tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68664070531855576262024-02-19T23:19:59.890-08:00Dood Pattilori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.comBlogger225125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-67741898419066219602011-10-17T23:51:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.883-07:00Derawar Fort<div align="justify">The historic Derawar Fort, enormous and impressive structure in the heart of Cholistan desert, is rapidly crumbling and if the immediate preventative measures are not taken, the edifice will be destroyed and the historians, researchers and sightseers deprived of the view of the legacy of the bygone era. Like so many other historic sites in the country, Derawar Fort is yet another sign of old times we are poised to loose forever due to the apathy of those who are responsible for its upkeep and preservation.</div><div align="center"><a href="http://imageshack.us/"><img alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" border="0" src="http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8593/derawarep6.png" /></a></div><div align="justify"><br />Before it disappears, once again, I was on my way to Cholistan: the place that is crucible of one of the world's oldest civilization, where some of the past secrets are hidden, where history is still active.<span class="fullpost"><br /></span></div><div align="center"><a href="http://imageshack.us/"><img alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" border="0" height="302" src="http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/6879/d2wj3.png" style="height: 254px; width: 386px;" width="442" /></a></div><div align="justify"><br />Derawar is the oldest fort and the only perennial water-hole in the area. But a visit to the Fort is painful for those locals or foreigners who value the heritage and other signs of past eras. They are disappointed with its fate and neglect of its wonders. Neither is it being maintained as a tourists’ attraction, for which it has good potential, nor as a historical and archaeological monument. Result: the days do not seem far when the Fort would be converted into a sand dune. Main entrance and ceiling have developed cracks. Most of its buildings and portions, which had been an abode of the Abbasi Nawabs, are already in ruins. The three-storey fort is now without any storey. There are also ditches in it which can be dangerous for anyone not walking with care. At least the boundary walls and the main gate of the fort can still be preserved so that something is left as an evidence of the past. The monument has architectural, historic, documentary, and symbolic values. Remain of the monument have to be preserved and saved from total ruination, a danger they are facing at present.<br /><br />The Fort was built by Deoraj, a prince of Jaisalmir. It was in possession of royal family of Jaisalmir when it was captured by Abbasis in 1735. As per Bahawalpur Gazetteer (1904), in 1747 the Fort slipped from the hands of Abbasis in the reign of Nawab Bahawal Khan due to his pre-occupations at Shikarpur. Nawab Mubarak Khan took the stronghold back in 1804.<br /><br />The lofty and rolling battlements made of thin red bricks, ten on each side of the fort are visible from miles around. The circumference wall is about 40 meters high. There are two old vintage guns mounted on pedestals in the dusty courtyard of the Fort. On the western side are small under ground cells now infested with bats and wood being eaten by termite. As per the fable the secret to change metal into gold was told to Prince Deoraj by his guru Yogi and there still is a treasure hidden somewhere in the Fort. (This idea keeps coming to me again and again: what if I can find the hidden treasure?) Nawab Bahawal Khan constructed a mosque with cupolas and domes of exquisite marble in 1849. It is a replica of Moti Mosque, Delhi. As per the legend there are some graves near the fort, which are said to be of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the other Muslim reformers who rendered great services to spread the light of divine Islam in the area. A few hundred yards from the Fort in a hall with engraved doors in witch Abbasi Amirs and their families are buried: Nawab Muhammad Bahawal Khan (2nd), Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan (2nd), Nawab Muhammad Bahawal Khan (3rd), Nawab Fateh Muhammad Khan, Nawab Muhammad Bahawal Khan (4th), Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan (4th), Nawab Muhammad Bahawal khan (5th), and Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan (5th), Sahibzada Abdullah son of Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan (5th), Rahim Yar Khan son of Nawab Sadiq Muhammad Khan (4th) are prominent among those buried there. There are graves of the ladies of the Abbasi family in the north-western corner.