One of the most picturesque roads in Islamabad, and my favorite, is Khayaban-e-Iqbal. In case you do not know the town, it is the northernmost road that travels East to West at the foot of Margalla hills, along the upscale neighborhoods of Islamabad.

No quibbles with naming a road after a national poet and a founding philosopher of Pakistan except that no one knows the road by that name. For some reason, the name does not stick in the minds of the residents of Islamabad. They call it Margalla Road, which was probably its original name. It is a descriptive name, too, and easily rolls over the tongue, especially Potohari tongue. Ask any taxi driver to take you to Margalla Road, and he will take you there without any problem. Try asking him to take you to Khayaban-e-Iqbal, and you will have seen the whole of Islamabad and made many acquaintances, in the process, before you reach there.

Another major road of Islamabad is Jinnah Avenue. It runs through the major business and commercial center of Islamabad, weirdly named Blue Area. People call the road Blue Area Road. (I wish the burqa brigade of Lal Masjid had pushed for changing the name of Blue Area to something else, instead of going after the women masseurs of the Chinese parlors). The name, Blue Area, has for some reason stuck in the collective memory of people of Islamabad, but not Jinnah Avenue. I never understood why?

Also, I never understood when does a road qualify to be an Avenue and when does it become a Khayaban. Strictly speaking, both words mean the same thing --- a wide, tree-lined road. In Islamabad most roads are wide and tree-lined, but why some roads are named Avenue and others Khayaban, and still others just Road? Is it that the word Avenue sounds good with anglophiles like Jinnah and Ataturk (yes, we also have Ataturk Avenue) while the Persian word Khayaban is more appropriate to the 'Poet of the East'?

Ataturk Avenue, another beautiful road, starts from the foot of the Margalla hills and ends close to the now world-renowned Lal Masjid. It seems ironic that the clerics of Lal Masjid allowed Ataturk to come so close to their premises. But, fortunately for Ataturk, the road was named much before the Lal Masjid turned from a simple mosque into an armory.

Naming roads after Jinnah and Iqbal is almost mandatory for every large and small city in Pakistan. It can be explained and also understood. But there does not seem to be any method in what appears to be bureaucratic madness in naming other roads of the capital. It seems as if it depends on the social and political philosophy, or simply whims, of the person (s) in charge of naming the roads. No one asks the citizens who have to live with the names.

A road is named Marvi Road. Marvi is a Sindhi name. Personally, I like the name. It’s short, it’s easy to remember, has a nice ring to it, and has a great Sindhi love legend behind it --- that of Umar and Marvi. I am sure the road must have been named during one of the PPP governments, because the bureaucrats of Islamabad tend to come up with Sindhi names --- and Hala tiles --- only when PPP is in power. Never otherwise.

I wonder if anyone ever thought of naming a road after Heer or Sohni, the legendary heroines of Punjabi folklore. (They have a road named Waris Shah, though. Waris Shah was the author of Heer.) Imagine a Khayaban-e-Heer, winding through the woods of Shakarparian hills, past the Lok Virsa buildings. Or, a Sohni Avenue going past the Rawal lake. I bet the names would stick in people's mind far more easily than, say, Justice Sir Abdul Rashid Road.

Yes, we have a road named Justice Sir Abdul Rashid Road. I asked a schoolteacher who lives on the same road if she knew who Justice Abdul Rashid was. Her answer was: " Koyee judge vudge ho ga." My guess is that nine out of ten people in Islamabad, under the age of 50, would not know who Justice Abdul Rashid was or what was he known for. And those over the age of 50 wouldn’t care. On the other hand, far more people remember --- and remember kindly --- Justices Cornelius, Kiyani, Hamoodur Rehman and Dorab Patel.

Curiously, we also have a road named Luqman-e-Hakeem Road. If one had to dig up a name from that far back in antiquity then why not a Khawaja Khizar Road? Khizar is equally ancient, if not more, equally mysterious, and even has some association with Islamabad to boot. His shrine (Zinda Pir's bethak) is situated on a hill just off the Margalla Road --- oops! Khayaban-e-Iqbal.

Then we have a road named Ismail Zabeeh Road. This name really stumped me. Someone suggested the road might have been named after prophet Ismail (Ishmael). I doubt it. That would be problematic for two reasons. One, if they had to use a prophet’s name then there are other prophets, of greater historic significance, to choose from. Two, and this is more important, using a prophet’s name for a road would be like touching a hornets’ nest. No one in Islamabad would want to do that. Therefore, you would have to try to find the answer in the textbooks of Pakistan Studies.

All roads are not named after people. Some are named after places or even geologic features, not necessarily in Pakistan. For example, we have a road named after a glacier in the Himalayas. Siachin Road. It was named after Pakistan lost the glacier to the enemy, as if to compensate for the loss.

Then there is a well-known road with a curious name 'I. J. Principal Road'. I have not been able to find out who or what I. J. Principal was or is. I asked several old residents of Islamabad and even googled for an answer, but no luck. The name doesn’t sound like it came up from Pakistan Studies either.

We also have a road named after the Mughal king Aurangzeb. I wonder why do we ignore other great Mughal kings like Babur, Akbar and Shah Jahan. Ditching Jahangir would be understandable because he remained too drunk and involved with women most of the time. Aurangzeb, on the other hand, lived a Spartan life and kept away from wine, women --- and poets.

Ironically, though, joining Aurangzeb Road is a road named after Parveen Shakir. Parveen Shakir, a young woman, was a romantic Urdu poet and hugely popular among younger people. She worked as a civil servant in Islamabad. She died in a car crash, on her way to office, aged 42. The road sign with her name now stands, at about the spot where she died, like a tombstone, as a poignant reminder of the poet’s tragic and untimely death, and her poetry:

Aks-i-khushboo hoon, bikharnay say na rokay koi
Aur bikhar jaayoon tau mujh ko na samaytay koi

Ab tau iss raah say woh shakhs guzarta bhi nahin
Ab kis ummeed kay darwaazay say jhankay koi