Train to Pakistan 2004: Just Another Touristy Day.

Veeresh Malik
May 21, 2004


Prologue the ease and range of intermodal options with which we the people of our sub-Continent can now in and out of our own
sub-Continent seems to be inversely proportional to the advancements in
similar for us in the rest of the world. .

Till even a few decades ago, we could buy a seat on a bus from London to
via Istanbul, or hitch-hike to Kuwait if an old Jawa bought for
scrap value packed up somewhere in Iran. If you felt the urge to go to
Europe or the Far East or Africa, you could easily book deck or cabin
space on a variety of cargo-cum-passenger ships, and motivate a look at
the Suez Canal or Malacca Straits on the way. Trains were working their
way into West and East , as well as , and incredible as it
may sound today, a train-steamer linkage was the best option for getting
to Ceylon. Burma, ofcourse, was a few days boat ride away.

And then ofcourse, there were those who could afford cars. Not the
reliable and efficient ones from our current era, but a vast variety
without authorised manufacturer provided service back-up en route,
complete with punctured tyres and overheated engines, which made it
through to Tibet and beyond, or across on one side or
Burma on the other. Without the benefit of butyl rubber tubes and
coolant in closed circuit radiator systems.

Another option. Not just for pilgrims, but also for migrants, sailing
across the oceans to nearby maritime countries by taking a working berth
on a "dhow" or other form of sailing boat was just perfect. You got to
learn to fish, and live off the elements, too.

Today, the default option is "only by air", and for anybody who has
friends and in or , the absolute sheer difficulty
in securing a seat in and out, especially as this article hits the
screens, destroys most of the fun of . What use is this evolution
of to me, if I can not have a choice? Doesn’t it hit others
too, this creeping we seem to be inflicting on ourselves? It
hits me, sure, when I land at any or American or Austral-Asian
airport, or even African airport, and realise that I am not bound
anymore by an "only by air" option.

What’s more, how do I really educate myself if I don’t ?

+++

Sentiment yes, till as recently as the years between the First and
Second World Wars, used to export engineering goods as well as
foodgrains to destinations like the Americas. And now I see how
engineering products and processed foods from are making their
mark all over the world, again. Not just the automobile components and
consumer goods, but Paan Parag and also Amul milk products, to give two
branded examples.

And if the Western World feels that Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola are valid
consumer products, then what’s wrong with branded tobacco powder from
?

+++

pre-Dawn, 0330-0800, 17th April’04.

I wake up very, very, early while Raghu is still fast asleep, to keep an
appointment with yet another taxi driver, a Punjabi one this time. Bathe
with a hotel soap made in Tibet, a first for me. Walk quietly out of the
hotel lobby side door in the dark, while the lone night clerk is fast
asleep on a settee. Rendezvous a couple of hundred metres away with
"HP". Another Suzuki-800, gas and petrol options. Quite old, but
maintained well and kept clean, the engine sounds very smooth, on song.
You know that this is a car that has been through a lot, but will run
forever too.

There are many personal targets to try to achieve in the next three
hours. I need to try to meet with the driver’s , scared to admit
whether they were Hindus or Sikhs before . I need to try to
visualise why the poetry from my forefather’s days sang more about
and joy and the Jhelum and the Ravi and the Chenab and less about Mecca
/ Medina / Amritsar / Patna / Banaras / Hardwar / Jerusalem. And I need
to be driving a car on the GT Road, not some impersonal motorway, as we
head for a point close to the Cease-Fire Line, about an hour and a half
roughly South East of Pindi.

Whatever be the "HP" subscribes to currently, the driving style is
pure -wish Punjabi. One hand on the steering wheel, and the other
in a combination of roles, from to cell-phone network seeking to
changing gears to fiddling with stuff on the dashboard to repeatedly
trying to make the stereo shriek louder. In between there are the
eye-contact challenges to other road users as well as the flashing light
and hand signals about the presence or not of a variety of "authorities"
on the road. He tries to overtake overladen trucks from either side as
well as underneath, at which point I ask him to let me drive. Everybody
and everything else on the road is a "putroh".

I can write a complete novel about this brief drive on the GT Road, but
shall still not be able to do .

