Much Ado about hedges and unborn footpaths

Public space, pending Urban Bystander By nine in the morning, Islamabad had begun repossessing itself from the Kingdom of the Plywood Sentry Box. The first guard cabin went into the truck with surprising dignity. It had served for years outside a house, a small republic of one plastic chair, one dented flask, one register, and a prayer mat folded behind the door. Its roof was tin. Its window was cracked. Its constitutional position was unclear. Last week, the administration removed over 250 illegal guard cabins across Islamabad, including from F-6, F-7, G-6, G-7, G-10, G-11, F-10, F-11 and the industrial area. The stated purpose was to reclaim public space and restore right-of-way. F-7 alone surrendered 113, suggesting a more advanced sentry-box civilisation. By afternoon, the Ministry of Illusions hailed a milestone in pedestrian facilitation, which is what Islamabad calls finding the footpath under private furniture. Constable Tufail stood beside a recovered stretch of pavement and looked moved. “Public space,” he announced, waving a motorcyclist away from it. The motorcyclist parked on it. Thus, reform enters Islamabad. Notification, truck, motorcycle. The chowkidars were not the joke. Many had spent years guarding other people’s anxieties through winter fog and summer heat, earning little, seeing much, and learning which house received mangoes from Multan. The joke was elsewhere. In the cabin called “temporary” after years of service, in the claim that it did not block the footpath because “no one walks here anyway,” and in private occupation performed as public safety. Mirza Chughal Khor arrived after the action but before the understanding. “In Islamabad,” he said, “public space is anything nobody important is using this week.” In I-8, residents say gardens, hedges and green strips outside houses have been marked, trimmed or removed as the city moves to restore, or perhaps finally construct, footpaths. In many lanes, there had never been a footpath in the prop