A Lonely Tree on the Queens Road Lahore

I had to go to Lahore for a day and my train dropped me there in the early morning at 4:30am (Pakistani trains follow the time schedule now). So I had like 4 hours to kill before the office where I had to go even opens. I walked to Lahore food street Anarkali still I got there in 45 minutes and the shopkeepers were just starting out :D. ultimately I got myself some breakfast and some tea then again I walked to the point where I was intended to go. When I got there it was 7 and still I had like 90 minutes to spare. It was the queen’s road of Lahore.

I found myself a bench on the road side, shoved my earphones and just sat there looking at the people. It was the morning of a working day, so it was full of the typical big city hassle. People in hurry, getting breakfast things from the shops, kids going to school, youngsters to the universities, busy bus stops, busy roads just everything and everyone was in a great hurry.

Only two living things were sitting calmly on the side of that road that day, Me on the one side and an old big tree on the opposite side. At that moment I felt a connection with that tree, it was like the whole world has gone silent and just we are talking to each other. It was like we just synced in with each other. He was telling me stories, stories of the older times. Yes! he was old, really old, something like 200 years old. He saw the transition of this place from inhabited land to one of the most expensive place, he saw the fall of Mughal empire, he saw Sikhs here, he witnessed the British Raaj.

He told me how they started building a proper road here to connect the two major roads, he also told me how many like him were cut down. He made me visualise the whole construction of the major land marks like the museum, Ganga Ram hospital, Aitchison college and Fatima Jinnah medical college.

Then, I had to go. He had so much to tell me, but I had to go so he gave me just one line covering his whole life experience in three words,

"Be A Survivor"