By Brig (R) Mehboob Qadir
Email: clay.potter@hotmail.com
It was Friday the10 January.My cousin and bhabi in Lahore was admitted in ICU ,was on death bed and we wanted to be beside her before her departure into eternity.It was a real emergency as she transited from chemotherapy for breast cancer to sudden kidneys failure and steep drop in vital signs.Even dialysis failed to revive her kidney functions and the doctors gave the ultimate bad news; She will live only for few hours.The cancer has spread into the body and is out of control.By the time I could limber up things and get my immediate family particularly my not so fit to travel wife ready for hitting the Motorway for Lahore the sun was already setting. As a precaution I consulted Weather website and it said 'No fog' over the route repeatedly.
Confidently we sped up the motorway,toll plaza man issued a toll ticket and together with the Motorway officer waved us on with a smile.It was already dark and quite cold .One could see blinking stars in the charcoal black winter sky through the sun roof. However our minds were preoccupied by all sorts of sad thoughts for my sister in law,what torment my brother , nephews and nieces would be undergoing and hundreds of other apprehensions. We were praying hard, beseeching God to have mercy upon her and the family.
Motorway was in perfect shape except a few railing reflectors missing here and there.It was so reassuring to see Motorway Police patrol cars plying particularly herding buses, trucks, loaded bowsers and long container trailers like domestic sheep down the treacherous slopes of the Salt Range mountain at a snail’s speed. We were cruising along quite effortlessly.Stopped by at PindiBhattian's underlit lay over,bought some food and let my driver gulp a jug full of tea,not food, to prevent sleepiness.
We had no idea what kind of rigor lay ahead and how it would become a drive on the razor's edge and a dreadful night without an end.By now light sheets of occasional whiff of fog were seen floating across the motorway which we dismissed as usual sighs of a winter night.As we surged ahead fog began to slowly but ominously thicken and our speed started to drop.Soon cars and buses switched on their hazard lights and Police cars disappeared. There was no caution or warning about the denser cloud of fog ahead, a possible diversion off the motorway or any stoppage. We were in any case busy talking to my brother,doctors and nephews trying to convince them to let the life support remain connected. It was very difficult to let her die by consent, and not naturally.
The fog thickened, visibility reduced to a few yards and speed dropped to almost a crawl but still we kept cruising behind a luxury bus which had fog lights also in the rear it provided quite a few meters of good visibility.That inspired an idea that our expensive cars and SUVs have fairly inadequate fog lights.We need to fix similar fog lights as those of Chinese luxury buses for just such an encounter with hostile fog.
Soon the markers started to narrow the motorway and blue and red blinking lights of Police cars meant trouble ahead.Shortly the entire traffic came to a dead stop and masked Motorway Policemen went around announcing, 'Exit from Khanqah Dogran toll plaza.Motorway has been shut down.'It took us more than half an hour to snail past the toll plaza and then the disaster struck with full viciousness along with its pack of spiteful demons.
The road was a narrow two way strip with unmarked edges,no visible traffic signs and full of pits and ditches of inscrutable dimensions.The fog was denser and unforgiving and the visibility was no more than a few hazy meters in front barely permitting us to dimly see the tail lights of the car in front, and door hugging on the sides.We were driving literally on a prayer and a wing.Just then my cellphone packed up disconnecting me from the saved numbers.It was in fact a dumpers’ highway which were there on the move in their hundreds full of crush, sand and earth on their way presumably to Lahore dumping sites.Most menacing were the huge giant size, two stories tall and ballooning sideways nets full of straw loaded over oversized tractor trollies which had no tail nor sidelights to indicate clearly their perilous volume. They too were majestically chugging forward in the same madness their favorite music blaring loudly over the tractor engine roar.
There was an endless train of cars, buses, vans, suvs crawling between the dumpers clearly at their own peril but had no other option.The fog envelop was so dense it appeared we were driving through a white tunnel. A shiny black Land Cruiser pulled up alongside pulled its window down and asked if the road led to Lahore ?.We were both clueless, they lurched forward and inserted into the crawl just before us.That was just as welcome because their very bright LED tail lights helped us to see a meter or more than before.While driving in that smog was truly a leap of faith, my wife’s chronic knee pain began to increase, it started to swell at her ankles and she was visibly becoming awfully restless.Her dislike for being stuck in traffic that too blindfold resurfaced with vengeance adding to her acute discomfort.There was no way we could stop anywhere to let her have a leg stretch or some fresh air.
Somewhere before Sheikhupura there was an impossible looking road junction from where roads were branching off scissors like in so many directions and each choked by trucks and dumpers.It took us close to an hour to literally bulldoze our way through that maze to get on to the right road thanks to a ragged young fellow who guided us out of nowhere.One is sure the one at the head of our clueless caravan was a gifted man who took us to Lahore via the Sagian bypass.
We thanked God when we surfaced over the Lower Mall.Our driver switched on his Google map for the pinned destination inside the Cantt and we took a deep sigh of relief.It was aleady 3 AM in the morning and the fog never relented.We were on the road for the last 10 hours and still going.We had no idea that somewhere enroute ‘lady direction’ will play a trick upon us taking advantage of the thick blanket of fog.One has been in Lahore for years but the fog was completely disorienting and the Google mischief took us to God knows where through the dumpyards, truck parkings and what not to a completely unknown place.Resetting the pin we finally reached the Mess guest rooms in Lahore Cantt and it was 5-30 Am exactly 12 hours after we left Rawalpindi.Through fatigue, restlessness and swollen joints my wife fell badly sick and has yet not recovered from that very painful road journey even after a week of rest and treatment.Iony is that my bhabi had expired that night at 1-30 AM just when perhaps we were praying to reach Lahore safely to be by her side.A regret that we will live with for long, which could be avoided had the Motorway Police not herded us out to foggy wilderness and absolutely at our own,typically shedding off their responsibility away to others without any coordination..It is a miracle of sorts that we neither met an accident nor were waylaid what the trek is notorious for.This was also the first ever time that one had forgotten to carry the usual selfdefense peacemaker.They could have easily led the traffic over motorway safely to Lahore the way they were doing at the slopes of Salt Range.But then it needs deeper care for the people and a greater sense of duty than ceremonially but needlessly piloting thankless VIPs and the undeserving privileged fat bellies.