Train to Pakistan 2004 - Broad Ways

Prologue:- in the ’50s and ’60s, shipping and commerce worldwide was still controlled by a small handful of entities, widely thought to be hiding behind their links to the Nazis and other defeated countries. With the emergence of "flags of convenience" and allegiances to the new masters, it was back to business as usual. Seafarers were either from the flotsam and jetsam of the richer victorious countries, or drawn from the ranks of the "defeated" European countries. There were those, in addition, placed in senior positions to help crew the ships of the emerging nations.

Things changed around the ’70s, when seafarers from India and Pakistan started breaking out of the shackles imposed on their own confidence. Indo-Pak co-ordination and co-operation could be said to have been at its peak in a variety of activities in the world then. Not just with BCCI. Especially in the Merchant Navy.

The Chinese and South Koreans had still not established any sort of presence over the oceans. The newly wealthy Arab and Persian Gulf countries, as well as other wealthy countries of that era like Nigeria and Nauru (to give just two examples) were buying ships by the dozen. South American rulers and their representatives were using money to control the sealanes worldwide. Ramping up on floating staff was so cut-throat that some of us would walk around with appointment letters and airline tickets from one company to leverage a better deal from the next employer. And Gulf East, courtesy the Gokul Brothers, could continue to absorb as many people from the sub-Continent for their vast fleets, as the certification centres could churn out. Loyalty was for the birds, a generation short on hard currency and freedom was falling in love with dollars and travel.

PNSC (Pakistan National Shipping Corporation) and SCI (Shipping Corporation of India) ships set the standards in those days for the term "ship-shape", and there were more than a few "goodwill inspections" carried out aboard each other’s new ships, berthed alongside at ports all over the world. Followed, ofcourse, by very serious competitions on food and hospitality. Hangovers lasting weekends were not uncommon as Indians and Pakistanis mingled in the backlanes of Liverpool and Hamburg. Some of my best friends, in those days, were Pakistani seafarers. (Why they simply could not play 3-pattee or flash well is an endearing mystery to this day, though.)

On the other hand, European fleets were dwindling at a very rapid rate, flags moving Eastwards just as jobs move nowadays. US flag ships were being shoved back in mothballs after the Vietnam debacle, as a generation of tired young war "veterans" moved around largely unemployed, unwelcome in their own country. And the fastest as well as best ships were being built in Soviet Bloc shipyards for fractions of what they cost elsewhere. South Korea was still to follow Japan.

Somehow, all this has changed over the past two decades. Commerce is controlled by anonymous corporations fronted by investment bankers bent like whirring gnomes in unmarked apartments located within silent buildings with surreal addresses in small semi-independent islands and principalities where confidentiality is another word for legitimising for the extremely rich what is criminal for the rest of the world elsewhere. Africa is a mess, so are many of the Pacific Islands, with both Nigeria and Nauru being basket cases inspite of their natural resources. Khartoum is not even on the map anymore. And as for the Arab/Persian gulf countries, barring Iran, can an Africa-like scenario be far behind?

+++

Sentiment:- the River Nile was far cleaner and prettier as it flowed past Khartoum, the bright city of lights in The Sudan, able to rival Paris and London. The murky and polluted Danube pouring itself into the Black Sea was an example of all that could be wrong with socialism in Eastern Europe. The largest shipping fleets in the world today belong to entities who were very close to the Nazis in the ’40s, and one of them actually started corporate life by using ships registered in the Levant on gun-running expeditions from the Med to Africa, the long way around, since the Suez was closed in the early ’70s. I was briefly associated with one such ship, and it was true that weapons on board were sold, literally, port by port as it sailed around the Dark Continent.

The oldest co-operative movement in India, still existing, was started at Gosaba, Sunderbans, in 1903, by Sir David Hamilton, senior partner with McKinnon and McKenzies. Railways, roads, power grid, airports, none of these symbols of National pride reach this amazingly pretty part of the world, the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna. How the interplay between shipping and commerce keeps this economy afloat is best explained by the cost of a 2 hour ride in a luxury line boat from Basanthi to Gosaba - 7 rupees (14 cents). The country boat costs 3 rupees. (6 cents). Live ducks in bags travel free, unless they quack, in which case a levy of 50 paise per beak applies, added to the bill.

If there is one sentiment I believe in, then that is this - India and Pakistan can, as separate countries but with motive forces together, rule the world.

+++

2000-2200, 17th April’04:- for these two hours, I am able to put the complete Indo-Pak Hindu-Muslim pissing-competition observation-comparision thing behind me.

I am in a super-chilled air-conditioned auditorium full of people sitting everywhere, seeing and being seen, who look and sound like they are from DefCol, New Delhi, talking English and Punjabi in accents I can relate to. The content is not important, often not relevant, the syntax and grammar used with or without lisps define class, style, cash as well as alleged intelligence. I am surrounded by people, young, middle-aged and old, who are obviously from The Correct Set. A long on wind and short on humour speech by the otherwise erudite Director on cell-phone manners falls on instrument clasped ears of people who simply do not seem to know how to set their phones on silent or vibrator modes.

"The Phantom of the Opera" is a play which probably needs no introduction, I can either tell you the story here, or I can take time out to give credit where it is due. I choose the latter, you can surely buy from a wide range of CDs and DVDs. The dance steps, if you wish to, are great value for money in case you wish to amaze other people in nightclubs the world over.

But all the same . . . for almost two hours, we watch and listen to the agonisingly romantic unfolding of love above and below the surface of the world. Set in the late 19th Century, the set designer Sarah Adeel’s work, and the backdrops placed by the Hunerkada Team, Zulfikar Bureny as groupleader, at the Islamabad Club Auditorium, are absolutely gorgeous, vividly exotic. I can still sense the colours used. The same group also presents the human sculptures, which come to life only when the Phantom is into the last verses of his passionate love song. "Up there is all hell", belts out the Phantom from his lair, below. How true?

