Whose trees these were, we thought we knew

2026-01-26 - 00:49

A fable from Shakarparian’s Bald Hills Urban Bystander “Pull up! Pull up! Terrain failed to render!” Babloo the pigeon banked over Heritage Museum. Sergei the Siberian crane flapped. “GPS says forest. Why Mars?” “Shakarparian Massacre,” sighed Mirza Chughal Khor, the crow with a retired bureaucrat’s ghost trapped in his spine. Before CDA claimed credit for greening “barren hills”, the Margallas carried pine and sheesham like old memory. Fifteen acres naked. December 2025 to January 2026- 29,115 trees deleted. “Public Health War,” Nosy Mynah explained. “Removing paper mulberry allergies.” Sergei squinted. “That’s sheesham. Hardwood.” “Once cut, trees posthumously identify as paper mulberry,” Mirza said. “CDA baptism. Contractor sells timber, stamps the invoice ‘Allergy Relief’, and the file moves like a holy relic. Environmental management outsourced to the same appetite that profits from deletion. Everyone happy except trees, ecosystem, Master Plan 1960, Wildlife Ordinance 1979.” Mirza flipped spectral ledgers. “Pattern: F-9 Park, 12,000 trees, 2024. Constitution, Jinnah, Ninth Avenue underpasses: concrete on green. Six years systematic deletion.” Axes sang below. Thud. Crack. Fall. Dozens of workers, rotating shifts, each swing a negotiation between duty and conscience. Duty won. “Code Botanical!” Right Sparrow shrieked. “Vegetation transmitting data!” Severed twigs began an intelligence operation. Ring counts appeared on Rauf Klasra’s phone (tweeting daily, tagging officials, demanding answers). Species data reached Kashif Ali Abbasi; three investigative stories in two weeks. Evidence materialised in Sadia Mazhar’s inbox. Umer Cheema received timber manifests. Dying trees found Islamabad’s friends: journalists documenting whilst officials denied. “Islamabad Wildlife Board?” Sergei asked. “Ghost Directorate. Found out on Twitter. Present for F-9 when Supreme Court watched. Absent for Shakarparian. Regulatory theatre.” At H-8, five hectares cleared for monument. Officials reviewed sites. Empty Parade Ground (rejected, too convenient), F-8 park space (rejected, already cleared), existing memorial grounds (rejected, boring). Forest it was. “Shows commitment,” one official said, initialising approval whilst stepping over severed branches. Monument asked nobody, “Am I commemorating something?” Sunset brought frost. Trucks arrived with shivering saplings. “Reinforcements!” Sergei cried. Babloo face-palmed. “January. Ground frozen. Mass grave, not plantation. Survival rate: snowball in hell.” “I refuse to root,” a sapling announced. “Frost season. We die.” “The Minister defended this, then condemned it once the cameras arrived!” Sergei protested. “Minister met His Dualness, the Dance of the Double-Take” Mirza whispered. “A creature evolved inside the administrative architecture. One official, simultaneously holding two offices. A bureaucratic quantum state; one body, two contradictory positions at once. The duality is contagious. Those who meet him begin speaking in paired sentences; defending actions as lawful and necessary, then condemning them as unacceptable once cameras arrive. Three committee members infected last month. Now the Minister’s body wars with itself at press conferences.” At Parliament, Senator Sherry Rehman grilled unnerved CDA officials. One tripped over microphone cables whilst fumbling through conflicting reports. Pages slipped like dead leaves: “We cut 8,000 trees!””No, 29,115!””We planted 40,000!””We will plant 90,000!” “Numbers like confetti,” Mirza observed. “Panic-induced hallucinations. Promise three for every one cut. Planted in frost. Compensatory plantation fails, requiring compensation. Perpetual dysfunction.” Surveillance Squadron returned. “Thandi Sarak” no longer cool. Doxiadis’s 1960 dream buried under six years of concrete. “What now?” Sergei shivered. “Humans chose concrete. Chose to delete their shade. Trees become parking lots. Sheesham becomes cabinet doors where officials file the next deforestation order. The system eats itself.” “But journalists documented everything.” “Documentation is Pakistan’s only immortality,” Mirza said. “Klasra’s tweets, Abbasi’s investigations, Mazhar’s follow-ups, Cheema’s exposés, didn’t stop massacre, ensured memory.” “In Islamabad,” Mirza faded, “the only thing growing faster than paper mulberry... is a bad idea.” Note: The journalists mentioned are real and tireless. The trees cannot file defamation suits, being dead. The writer is not a bird, a ghost, or a traffic constable, can be reached at bystanderinthecity@gmail.com