In brief, I note that the level of creativity displayed in , in
adapting three-wheelers, 4-wheelers and larger commercial vehicles for
specific usages, is simply amazing. Maintenance is obviously a big
thing, even the oldest of trucks and buses based on long-defunct Bedford
models seem to be in great shape. There is this fascination for washing
and keeping wheel rims in pristine condition, even if the truck has just
come through muddy routes. And as for the engines, they do seem to work
on them in . I ask to see a few at a rest-stop, the true litmus
test of pride in ownership of a truck or a bus is to look below the
hood. Drivers would walk around and show me how dry the exhaust pipes on
their trucks were, that is the level of pride we are talking about here.

There is no better way of making friends with the salt of the roads on
the sub-Continent than sharing a glass of tea while exchanging notes on
overloading capabilities and pulling powers on steep gradients. I learnt
this from a Japanese engineer who used to work for Suzuki, in and
, by the way.

Older two-wheelers in up-country , on the other hand, appear to
be crudely re-structured and badly maintained. One reason could be that
the basic 2-stroke engine is now very cheap worldwide, does not require
much maintenance, and is probably treated like a disposable ball pen.
Use and throw away. This, by the way, is at variance with the
exquisitely maintained new bikes I have seen in and Islamabad.

Deal with "HP" is that at a point about an hour out of Pindi, we shall
attempt to turn off on to a side road connecting towards the forgotten,
fabled and restricted "Mughal Road" that late night stories told me
moved along the West Bank of the Jhelum. The reality of being so close
to the cease-fire line hits you when a cousin of the driver meets up
with us soon after the turn-off, and tells us that we better not try to
head East of GT Road today. Checking is on, and in addition, I am
wearing trousers. Traffic rules in this area are apparently so strict
that even fitting a stereo in a taxi can lead to a challan. Leave alone
the documents required to be there in the first case.

We head back for Pindi. On the way back, "HP" and his young cousin and I
are discussing as well as the subject of second and third
generation converts in , and we come to an agreement that while
economic, geograpical and political power play a role in the
demographics of , at heart and in our minds most of us are
animists and nature worshippers anyway, seeking a happy and forgiving
. We leave it at that. Frankly, as i am told, there is no shortage of
shrines to holy men of all sorts on the roads in , either.

The other rather deep insight I get from this short deviation is that
within the 2nd and 3rd generation converted community in , there
seems to be a great desire to know about their roots. They seem to be
convinced, says "HP", that a lot of the reports on bravery by both the
attackers and attacked were just so much hot air. Conversion in
was often a case of getting illiterates to recite kalmas and then
forcing beef into starving mouths on tired bodies already looted,
running or hiding for their and their ’s lives from mobs. If so
many were killed, Malik Sahib, where are the bones, asked "HP", and as a
taxi-driver, he seemed to know, that even now they were discovering
bones in wells and riverbeds in of Greeks who had died
centuries ago in the Indus Valley, and Jews in Europe slaughtered during
the Second World in kilns. Where were the bones, Malik Sahib, in
and , if so many perished in ? And if all of them did
not perish, then where did they go, more importantly, who took their
properties?

On the way back, just on the GT Road itself, before Pindi, I am shown a
huge big new "Defence Colony" coming up. "HP" tells me about the
foreigners who used to come here for archeological digs. The land here
was known as sacred from the days of the Buddhists, there is supposed to
be a very big Buddhist stupa nearby, to before Christ, but we
cannot go there either, all Defence land. Now there are bulldozers here,
digging foundations over history.

Partition, according to "HP", was more a case of stronger people from
within the community and from within the , forcing the weaker
out, rather than a religious exchange. Exchanging the weak and poor of
one side for the other, while the rich grabbed whatever they wanted
anyways. Knowing a bit about the subject from the end of things, I
tend to agree. Here again I find that particular sentiment - those
impacted by partition simply don’t want to lead to it again. Those who
to benefit from such fissures, however, seem to want more. There is
a mathematical truth in the way "HP" explains it to me. "HP" drops me
off on the road outside the hotel.

+++

0830 - 1300, 17th April’04 Raghu is just stirring, and enjoying the
multiple channel "V" options on the hotel cable . I am going through a
second wash-up, non air-con on the GT Road is, well, dusty.
Reception has sent up copies of all three English newspapers, and the
headlines are full of the results. There is much angst about the
way the Pakistanis have played, and some of the sarcasm is terribly
excellent in its wit. There has been another blast in Peshawar, it
seems. Cinema hall owners in the area are protesting at the lack of
business, and have stopped using their air-conditioners.