</div><div align="justify"><br />On the way to Derawar, pass Shahi Wala and Burji 42 Hazar and start thinking of Cholistan as an idea for which no language has an apt word, something waiting to be discovered in some out-of-the-way place, difficult to access, if one is enterprising enough to go out and look; an indefinite thing, taking different shapes in the minds of different individuals according to their interests and wishes. </div><div align="justify"><br />“Derawar itself is considered as pre historic and pre Harappan settlement. It survived not only during pre Harappan period but also afterwards,” says contemporary historian and researcher Nurul Zaman Ahmad Auj, “The fact that it was the first settlement of Indo-Scythian race also points to the antiquity of the place. The settlement existed when Alexander crossed the Hakra River near Derawar. It was one of the important boarder posts of the caravan route and lastly was the capital of Bahawalpur State. Abbasi rulers turned the Hindu city into a perfect Muslim metropolis.”<br /><br />Leaving the road and the four wheels driven jeep at Derawar, it was while exploring beyond that I found a few of the desert realities. Aside from wildlife, scenery, big solitude, and nomad culture, Cholistan also offer plenty of wind. The rippled shadows of the landscape dissolve at midday, and then deepen again in the afternoon. You find the sense of isolation. The faint white ridge line that marks the far edge drops beneath the horizon and one finds himself adrift in a sterile sea of yellow dunes. Inspired by the gorgeous absence of everything but curves and light, get in the utter emptiness of the landscape and vividly see slight details: telltale irregularities in the texture of the sand; the metallic ping of the odd pebbles beneath feet; a lone big black ant marching up a dune, its abdomen tilted skyward, lizard (Kirla) raising head to look at you from the distance and then rushing to the sanctuary of a bill in hurry, camels marching in perfect order or grazing on shrub called Katran. There is a complete lack of odour in the air.</div><div align="justify"><br />There is an inland dry delta southwest of Fort Derawar. Some researchers are of the opinion that this is the place where the Hakra River ended centuries ago. The presence of the delta suggests that all, or most, of the River’s water was sopped up in this area where it would have been used for intensive agriculture and other pastoral needs. There seems to have been enough water to support intensive agriculture but not enough to push through to the Arabian Sea. However, a second group of experts holds the opinion that the Hakra River did reach the Arabian Sea. Both the groups have substantial data to prove their points.<br /><br />At night, walking through the desert under the light of the moon was quite similar to hiking the dunes in daylight. The only difference was that the air was cool, the sand was gray and the Milky Way was more clearly defined in the sky. Later at night, footfalls did not sound like they were coming from my own feet any more; I kept turning around to see if I was being followed. Even sudden patches of soft sand would give me an occasional start in the dim silence.<br /><br />Eventually, my paranoid habit of veering caught up with me, when - just short of midnight - I found familiar Jeep tyre marks in the sand. Since I had been walking what I thought was east for nearly eight hours, I had been circling around the same set of dunes near the Fort.<br /><br />Related: <a href="http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/2010/01/travel-writing.html">Travel to write</a><br />Tags: <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/Travel">Travel</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/Tourism">Tourism</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Derawar+Fort" rel="tag">Derawar Fort</a>, <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/Cholistan">Cholistan</a></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-45656103241423428462011-10-16T07:16:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.883-07:00Cheap flights<div style="text-align: justify;">Apart from business, people travel for so many different reasons: to explore, to feel, to learn, to get away from humdrum of the fast lane life, and to lose themselves or find themselves. Lately, concept of family travel for holidays is also getting very popular. Families go to different places and enjoy in new and different settings. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this information era, the Internet has brought seismic changes in the ways people make travel plans. Planning holiday trips and buying <a href="http://www.flightsprite.com/">cheap tickets</a> online is on the rise in more connected countries of the world. People want to buy cheapest tickets and it is generating a plenty of competitive spark between service providers like airlines. Sometime it becomes difficult to choose the best. That is where FlightSprite.com comes in.