Pakistan Travelogue I

Thursday, February 3rd, 2005

I am at Indira Gandhi International Airport arguing with PIA ground staff about wanting to take my luggage as carry on rather than check-in. They are surprised by my vehemence but are ignorant of the bottles of whisky and gin in the bag. After much discussion they allow me to proceed.

I am excited and a bit anxious. This is the first ever visit to the land of my forefathers that anyone in my extended family has taken after the 1947 migration. There is thus an element of personal historic significance and also the rather juvenile desire to kick back and have fun. I enter the PIA aircraft and one look at the flight attendant dispels any notion of Pakistani premium on “fair and lovely” women.

Surprisingly, the person who I think of at this particular moment is a certain Ali from the Bay Area and I cannot wait to tell him of the semblance of PIA flight attendants to those on Indian Airlines. The plane takes of with an invocation to God, not exactly the most trust inspiring thing I think, but who knows, maybe it scores points with the Almighty.

Barely 45 minutes later I am in Lahore. Thick cloud cover prevents me from getting a good aerial view. I am awestruck by the airport itself though. It is clean, very well maintained and by far more attractive than anything I have seen in India.

Though I had promised myself that I would not be comparing India and Pakistan during my visit, I quickly realize the impossibility of abiding by that promise. The alleged Arabization of Pakistan is a myth quickly dispelled within a few moments of being in Lahore and listening to the sweet mellifluous tones of the Punjabi language and accent. I breeze through immigration in a couple of seconds. Police reporting is apparently not a necessity anymore either I am told by the immigration staff.

I grab my bag and walk towards the exit but am asked to put my bag through the x-ray. Uh-oh, trouble!! The bottles of liquor are immediately apparent and I am marched through to a side office by three customs agents. At this time I am sweating bullets. But the customs people are very polite. They tell me politely and firmly that the alcohol is not allowed inside Pakistan. It is for personal consumption I protest meekly. But the personal consumption of two bottles in a four day trip is considered rather unlikely and I am given a receipt with which I can claim the bottles on departure.

As I walk out of the departure lounge, I quickly spot my name on a card. I walk up to the two gentlemen and introduce myself to Sohail and Heera, two Punjabi sons of the soil for whom I will gain much affection and respect in the days to come. They are Rozaiba's cousins though one would not know it from listening to Rozaiba’s anglicized Punjabi and the real thing spoken by these guys.

We sit in the car and go through the cantt area towards Rozaiba’s office at Aiwan. At this point I am getting increasingly impressed by Lahore. The airport was gorgeous to begin with and now the approach to the city is smooth and well lit as well. After experiencing the Kapasheda border and the National Highway heading to Delhi airport, I am comparing Lahore more to Singapore.

It is even more embarrassing when Sohail and Heera tell me that they really want to visit India. I tell them that they are welcome to visit but they need to pare down their expectations from Delhi, especially in terms of infrastructure etc. Obviously as days go on I get a truer and more balanced picture of Lahore compared to the sanitized version presented in the Cantt. But the over all impression of good infrastructure and comparatively less signs of in your face poverty remain.

We head to Aiwan, the building where Rozaiba's office is located. As we go through the lobby of the company offices I am treated to the spectacle of gorgeous Pakistani women dressed in dreamily fashionable kurtis and salwar kameezes. I feel a twinge of jealousy towards Pakistani males and think how undeserving they are of such gorgeous women.

Rozaiba’s arrival disturbs my pleasant reverie and I finally meet the man face to face. This well spoken gentleman is obviously a member of the upper crust of his country and I politely make reference to certain American food stuffs by which his class is known but he vehemently denies it. His point is made in deed rather than talk as I see his interaction with his cousins over the next few days. There is an obvious Urdu-English divide and Rozaiba does seem to bridge it effortlessly.

Rozaiba shows me around his office which is an exact replica of the post modern cubist offices I have seen in the bay area as well as Gurgaon and we then head to Cuckoo’s for dinner. At Cuckoo’s we are joined by my cyber friend Yasser Latif Hamdani. We meet as if we have known each other for years, which in a sense we have, though this is the first time we have actually come face to face. I am struck by the art as well as the architecture of the building. As we go up the winding stairs and head for the roof, I am treated to a spectacular view of the Old City under flood lights. The Lahore fort, Ranjit Singh’s Mausoleum and the Badshahi Masjid look both beautiful and imposing under the soft lighting.