Hammad Azim as the Phantom is behind a mask throughout, but does he know how to deliver, dance and twirl and put forth stage presence! The two female leads manage to complement each other, the bitchy Carlotta played by Rushika Weerasooriya and the winsome opera singer Christine played by Ambreem Mirza. Of the page girls, the audience favourite was the wonderful drag queen cameo by Jalal Manzar Bashir. Ali Azfar Naqvi plays a pliant manager while Salman Akhtar as the opera owner and husband to Carlotta, strikes the correct chords from the married males present. But best of all, in my opinion, is Raja Zia-ul-Haq as Gerard the composer, probably the one role that inspires every human emotion from onstage and off.

Once again:- buy the CD. See the DVD. If somebody can get hold of the Islamabad version, music set by Marcus Morris, and review it at The Chowk . . .? Somebody from lahore, perhaps?

The advertisements in the little booklet they give before the play are indicative - Serena Hotels helps you experience time, U-Fone pays via SMS, Bank Alfalah is a caring bank, Dolce Vita have a sleep system with imported German springs and a local model in a purple caftan, Nestle hi-calcium and low-fat milk gives you vitality and repeats the message in Urdu with Swiss quality, Nestle once again gives you hi-calcium low fat yogurt as well as butter rozana, and finally Nestle Everyday instant something gives you energy. Next, First Fidelity Leasing Modaraba gets you a new car in just 72 hours, Nirala Sweets are proudly upholding traditions since 1948, Grapevine does something I can not really figure out but it may be an events/PR firm, Pepsi says Pepsi, and Red Earth cosmetics show a lot of leg. The Director pauses as he rattles off the list of sponsors.

The mysterious GG at http://www.rungg.com shows some sad throwback to the ’60s kind of guys next to the Thuraya Satellite Mobile phone for 34k only, after which you are invited to Trust Commercial Bank Limited before you move on to WakGas, the largest and the only ISO 9002 LPG purveyors. Akhtar Ali and Asociates work in a distinguished way to do advisory and sales tax, and Dawn Bread pushes an oversize club sandwich into a little girl’s mouth while Diet Coke promises you that you shall look good and feel even better with 1 calorie. Mobilink will reshape communications, and finally, on the rear cover, apna hai Total shows a young boy too young for tricycles hugging a gas station attendant. That, by the way, is what the "and our sponsors who we love a lot" speech was like, both before and after the show.

Then, in addition, both before and after the show, the Director thanked everybody in the audience he could place, and some he couldn’t, or who were probably not there but would get feedback. Most of all, it did seem as though he was getting a boner for the Islamabad authorities, something about getting permission for this play and hoping for future permission for an amusement park or something like that. Perfectly valid. The butter, I mean, rozana applied on, thick.

Many people who left for a smoke or a bite during the interval were not let back in, and could be heard thumping on the doors, in vain. In the bargain, I got to find myself a seat, which was indeed welcome and comfortable. Next to me, I spotted a distinctly South Indian gentleman and his wife in a sari with bindi. Coincidence once again, but I find myself sitting next to one of the two Indian journalists in Pakistan. We get to whispering with each other, and I suddenly realise that the two rather out-of-place middle aged snoops sitting in the row in front of us are going berserk with their SMS messages.

After the play is over, I leave with the crowd and for some time indulge in the basic sport of people watching. Then I get bored of that, so I walk across to the little lawns in front of the auditorium, which I discover is where the young canoodle. I make a hurried exit before I can be accused of being a lech, and head for the main building. A venerable gentleman at the door, in the manner of all venerable gentlemen at the doors of clubs in our part of the world, gently asks me if I have been entered. In the club register, he means, but dear Reader, i hope you get the deeper meaning?

Not wishing to have my cavities inspected, I go through the same old "I am from India, and my father was from this part of the world, so may I look around these august premises" kind of speech. Venerable gentleman gets off his perch, and I am then taken through a guided tour of billiards room, cards rooms, dining rooms, bars serving non-alcoholic beverages, huge halls which could be meeting rooms with chairs set on the side, and am shown the swimming pool from a distance. I can not make out if it is occupied. To me, it feels like any other upscale club in India, except for the fact that the staff seem to be fiercer in appearance.

I thank the venerable gentleman, who is obviously somebody really powerful within the club, and head back for the parking lot, where I am to be met by LG, who is going to take me for a night drive towards and beyond Pindi. We are going to try to answer the question, "where do the poor people of Pakistan sleep at night, if not on the pavements like in some parts of India?"

+++

Meanwhile, Raghuveer has been out for a night on the town with some young blades. His report may or may not follow, it is the biggest mystery to me in life that children who can otherwise do well in studies and spend hours on the phone, can not seem to put down in words thoughts that their parents want them to. His very brief report is that most of the guys and some of the girls he met were "just like us." There is, however, a great fascination with them for Indian movie starlets and an urge to travel or live abroad. Also, unless you are invited to house parties in Islamabad, your night life can be close to zilch.

+++

LG picks me up. This time he has brought a simple Toyota Corolla sedan, playing Nusrat Fateh on the stereo. The guards at the Islamabad Club are, obviously, on his favourite charity list, so we get another short speech from the Security chief. Bravery of soldiers from both countries is extolled and saluted.

LG & I discuss the opera as we start driving towards Rawalpindi by night. I ask LG if I can drive, he agrees, and for some time we float around Islamabad, before setting off for Rawalpindi. Then we head towards the Murree Road intersection. The change of driving styles is evident the moment we cross into ’Pindi. Ahead, suddenly, there is a police barrier, and it is too late to exchange seats.

+++