Why do our cities look so uncivilised despite having all the modern glitter? Because they lack three simple things; footpaths, public squares and public toilets. These apparently different things are interconnected but subtly.

Sidewalks are conduits for the pedestrian movement that plays a crucial role in urban life. They promote walking which is an intrinsic need of the human body and thus provides the least costly means of maintaining good health. They at the same time enhance connectivity that keeps the city on the move. A city that stops moving becomes a dead city. Can you imagine you can know a city without walking in it? Can you experience its greenbelts, grass, flowers and birds if you don’t walk on its pavements? Can you know the beauty or ugliness of the city’s high-rises if you can’t saunter by? Can you claim to know your fellow citizens if don’t tread the footpaths and brush past them? In our context, it’s common folks who usually walk to wherever they have to. Not having footpaths means you discourage movement, mobility and connectivity which implies slow economic growth, social placidity and cultural somnolence.

Citizens’ health is not included in the priority list of the cities’ lords, not even at the bottom. Their only need is to force the people to work so that they may be made to pay taxes, actually the indirect ones because they are never enabled to earn what can attract direct tax. Life is cheap here. Who cares about the ordinary mortals who get crushed or maimed when they dare to walk on the side of the road or try to cross the roads, proudly called signal-free corridors in the official jargon. Building free highways type roads in the high population density urban areas is flaunted as an irrefutable sign of development. The urban rich love it, as much as the rolls of fat over their belts.

If you don’t have footpaths, it’s likely that you won’t have public squares in your urban space. When people are discouraged to walk and intermingle, it means they are prompted to be economical with words, in other words, to be silent. And you don’t need public squares in order to be silent. The people who can speak up need them. The public square has been associated with human noise, dialogue and debate since ancient times. Can we forget the unprecedented role such a public space played in the unique development of Greek intellectual and philosophical thought? Even here in our society public square—call it by any name; ‘Daara, Dera, Hujra, Chaupal, Autak---has been an essential element of development and stability of community life. Anybody having a doubt is recommended a visit to our traditional village.

Each village used to have a shared public space which was common property accessible to all, even to the lowly. All matters, small and big, related to community life were put up and discussed. Routine small talk was an indulgence. Reciting folk-tales and classical poetry was part of the cultural tradition. Remember what Waris Shah says about his magnum opus? “Friends came and proposed to me, let’s make Heer’s love anew…/ Sitting in the assemblies of friends, relish of Heer’s love imbue”. Where would friends assemble? The assembly point cannot be other than a shared public space where people would gather together. It’s here at a public space where one would hear the dulcet voices of singers.

When legendry Mirza’s mother receives the terrible news that her young son has been killed by Sahiban’s brothers, this is what poet Hafiz Barkhurdar says about the wailing mother; “Wanjal Khan’s wife walked to the Dara [a public space] and cried out in pain: “You Rahmun, the son of Ilyas, [look at your] beard and the turban”. She exhorts her tribal chief to be equal to the challenge. The beard and turban are symbols of his being the leader. But the place, where he is found, is again a shared public space. So historically our urban life shows signs of regression to its primitive phase as it has eliminated the old shared open spaces which were used to be open to all without fear or favour. This has something to do with the dominance of successive dictatorial regimes in our history. The role of dialogue in public spaces is crucial for the development of democratic institutions, argues Amartya Sen in his “The Argumentative Indian”.

Another important feature of city life is the availability of public toilets which are conspicuous by their absence in our urban centres. Our cities seem to assume that they can function with no regard for the bodily functions of their dwellers. Underlying assumption on the part of our city planners is that residents when out of their homes never feel the need to urinate and defecate or they expect them to carry their own portable toilets. Or they think that the residents don’t leave their homes at all. Ordinary mortals especially the working class, women and visitors from outside are hit hard by the absence of public toilet facilities. That’s why our cities stink. Men pee in open unmanned spaces. The city planners have created this stinking mess and they must take responsibility. The stench perhaps never reaches their manicured lawns. Thus the indifference! But about women who go out? They can’t make a vulgar show of their bodily functions. When out of home or traveling in the city, they are forced to hold their urine for long which causes urinary tract infections and damages kidneys. One can never realise the gravity of the situation if they aren’t women. Let our women be praised for their immense patience.

Public lavatories, small in number anyway, are more like cesspits, and using them means inviting deadly infections. If you succeed in avoiding the risk of bladder bursting by using a pubic lavatory, you risk being killed by deadly bacteria.

A city that cannot protect and promote the physical health and intellectual growth of its residents needs to be built anew. And this exactly what the poet Brecht says: “I knew that cities were being built/ I haven’t been to any/ A matter of statistics, I thought, not history / What’s the point of cities, built without people’s wisdom”? 

— soofi01@hotmail.com