Pakistan Motorcycle Stories – Speed-brakers, Pulpit, and Pakistan’s Writ!

August 4, 2020

From Sultanzai in Tirah to Peshawar, KP, 2020

The speed breaker, also known as the speed bump, was invented in 1950 by Arthur Holly Compton when he noticed that drivers frequently sped past Washington University (https://www.acplm.net/5-things-didnt-know-speed-bumps/). I think, the man should have kept to what he knew best, his discoveries in electromagnetic theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize. Just as IK should have stuck to cricket and left Prime Ministering for someone else in the party—aka Sonia Gandhi model.

We, today, in Pakistan have the damn speed breakers flagrantly challenging the writ of the government and reinforcing the writ of the pulpit in this land of the pure (https://empowerpakistanbyazd.blog/2020/08/02/pakistan-motorcycle-stories-corruption-pulpits-and-injustice/).

What, you might ask, is the problem. Slowing down the free and pure and aplenty should be considered a national service. Keeping them tamed and unable to get to where they are going without dying of speed and haste and killing a few locals on the way should be a good deed in the eyes of the state and citizens and of course God.

Well, let me be clear, that is not happening for the those who can achieve those speeds on our roads, the rich and the public and goods transport drivers do not really stop for them. They fly over them. One testing their expensive SUVs and the other because they do not give a damn in the haze of whatever mental stimulant—read “hash”, they find to keep them awake and insane while making ends meet.

What the speed breakers are doing is either killing or slowing down common folks like us. Killing for they are never marked with a road sign and slowing for we either think about the repair bill of our motor vehicles or are beset with guilt at the plea of the pulpit. Here the challenge by the pulpit comes in.

It is not that I am the only one complaining about the speed breaker after speed breaker after speed breaker. Just ask Google Aunty and she will tell you about the plethora who are like wise not bemused! Read story after story pleading the authorities to do something about it and you will find a common thread. The authorities either justify the need to slow down the denizens or accept the flaw and commit to removing them or simply ignore the request. The last one is often the case of pulpit.

Just like we celebrate outlaws who shoot people in court we seem to have a soft corner for every pulpit that decides to block the road and have innocent children and elderly and challenged folks begging the screeching and halting vehicles for monies. Monies to sponsor more pulpits, grander pulpits, and pulpits that fan the rot in our Pakistan. The state, Pakistan, seems to again be impotent against these false claimants of our beautiful Islam and Pakistan. Love it or hate it, admit it and ride on, Pakistan!

On the way from Booni to Mastuj, Chitral, 2019

Published by #empowerpakistanbyazd

Amer Zafar Durrani is the President of Reenergia and Paidartwanai. He is an acknowledged development expert and entrepreneur with thirty five years of global experience spanning more than twenty four countries—of which almost 18 years were spent with the World Bank Group. His present work keeps him engaged in Pakistan, China, Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya, Philippines, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan amongst others. He is now based in Pakistan and developing Reenergia as first of its’ kind ‘do-tank’—innovating and delivering solutions for improving lives while making a profit. In parallel, he has set up Paidartwanai Private Limited, an energy supply and consulting company with a mission to develop sustainable provision and consumption of energy through increasingly distributed and renewable energy systems. Amer is also a Senior Fellow at Pakistan Institute of Development Economists. He is also the Industry Co-Chair on the Energy Corporate Advisory Council in National University of Sciences and Technology, and a partner to NJHR, Geopolicity and RIZ Consulting. He continues supporting, through Reenergia, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), International Trade Center (ITC), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank Group, and the United Nations Office for Project Services, amongst many global organizations. In his personal capacity, he has been lecturing at the National Defense College and University (Islamabad), National School of Public Policy and University of Birmingham. He frequently appears as invited special guest in Media (TV and Radio) on issues relating to public policy and is a regularly speaker on various other international and local forums. Amer speaks Urdu, English, Punjabi, and can has working knowledge of Arabic, Russian and Dari-Persian. He is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin, USA and has trained at the National Defense University, Pakistan and Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at adurrani@reenergia.com and adurrani@1818aluminwbg.org. View more posts

2 thoughts on “Pakistan Motorcycle Stories – Speed-brakers, Pulpit, and Pakistan’s Writ!”

Excellent, no doubt Road to recovery is full of speed brakes and our driver is still a learner and when you have a learner leading you people like Khalid do their nasty act , no doubt Incident like Pashwar turn whole nation in to “ Khusra “.

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