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">An independent service, FlightSprite.com provides <a href="http://www.flightsprite.com/">cheap flights</a> booking on a few selected airlines such as Qantas, United, Jetblue, Emirates and Air Canada. Welcome to FlightSprite.com specialises in cheap air travel and literally offers cheapest tickets available for any flight that you would want to book with them. They offer tickets 20% cheaper than what you would buy at your local travel agent OR the flight itself. Amzing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Have a look at FlightSprite.com and see what they are offering and how they can help you find <a href="http://www.flightsprite.com/">cheap Qantas</a> anywhere. Try them and enjoy your next trip.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-44122188695968485312011-10-10T21:08:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.883-07:00The Bull and the BoulderSalman Rashid started this story at <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/10/musas-rock-with-hole-and-roof.html">Musa’s rock with the hole and the roof</a> <br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Through the night the gusting wind kept at it. At sometime after five the sun broke through the shackling layers of gray haze and appeared as a pale yellow disc levitating just above the horizon. It was time to take the short walk to the crest of the ridge of Bail Pathar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX0B1S2BtScoQoORBht54zp-jDle-gpi0cTKnN6R6IOmxRUhA5teWOu8GOcfstJ5_9dFlx8IaWmr4CIXCbB7GhfRcJmFql5QEpfRTV-MoJ9bZgb7TK6G78X0fLkkybf5AieUACzKfOXYU/s1600/04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX0B1S2BtScoQoORBht54zp-jDle-gpi0cTKnN6R6IOmxRUhA5teWOu8GOcfstJ5_9dFlx8IaWmr4CIXCbB7GhfRcJmFql5QEpfRTV-MoJ9bZgb7TK6G78X0fLkkybf5AieUACzKfOXYU/s320/04.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />I am no mountaineer and though I’ve been in some high places, I have never actually climbed a real peak. But one thing I know: even insignificant peaks, simply by their very nature of being peaks and therefore higher than the surrounding ground, offer something more than just great views. It was here where long before the dawn of history primitive man placed his gods. Peaks were sacred. Whether it be the puny Miranjani near Nathiagali; or the 4800 metre Deo nau Thuk (Peak of the Jinn) on Deosai; or Musa ka Musallah in Kaghan; or Ilam in Swat; or Kutte ji Qabar (The Dog’s Grave) in the Khirthar Mountains; or Takht e Suleman, they, one and all, were revered places. Those were places for man to approach in worshipful and reverent state of mind, perhaps with an offering or two for whatever gods man believed in.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />These gods were created not as man regarded the peak from the base. They were created only after our ancestors were driven up by that curiosity that made them human as distinct from the other primates. Upon the mountain, at the apex of human endurance, the excitement of the panorama those primitive eyes beheld was paled by the heightened consciousness of man’s own place in the great scheme of things. This realisation then as now is not of grandeur and supremacy, but of inconsequence and paltriness – man’s real station in the grand scheme of things. This is the light that removes the last swagger from lowly humans. On some hilltops (Tilla Jogian near Jhelum, for example) this awareness is higher than on others. And so it was that high places the world over became the seats of gods.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />If this is the marvel insignificant peaks such as I have named can work, surely the highest places on earth would do the same many times over. Alpine and mountaineering clubs should therefore bear the motto, ‘Discover thyself.’ And if you ask me, that is the reason women and men have climbed whatever mountain is available – not ‘because it is there.’<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI9BTE-Frb67f-RkDhge1JIK7ASb80MVFZXKc4jbaU1pLmEXhwrCbKapijqTFcucA2Iil5mgI0OzpGEnOK13Tw5cWGEB6ZOG55a5al5pRTKyxeFyxOzvJuLr8MnFVbzILTOyZ7srZHGnY/s1600/004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI9BTE-Frb67f-RkDhge1JIK7ASb80MVFZXKc4jbaU1pLmEXhwrCbKapijqTFcucA2Iil5mgI0OzpGEnOK13Tw5cWGEB6ZOG55a5al5pRTKyxeFyxOzvJuLr8MnFVbzILTOyZ7srZHGnY/s320/004.