I can’t help but envy the sense of continuity that exists in Lahore and seems to be absent in Delhi. Unlike Delhi, the elite of Lahore seem to maintain a sense of connection with their origins and so there is a certain pride. New Delhi, by contrast, is a city of post partition immigrants and so Old Delhi and New Delhi have lacked any sort of joint identity, a point Khushwant Singh has made in writings.

After I come back to India I am told that there are plans to replicate a Food Street in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, and idea that I hope catches on and lead to revitalizing other parts of the old city as well. There is much that Delhi can learn from Lahore in this respect though the biggest impediment in this case might be the sheer geographical size of the former.

The food at Cuckoo’s was amazing, the specialty being Tawa Chicken. We also ordered some mutton chops, kadahi gosht and chicken seekh. Since it was myth dispelling time, I had to tell the Lahoris that the only items I did not want to order were vegetarian items and fish. It was a genuine pleasure to outdo the Lahoris in terms of eating and I was only midway while the rest had given up. I was unanimously declared the winner in terms of eating the most and I humbly accepted the honor. Post dinner we had the mandatory pan and then headed to Shah Jamal to listen to some dhols and take in the hash laden atmosphere. Why do I remember Bill Clinton here?

As we entered the Darbar of Shah Jamal we found out that Pappu Saeein was in Karachi that Thursday night and so this was a little disappointing. However his disciples kept the ritual going by showing their expertise with the dhols.

The party was only just beginning as the people poured in and made a circle behind the white line while the dhol players and the dancers did the rounds incrementally increasing the pace towards a feverish pitch. The place was full of interesting characters, from young men dressed in bright red Kurtas to a Fakir with a clawed hand and the sprinkling of Goras and one solitary rather incongruous Sikh. The smell of hashish was heavy in the air and the general atmosphere was one of easy going camaraderie. The dhols and the crowd were in the courtyard. The actual darbar was a fairly sober place and there were quite a few devout people rapt in prayer. I went up with Heera and Rozaiba and had some nan and halwa and also paid respects at the Dargah as well.

Poor Yasser was getting terribly bored by this manifestation of Pakistan and he was itching to get out. So, after much complaining at his end we left and to see some other landmarks that Yasser had promised. He took us straight to what he seemed to be waiting all along to show. Gulberg-- specifically the Main Boulevard – a beautiful tree lined streets decorated with Basant paraphernalia. He pointed out at a big screen TV at some public place, and in quick succession stores of Rolex and other brand names like Nike and Adidas. After reminding Yasser that I lived in the States and not a village in Bihar, he relented and promised to wind down after showing me one last landmark. I sat up with some expectation and the car pulled up to a Dunkin Donuts.

By this time I was suitably miffed and all the Pakistanis were rolling about in laughter. It turns out that I was being given the landmark tour to disprove the opinions of another Indian who had been rather uncharitable towards this fair city. After thinking some of my own rather uncharitable thoughts about this Indian guy for my being put through this experience, we finally decided to call it a night. Yasser dropped the rest of us at Rozaiba’s place.

* * *

Friday February 4th, 2005

The phone rings at 6.00 am and it is Haroon Ellahi on his way over for our day trip to the Potohar area. I rush to the bathroom to get dressed and Rozaiba goes down to meet these guys. By 6.20 am we are on the road. Lahore is very peaceful this early and there is hardly any traffic. We hit the motorway in 15 minutes flat and Mohammad Khan the driver immediately speeds up to 120 KM an hour, the maximum limit. The ride is so smooth that I might as well be driving across Texas rather than the Punjab.

The Urdu lettering on the highway signs are the only reminder of the country I am in. I happily settle in and peer out of the window taking in the scenery while listening to Haroon’s selection of Buddha Bar music on his IPod. The scenery is nice and pastoral and within the next three hours we flit across the three rivers of west Punjab and approach the Kalar Kahar exit. There is a bit of a delay at the exit because we had lost our toll pass but that too is sorted within a few minutes.

