For some weeks now I’ve been walking ten thousand steps a day, while on holidays in Pakistan. I am lucky; there are plenty of walking paths at my parents’ home, lined with assorted fruit trees. The health app in my iPhone diligently records every step I take, as long as the phone is in my pocket, and lets me keep track of my activity. Although there is no scientific basis for taking ten thousand steps, many books and health blogs recommend it. It is a number that won’t let you sit around for too long, keeping you active throughout the day, unless, of course, if you gobble up ten thousand steps in one go. But not too many have the time or energy to walk for that long at one time. I tend to break the steps up in two or three sessions, but also taking every opportunity to move around a bit, even if it means standing up while watching TV, in my living room, and walking back and forth for couple of minutes, believing that every step counts. As a result I feel calmer and healthier.
Better health and a peaceful mind are not the only benefits of the exercise walking provides. Many a writer has developed characters for their stories or essays, unraveled stubborn plots; and no small number of scientists have solved mysteries they were grappling with, leading to groundbreaking inventions that have changed our lives - all while walking. I can imagine Dr. Abdus Salam walking in a sylvan setting, taking in his surroundings, his eyes soothed by the greenery around him and his senses heightened, his lungs filled with crisp, fresh air, but his mind far away, up in outer space, solving the mysteries of the unfathomable universe.
Walking, as a way to better health, and lowered healthcare costs, holds a special place in more developed societies. Communities, neighborhoods and cities are planned so it’s easy to walk for errands and exercise, or simply for pleasure. Why get into a car every time you have to go to the market only a few hundred yards away?
Go for a walk in any city in Pakistan and it will soon become apparent that walking is not a priority for the community and city planners, be it the provincial governments, municipalities, or cantonment boards; it is simply difficult to get around on foot. Most roads do not have a footpath alongside, and pedestrian crossings are hard to find, and if a footpath exists, open sewage often runs alongside it, forcing one of your hands to cover your nose and walk faster, just to get away. Most intersections, if the ones in smaller neighborhoods are counted, in Pakistan do not have a traffic light or a stop sign governing traffic, letting cars do as they please, which inevitably is to zip through without looking around. It appears that so much is just left up to the citizens, as if the state hasn’t taken enough time to think through things in necessary detail.
No country for pedestrians?
Plenty of people here walk, of course, but they do so mostly because they do not have a choice: they cannot afford a car or a motorbike, relying on walking to the bus station or work. They do not walk for the pleasure of it or to get healthy.
My parents recently waxed nostalgic about how it used to be easier to walk— there were hardly any cars in the neighbourhood, and they were not worried about their security. Truly walkable cities would not be possible without improved law and order, and better traffic control.
In New York City, where I live, and in other American cities, walking paths are almost invariably lined with trees, typically in a three to four feet space between the road and the footpath. In this way even one of the most crowded cities on the planet has plenty of trees, providing shade, cooling the city and helping to clean the air, not to mention making the metropolis more beautiful. There is plenty of space to plant these natural air purifiers beside most roads in Pakistani cities and towns, big or small.
Go for a walk in any city in Pakistan and it will soon become apparent that walking is not a priority for the community and city planners; it is simply difficult to get around on foot
Cleaner air, more shade, eye-soothing greenery, pedestrian crosswalks, not a care about personal safety, vehicles that do not breathe out a smoky cloud because of strict emission control standards, children out on their bikes, on their way to the park— who wouldn’t want that and why wouldn’t we work to make that happen?
But wait, dear reader, before you get excited and set out for a walk, consider this: make sure you haven’t criticised recently the banned religious organisations, the intelligence agencies, or anyone else just as powerful and thin-skinned; make sure you haven’t professed friendship with India too vehemently or otherwise offended someone who could accuse you of blasphemy, or you may be at the risk of being picked up and magically disappeared, or lynched by a mob. But then again, all this could happen to you while you are sitting at home, in your living room. So go ahead put on those walking shoes and get them wheels rolling, and when you come back call the relevant authorities and complain about the stench rising from open sewage, and ask them to build more walking paths and plant more trees in your neighborhood.
