One Flag, Different Fates
On winter mornings in Sheshi Koh, the road disappears first.
Ice loosens the mountain soil above the valley. Meltwater carries rocks and debris into the narrow paths below. By afternoon, parts of the dirt track crumble into the river, cutting entire villages off from the rest of the district.
Men arrive with shovels, ropes, and wooden planks. Among them is 42-year-old Rahmat Deen, who has spent much of his life rebuilding the same road by hand.
“There is no one else,” he said, pressing a rusted shovel into frozen ground. “If we don’t fix it, we stay trapped.”
More than 300 kilometres away, Islamabad continues to expand. Roads widen, flyovers rise, commercial zones take shape, and delayed infrastructure projects become headline news. But in villages like Sheshi Koh, development arrives differently.
It arrives in survival.
The contrast reflects a divide that has shaped lives for decades. According to World Bank estimates, nearly 61 percent of Pakistan’s population lives in rural areas, yet access to healthcare, roads, sanitation, and education remains concentrated only in urban centres.
For Rahmat, that inequality is not measured through policy reports. It is measured through distance.
Six years ago, during winter, his six-year-old son slipped near the edge of a narrow mountain path close to the village. The nearest medical facility was nearly an hour away, and the road had already partially collapsed. Rahmat lifted the unconscious child into his arms and ran downhill, hoping someone would appear with transport.
“I picked him up and ran,” he recalls quietly. “I thought if I could just reach the road, maybe someone would help.”
Help never came in time.
“Agar road hoti,” he said, staring down at his hands, “toh woh zinda hota.”
If there had been a road, he would still be alive.
Across rural Pakistan, emergencies are often shaped by the same absence. The World Health Organization estimates that only 25 percent of Pakistan’s healthcare facilities are located in rural regions, while most certified doctors live and work in urban areas. In many places, ambulance services are limited or unavailable, turning injuries, childbirth complications, and sudden illness into races against geography.
Rahmat now leaves Sheshi Koh every year to work as a construction labourer in Islamabad. His wife and five children remain in the village. He returns only a few times a year.
“You miss everything,” he says. “Birthdays. School things. They grow up while you are away.”
Then he pauses.
“But what choice do we have?”
“Shehar rozi deta hai,” he says softly. “Sukoon nahi.”
The city gives income, but not peace.
For many Pakistanis, migration is not ambition. It is necessity. Twenty-one-year-old Ibrahim, a computer science student from Chitral now studying in Islamabad, says people leave because education, healthcare, jobs, and basic stability are not always available at home.
“Life in Islamabad is very different,” he says. “Transport, universities, internet, facilities — everything is easier to access.”
The same pattern appears across the country: women in Tharparkar travelling long distances for maternity care, communities in Balochistan depending on damaged roads, and flood-affected families in Sindh still waiting for full reconstruction after the 2022 floods.
According to Muhammad Ahsan Khan, a Grade-20 officer serving as Collector of Pakistan Customs, geography does make development difficult.
“Infrastructure development in mountainous regions is extremely costly due to terrain and weather conditions,” he explained. “Maintaining roads in such areas remains a persistent challenge.”
But for villagers, explanations rarely soften frustration. Rahmat says politicians often visit during campaigns or after disasters, make promises, and leave.
“They come in big cars,” he says. “They look around, make promises, then leave.”
When disasters strike remote areas, national attention briefly turns toward them. But failing roads, healthcare shortages, and educational inequality rarely remain in public conversation for long. In Islamabad, a delayed flyover becomes news. In Sheshi Koh, a collapsed road may never be reported at all.
Still, Rahmat speaks with loyalty, not resentment.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “This country is ours too.”
What he wants is simple: nearby hospitals, proper roads, schools close to home, and a future where his children do not have to leave simply to survive.
By evening, mountain fog begins swallowing the road again. The men keep working as temperatures drop, pushing loose earth back into place before the next snowfall arrives.
“Har saal wohi kaam,” he said quietly.
Every year, the same work.
Above him, the unfinished road stretches into the mountains — repaired enough to survive another season, but never enough to finally last.
Authors Details;
Esha Shahzad
eshashahzad21@gmail.com
NUST
Haneen Tariq
haneentariq54@gmail.com
NUST
Hamna Ahsan Khan
hamnxkhan@gmail.com
NUST
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