We took the road to Choa Saidan Shah and drove to Ketas also known as Ketas Raj by the Hindus. This town has quite a few temples ranging from the 6th to the 10th century in antiquity, dedicated largely to the Hindu god Shiva. I had been told that the temple town was also important because the Pandavas had stayed there during their exile. Apparently Ketas was a major pilgrimage town before partition but have obviously been reduced in importance since then. The temples are clearly visible from the road and are also approachable by car.

With little effort we found Ramzan the employee responsible for the general upkeep of the place. He volunteered to show us around and took us inside the main temples. The general area was in a state of neglect and disrepair but it was obvious that some work was being done to clean up and repair the facades. Ramzan told us that the area had basically been private property of an Army brigadier after partition and the temples had been in a state of neglect.

The government had taken over the area a few years back and had also released funds to get begin some repair and maintenance work. The architecture was interesting though it took some bravery on our part to squeeze through the dark and narrow passages to access the insides as well as the roof the temple. Whereas one can make out the paintings and sculptures, what did leave a bad taste was the systematic defacing of every single rendition of the gods and goddesses.

This was not the random action of a mob but a deliberate act. I asked Ramzan about this and though he was not clear on the details, he said that this had been done while the land was under the private ownership of the local feudal. I am not sure if anything can be done to reclaim or recover the artwork, but it did seem worthwhile to preserve what remains as best as possible.

After spending a few hours at Ketas, we decided to head towards Bhaun which is the birthplace of my father and our ancestral town for generations before. The desire to connect with this aspect of my heritage had been the major motivating factor for my trip to Pakistan and I was also weighed by a sense of destiny in being the first from my extended family to visit this place after partition.

We headed back towards the motorway and then went across it, taking the GT Road up to Chakwal. Bhaun is located on this road, coming up about 12 kilometers before Chakwal city. The road here is a winding one and rather picturesque though looks can be deceiving as we crossed a truck that had gone belly up. Since it was early afternoon by now and we had been on the road for a while, the plan was to stop for lunch first.

We had hoped to find a nice restaurant but I guess that was hoping for too much. What we had to settle for was a typical rural dhaba, right on GT Road, with charpoys and matkas (clay urns) for water. Somehow it fit the moment perfectly and so did the homely food of beef curry, dal, vegetables and tandoori roti. An unforgettable experience was the devotional Punjabi music playing in the background.

The music itself was quite different from typical Punjabi pop and though the lyrics were in Punjabi there was a fair bit of Arabic thrown in as well. Mohammad Khan explained to us that the songs were about the martyrdom of Ali and the dhaba owners were playing it because Muharram was just a few days away. I had never heard anything quite like it before and apparently neither had Haroon but both of us agreed it was singularly magnificent.

Bhaun can be described as a rather large village or a very small town. I had been told that it had a significant Hindu population and the town had diminished quite a bit after partition. All I had as a guide to what existed during pre-partition days was a hand written map drawn by my father’s uncle. It detailed a graveyard, some schools, a road to the railway station and also “Vohrayan di galli” (Street of Vohras) which was populated by members of the Vohra clan including my great grandfather and his brother and cousins.

While driving into Bhaun we noticed a rather large graveyard right away and thought that it would be a good place to stop and ask questions. We met an old gentleman who clarified that the graveyard was a new one and after looking at my map, volunteered to take us to the old part of the town. While driving there he told us that he had been a resident of Bhaun since 1959, and had moved here from Kashmir. Apparently, during Ayub Khan’s time, Kashmiris affected by the building of dams had been moved to Bhaun and had been given plots there.

We reached the old section of Bhaun and the Hindu architecture was immediately apparent. While roaming around there and asking about the old Hindu school and buildings, a passerby volunteered to take us to the Lambardar of the village. The Lambardar was a man in his late seventies and had lived in Bhaun all his life and would probably be the one to know about the old days. Thanks to that passerby’s help, I had the good fortune of meeting Riaz Mohammad Khokhar.