Breakfast is, once again, divine ultra-butter soaked parathas with thick
omlettes. Regardless of how they are spelt, we go through two rounds
each, washed down with generous helpings of tea. We present the staff of
the hotel with a box each of kaju (cashew) katli and anjir burfee. The
anjir (fig) sweets, especially, seem to have them very delighted. There
is a joy in giving and receiving over here, at the Islamabad Regency
Hotel.

Morning, upto noon, is "free time" for Raghu and me to go walk about
downtown Islamabad. From the hotel, we take a taxi past our now dear old
friend, the venerable , now no longer sporting a garish
nuclear weapon pointed at, well, us. From there we head for this lovely
park, at night it looked very well lit and beautiful, and by day is
indeed clean and expansive too. But highly emply, still too early. The
taxi then drops us at Melody, the first of the many "Blue Areas" that we
shall visit that day. (Note:- Blue area is the commercial area within
each "block" in Islamabad)

At Melody we check our mail, 25 rupees gets you an hour of decent speed
broadband in a clean web cafe. Nothing much happening at Melody, a
couple of bored carpets sellers in a huge shop are having a lazy day,
and invite us in for a cuppa when we tell them we are from Hind. The tea
is early morning kahwa, rich, thick and ultra sweet. The conversation is
tinged with sorrow, as they speak about relatives in Srinagar. The
humour is about how Indian journalists have been tramping all over the
country for the last few months, and as yet their sale of carpets has
not increased.

From there, after being shown the cinema that was burnt down less than
a year ago as though it is yet another tourist attraction, we head for
the next Blue Area on our "must visit" list, and that is Abpara. On the
way there, we walk past what appears to be the holding grounds for a
night market, with stalls going through the complete repertoire of
and other pavement kind of shopping. For the first and only time in
Islamabad, we see an open drain full of garbage, blocked and choked
solid with polythene. Sure enough, markets are the same everywhere.

Next to this open market is a bus stand, mini-buses and vans headed
North, it appears. Traffic police here seem to have an ongoing losing
battle as small vans block bigger mini-buses which in turn don’t let the
full size Varan buses past them. I take time out to discuss water-melons
with a huge big man selling them from a small Maruti pick-up truck. His
price is about 15 rupees a kilo. I ask him why they are so expensive, he
asks me how much I am willing to pay. I realise that I am about to buy a
water melon I don’t need, so I beat a hasty retreat while the price
drops sharply, in loud Punjabi, behind me.

And before we know it, walking through row after row of quiet tree-lined
streets with huge houses set back, bingo, we are at Abpara.

One side of the front of this stretch has lots of automobile dealers.
And big shops. And hotels. Further up there seem to be agents and
the Hotel Ambassador. At the rear there are these shops selling
everything. I wish that we were out shopping, we would have had things
to buy here, and not just dry fruit. There seem to be a large amount of
handicraft items available here, but since I do not know anything about
the subject, I just let it ride.

And then there is the . Everything. Tandoori, curried, fried,
coloured, be they jalebis or chicken or mystery meat, they are all
there. This concept of having the butcher, the sweetmeat and the meat
all within the same shop seems standard in , but is something
not so common to us Indians.

With the freedom of on his side, Raghu goes at the , fingers
and mouth. With the girth of age on my side, I leave him be, set up an
appointment to meet at a particular shop called "Illusions" at "
Super" after an hour, and move forward on my own. I am keen to get a
closer look at the car showrooms, and check out the cars as well as
their prices. Well, prices are between 50% and double more than what the
equivalent models sell for, on the road, in , all other things
being equal. The tyres on all the new cars are not Indian. The tyres on
most of the in-use cars parked on the street appear to be Indian.

At some spots, I am approached by people sitting behind type-writers
offering their services for visa applications. Most shops and
establishments have at least one heavily armed guard parked in front,
and at some places, armed guards seem to be awaiting movements, standing
bye in cars parked outside. By contrast, there are very few uniformed
policemen or type cars visible.

