Here’s a double-decker passing through the famous University Road of the good old days when Peshawar was Peshawar in the true sense of the word, and a popular song sung in that vein. The fountainhead of education in the erstwhile Frontier, Islamia College now a University, stands gloriously tall on the main road. The road was then a single lane but figuratively broad enough to accommodate traffic of the entire world at par with the legendary Peshawar which had a bosom big enough to be called the next station of the tourists from around the world. Alas! that is no more as the present day Peshawar, rent asunder by waves of violence, has all its roads dotted with permanent and temporary check posts which are a bane for all and sundry.

Published in Dawn, December 14th, 2015