Riaz Mohammad Khokhar was sitting and sunning himself in the sun chatting with some people when I approached him. I told him about myself, that I was a Vohra whose family was native to Bhaun before the partition, and was seeking the area where the Vohras used to live. Riaz Mohammad listened to me, looked at the map and contemplated for a while and then started reminiscing about the various Vohras he knew which included my grand uncle as well as other Vohras whose names had been given to me by my relatives in India.

Hearing their names from his lips I could barely control myself with excitement and told him that yes, these were the very people I was talking about and did he know the street in which they used to live? Riaz Mohammad's answer was in the affirmative. He was a Khokhar and the street of the Khokhars was adjacent to the street of the Vohras and he would be happy to show me around.

All of us got back in the car and headed back approximately to where the Kashmiri man had taken us in the first place. We parked in front of a high school, which as per Mr. Khokhar was originally the middle school as shown in my hand drawn map. We went past the High School and entered a small “galli” which as it turned out was the “Vohrayan di Galli” of erstwhile years.

He started pointing out the houses of the various Vohras who lived there and their occupations, two brothers who were tongawallas (horse cart drivers) another who was an Arzi Nawees (a clerk of sorts) and also Moti Ram Vohra who was a “master” as teachers are known in India. This house was my great-granduncle’s: his son was the one who had drawn the hand written map in the first place. From there I could trace easily the approximate location of my great-grandfather’s house which was given in the map as diagonally opposite.

My feeling, as I stood there in that street, is hard to articulate. I was standing in a street where my ancestors had lived for many years, where my father had been born and where the connection had been terminated abruptly due to forces which the people living here could not even have comprehended.

Amazingly, I was not the only one feeling this way. My presence had an obvious emotional impact on Riaz Mohammad Khokhar as well. He told me that this particular village had seen none of the orgy of violence that had swept across Punjab in 1947, that the religious communities had lived here in peace throughout.

He even remembered the day when the Muslims of the village had escorted all the Hindu and Sikh families to the railway station with the expectation that they would return in a few months after the violence died down. Instead, I was the first Hindu to come back to this village after 58 years.

Riaz Mohammad Khokhar succinctly described the tragedy of Punjab in one sentence. “Huqoomatan badal dee aan, awam kaddi nahi badli; lekin pehli waar awaam tak badal gayee” which roughly translates into “ Rulers keep changing, the common people remain the same; this was the first time that the population itself was transformed.”

The ride back to Lahore was a quiet one. It had been a long day and all of us were tired and so there wasn’t much conversation. As Haroon disconnected his IPOD and dozed off, Mohammad Khan put some Punjabi music on. I think he had been waiting for Haroon to go to sleep to avail himself the opportunity.

We rode back in silence: my mind was a jumble of thoughts as I gazed out at the agricultural expanse outside. Would I get an opportunity to come and see this place again? Would those of the older generation, the people who had been born into this land, get the opportunity to complete the circle of their lives and visit what they once belonged to? I hoped for their sakes that they would.

I too slept off after a while and was woken up by the clamor and noise of Lahore city. What a different world it seemed now compared to the pastoral quiet we had left behind.

Haroon had to go to his school for an evening event so I decided to go to Rozaiba’s office. He had no plans for the evening so we decided to have a quiet meal and also do some shopping. We went to a restaurant called Crow Eater’s for a meal and then visited the Food Street in Old Anarkali for falooda.

I was keen to visit the well known Anarkali bazaar and buy some gifts for the people back home and also buy a shalwar kameez for myself. In this expedition I had the misfortune of being accompanied by Rozaiba whose shopping expertise was akin to the European tourists that frequent Delhi’s various bazaars. Within seconds of listening to his anglicized Urdu, the shopkeepers would identify us as a mark and raise their prices.

It was at this point that my own nationality came up as a pleasant and welcome surprise. As soon as the person at the counter would know of my Indian nationality the prices would drop and cold drinks would be ordered. The experience was entirely a very pleasant one though I had a hard time wondering if these wonderful people would get such a similar level of hospitality were they to visit India. Change can certainly come from within and I knew that my own experiences had fundamentally altered how I would forever perceive this country and its inhabitants.