Raghu and I connect again, and decide to move on towards and
Super, the swanky Blue Area. For that, we need to hop into
another cab. By now, Raghu is negotiating taxi prices, and he does
manage to bargain well.

Here again, we separate, agreeing to meet at Pizza Hut for lunch. I move
around the bookshops, Raghu moves around the stores. I continue to
be amazed at the high price of books and periodicals in . At
every bookshop I end up meeting owners who seem to know more about Old
, thanks to their regular visits, than I do.

At Pizza Hut (or is it Pizza King?) we meet up, grab a quick bite of
some ersatz Italian-American stuff, and write good things about them in
their service report. There is a Lime Juice-cum-sprite-cum Rooh-Afza
kind of combo drink which is very tasty indeed, so we have seconds. We
are now ready for the next part of our day, which is to head towards
Murree, to visit Lawrence School.

+++

1300-1600, 17th April’04 we reach a group of taxi drivers, and
negotiate a round trip rate of 800/- rupees for a return trip to Murree
and back. The question is on who will pay for the tolls and taxes. The
negotiation and discussions that go with it end up involving,
invariably, every taxi driver at that location. It is finally decided
that this rate is not going to include tolls and taxes due, but any
costs incurred by the driver due to challans will be his responsibility.
That’s fine by us. To some extent, this is going to be the pinnacle, the
crest of our trip.

We settle into our taxi, which instead of heading towards the exit from
town, is signalled to follow by another taxi, and heads for a small
parking lot next to a filling station a few hundred metres further up.
And comes to a dead halt, while the other taxi stops next to us. Two
smart middle-aged men, wearing blue-grey shalwar kameez, beckon me
outside, and identify themselves as being from "intelligence". They seem
to know that we are Indians, but do not ask for . They simply
and very politely urge me not to head for Murree. That’s it, nothing
else. No threats, no impoliteness, nothing other than a very firm
statement. "Aap Murree naa hee jayen to achaa hai."

Raghu vacates our taxi, and we walk back towards Super. Raghu and
I simply do not discuss this event again. We hoist another couple of
colas, stroll around some more, move past the rather empty "designer"
boutiques in the area and the jewelry shops with their "Credit Card Not
Accepted Here" signboards, and end up at Niralas, where we look at the
wares on display. But we have lost all appetite, and suddenly we are
looking at every shadow with suspicion.

Lawrence School, Murree, would have been a good visit, but if the route
or environs therein are "sensitive", then being stopped before we got
there was probably somebody’s idea of being decent to us. From now on,
the fear of being tagged by snoops is with us all the time. .

Since there is nothing much to do, we head back for the hotel. We’ve
lost whatever wish we had to grab a nap, so Raghu connects on the phone
with some buddies he has made in Islamabad over the internet, and heads
back to some and pool parlour palace kind of place in town. I
decide to see what sort of joys the Golf Club and the Islamabad Club,
nearby, can offer me. Frankly, at this juncture, I can only wish for a
stiff vodka, but that is a bit difficult.

+++

1600-1900, 17th April’04 on the way, I cross Club Road to head for the perimeter of the lake. An extremely well decked out "hill" bus, was
probably a Nissan at some stage, full forward cab with short chassis and
narrow body, is parked on the side of the road, and in the manner of
these things, is being put through repairs on site. The drive shaft is
out, and the shattered crown is being replaced. There are three young
men hanging around, awaiting the spares that go with the job, and we get
talking. I am fascinated by the low windows, slightly below thigh level
actually.

Their bus usually operates between Rawalpindi and Muzzafarabad, but
sometimes goes beyond. It is shod with Ceat and Apollo tyres, so we
discuss Indian spare parts and Tata buses. We also discuss, what else,
. I tell them I would like to visit Muzzafarabad one day, they
invite me there and then, and offer to escort me there as well as drop
me back too, with guarantees. I tell them that I was unable to go even
up to Murree earlier that day; they tell me that if I want they will
take me to Srinagar. We leave it at that.

I walk along the periphery of the lake. It is clean and desolate. I
spend more time here than I think, and it is now getting even lonelier.
Some people I met in the hotel lobby have mentioned that it may be a
dangerous place, I don’t know. In the distance I can see people playing
golf and cars arriving as well as leaving. I change my mind, go back to
the hotel, and have a bath. I have to get dressed, properly, for an
opera. White shirt button-down collar and black trousers.

