium, Empire Center, PACE, Hafiz Center, Chen One? And after you are bored with window or otherwise shopping, almost all of these places have one or two eateries, if not a whole food court. We could go to Qadafi Stadium, have some more food, or MM Alam Road, have yet more food (there goes the belt), or GawalMandi, or Lakshmi Chowk, stuff our selves even more, if possible. Fulfill the First Deadly Sin, become Gluttons and Obese from Head to Toe. If not that, we can always fan our vanities by shopping some more. You know, look good, plus since we are eating so much at any given time we will need new clothes after every one-month or so, depending on how much exercise we are getting in between (sweatpants might be a good investment). With so many restaurants and eateries in our city, if someone comes from out of town the first things he notices is the lack of places to go for fun’s sake. What do you guys do for fun? You eat? Pigs eat for fun!
I tell them, that we eat yes, but it is the ambience and the company we enjoy does it matter where and how? And other blah blah yappity yapp stuff that I could say all the while stuffing my mouth with further food, because where else could we go and talk other then at some other restaurant.
Anyone alive and well fitted with functioning senses knows how the property business is in boom these days, all those open areas with no houses and societies without people but a lot of files in swapping. All of them boast a central market, a big commercial area, but only one or two out of a dozen support a sporting center or parks, places where boys can be boys and leave girls to shop on their own without feeling that someone is watching them all the time. Come on boys, it could be your sister in the next shop. But then where are the gents supposed to go? Not that women don’t want to do stuff other than shopping, of course they do, (since I am a seasoned male, I have realized never to PRESUME anything about our female counterparts).
There are a million parks in the D.H.A Lahore, of course I am exaggerating, everything about the D.H.A is exaggerated, the prices, the traffic, the necklines. All parks have a bigger- than-the-park-itself sign, that you can see in your room at the time you are pulling on your sneakers or track suit, that says “it is prohibited to bring pets in the park, it is prohibited to play; hockey, cricket, football, volleyball etc in the park”. What do you do in a Park, especially one that has no jogging track, and you are more than 16 years old, so “Baraf Pani” “Oonch Neech” & “Safe Safe” become distant, more childish options (where Baraf Pani has no relation to Pani Puri).
Have we made these parks so kids can come here and get bored so we may bring out the Aristotle in us all at the earliest age possible? Is this why the authorities allow us to rest our backsides under the shade in greenery filled park to think and think only? What happened to all work and no play making for dull johnnys? Where does an eighteen year old go after his books? You start a good game of cricket and someone calls up the authorities that there are kids making noise in the park. Hell yes they are making noise, they are kids, kids who are playing (involved in physical activity), they are NOT playing a BOARD game (hell we used to make just as much noise in monopoly or Luddo, didn’t we?). I want to scream a question…. IS IT A PARK OR A LIBRARY?!?!?!? And if you can’t sleep at five in the afternoon then come out and play. I always though it was a good thing to see youngster at play, helps you live a little longer.
Ok let us assume they don’t make noise in the park and let the people in the houses be, a good secluded house smack dab in the front of a nice sprawling park all green with swings that swing because it is high wind or cause some geezer farted (yes I am mad)? And the kids that could have been having good clean fun, who have got no good theaters to go to (trust me, you don’t want your average teenager to see a local flick), no option for physical activity other than to chase the ice cream truck or going to an expensive health spa which might not be very affordable for the average parent (there are a lot of those going around) who have to afford high tuition fees. What do the kids do? Go to the market place? Eve tease girls? Hang around at street corners?
The more time an eighteen year old spends on the street corner the more opportunities he / she has to learn:
a) How to properly roll a joint and smoke it too
b) How to make a screw driver
c) How to differentiate between hallucinogens & carcinogens
d) How to structure a sentence comprising 90% of swear words
e) The difference between various female undergarments and the sizes by looking at the specimen
f) Sign language not usable in a family program and not used to help land aero planes
g) Stuff you want to know but I cant tell for fear of this not printing
It is not really that bad a picture, there is the good old Lawrence Gardens, the Race Course Park, Iqbal Park, the Mini Golf, but these are again places where if parents take their kids, the people in their late teens and early twenties will feel awkward going, unless they enjoy going to kiddie places. Also some of the crowd that does go to places common with family outing, at times end up being so rowdy that it becomes unbearable for someone trying to have a decent time with wife or daughter. Lahore my dear ladies and gentlemen is a city where no adult without a family is allowed into JOY LAND! So if you are single, you are not allowed to swing the merry go round or any other round for that matter. You may go to KFC, have some chicken!