The person on duty at the reception counter is now a delightful young
lady. She, as well as her male colleague, have a million questions about
. Many of these queries are about . Luckily, in the bunch of
magazines that we have bought and brought along, is the latest issue of
Filmfare. Earlier in the day I had observed that the same issue sold for
350/- rupees at "Book Fair" in Islamabad. So I go to the room and
present it to her. She is hesitant, so I need to go through the
motions, wherein I tell her that she is like my daughter and her mother
is like my sister so won’t she please accept this from me?

+++

1900-2000, 17th April’04 getting dark, and the hotel staff who are now like local guardians are increasingly worried that I plan to walk all
the way to the Islamabad Club. "Not safe, not safe". By now I am getting
used to this concern from Pakistanis, harking back to how paranoid I
used to get when escorting Pakistani friends around in .So I need
to do this gracefully, and thank them very much for their concern, but
the weather is just about getting to be extremely pleasant, and I simply
need to walk in the lovely breeze. One has heard about the pleasant
Pindi weather for a few generations now. Time to get, inhale, some of
it. Besides, I don’t really want to sit behind a motorcycle.

The Islamabad Club would be, what, about 3 kilometres away, say 20
minutes brisk walk? No problems, and off I go, at a bit of a brisk trot.
There is no pavement on the side I am walking on, but I stay at the
edge. The traffic, in any case, is always on the fast lane.

A few minutes later, and I realise that I may have made a small error of
judgement. Saturday evenings are, probably, drag racing day for the
hormone induced male in Islamabad, and Club Road is where the
action is. Suddenly there are cars racing past, weaving in and out of
the slower regular traffic, and some of them pass too close for comfort.
Then for a few minutes, , and again, the next wave of kamikaze
drivers.

I give up, wave at the next taxi going past, and end up paying a lot of
money for a short ride in the evening. Taxi drivers in Islamabad have,
obviously, caught on. I get dropped by the driver on the road itself,
outside the gate, as he says he is in a hurry.

At the gate to the Islamabad Club, I have a short and deep to the heart
kind of interlude with the (heavily armed, dignified) guards. There is
this little formality of a car number, which I do not have, as I am
walking in. They then ask me if I am a member, to which I say I am not,
but I have come for the opera. They ask me to show me the invitation, I
tell them that I do not have one but will surely get one inside. They
look doubtfully at me, and finally ask me where I have come from. The
moment I say "", it is like khul-ja-simsim (open sesame), broad
grins, salutes, twirling moustaches and barriers lifted very very
immediately.

The chief guard comes rushing out from inside his office, a very elderly
but thoroughly fit gentleman with a handlebar moustache and paratrooper
wings as well as three rows of medals, escorts me to the entrance of the
auditorium, plants himself in front of the Director, Shah Sharabeel, and
announces loud enough for everybody there, waiting for the Sri Lankan
Ambassador incidentally, that a very honoured guest from has
arrived.

This, by the way, is a Saturday evening at the Islamabad Club. They have
not had an opera here in a while now. The auditorium is absolutely full,
and there are throngs of very "society-page-3" people outside trying to
figure out ways to get in. Shah Sharahbeel, who is from , grabs my
hand and lets go a short speech on how honoured guests from are
his muses, and I feel very bad, there and then, for all the bad
thoughts I have had about . I am then presented with an invitation
card on the spot and handed over to a very diligent young lady with
instructions to help me find a seat.

Once in, we realise that the hall is very full, people are already
sitting down in the aisles, so I thank my escort, and head for the last
row, where I plan to sit on the steps with my back resting on the wall.
With a crowd of people in an auditorium, I am listening to classic rock,
waiting for the opera to begin. I am feeling good, the crowd is tapping
back to from an era, the ’70s, that I can relate to. I have not
heard the Moody Blues and The Who in an auditorium with good acoustics
in a while now. All I can say at this stage is that the audio in this
auditorium is superb. It is, in fact, simply excellent.

We wait for curtains. Like all things in our part of the world, the
crowd, and I, figure out that . . . we all wait for the Chief Guest.

Middle epilogue how would we get the production of The Phantom of The Opera to ?

+++