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />Immediately below us to the east right where our camp was spread out was Sahib Talab – the Sahib’s Pond, glinting in the dull light of the hazy morning. Far beyond that was a blue-gray ridge and then the plains. On clear nights the lights of Dera Ghazi Khan and Taunsa, and on clear days the silver ribbon of the Sidhu River could be seen, we were told. To the west a wide valley, scoured by four dry streams, spread at the foot of our mountain. Beyond, rose a khaki ridge and on its other side Balochistan was spread out all but unseen in the dust haze. To the north were more hills and to the south a round knoll, the highest part of the Bail Pathar ridge, blocked further view.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Risaldar Yaqoob Shah of the huge pot-belly, the trencherman of this journey, had earlier told us the story of the bull and the boulder: once upon a time a Baloch came up this mountain with his bull. Tying the animal to a boulder, he went about some business and when he returned he found the animal dead. Since that day the boulder was considered possessed and if anyone tied their animals to it the animals died. End of story.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />As stories go this one was the most banal and unimaginative, even rather stupid. Neither is a boulder called pathar in Balochi, nor a bull a bal. Furthermore the first part of the name is clearly pronounced ‘Bail’ and not ‘Bal,’ consequently the story could not be true. The origin of the name is lost in the mist of time and in the tradition of all self-styled thinkers who invent heroes (sometimes events) to match place names (Kamalia and Qabula are two pertinent examples in Punjab), some moron thought up this yarn. I hotly debated the point until Yaqoob Shah lamely said since ‘bail’ in Urdu was an ivy or creeper, it might be that there was a stone on this hill that was carved with such a form. The poor man got no respite and this notion was shot to pieces very quickly. How could it be, it was asked, that a whole mountain was named after some rock or the other and no one even knew where the rock was?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />But back on the top of the ridge Rehmat Khan had arranged tea for us. We sat in the blustering wind and drank the sweet brew as he told us of the angrez woman. It was about thirty years ago that a white woman was found wandering about near a village at the eastern foot of the mountain. The man who first found her, being a true Baloch, asked her to wait in an otaq (guest room) and went off to fetch someone who could understand her language. When he returned the woman was gone. Disappeared. Therefore, it was swiftly deduced, she was a spy. Moreover, the woman had shown the man a map with the Bail Pathar school marked on it. The school with its roster of one teacher and ten pupils on a map! That was sufficient for anyone who doubted her being a spy to now be fully convinced.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The following day, the woman turned up in Rehmat Khan’s village on the west side of Bail Pathar. She must have been one hell of a walker to have gone up and down the desiccated hill without succumbing to dehydration. Word, travelling by the Baloch tradition of hal-ahwal, had already arrived and folks were about waiting for her. She was quickly bundled off to the authorities at Dera Ghazi Khan. Raheal suspected she might have been the good Dr Ruth Pfau, guardian angel for lepers in Pakistan, hunting for unreachable lepers, but Rehmat Khan put on a saturnine countenance, lips down-turned, and nodding gravely said, ‘ No question. She was a spy.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />One wonder, though, what some crazy white woman should be spying for in the parched wastes of west Punjab hill country. But more than that one wonders what the building that everybody thought was a school was actually being used for to have been so prominently marked on the spy’s map. Now that was something either straight out of an unlettered man’s mind or very, very mysterious indeed and worthy of the files of our intellgence agencies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The story of Sahib Talab, on the other hand, was cannier. Howard, a Deputy Commissioner of the early 1940s, once visited this mountain. He found it dry and barren, perhaps because of a drought, and local shepherds greatly distressed. The good man ordered the pond to be excavated that has ever since been called the Sahib’s Pond. In the worst years of the drought that now seems to be coming to an end, the pond had run dry only a couple of times. But the nearly continual rains since December have filled it up besides generally greening the region.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />We returned to camp in time for breakfast. Over the meal we discovered that Rehmat Khan was not permitting departure without lunch. That would mean travelling during the hottest part of the day and, worse, another roast lamb. But no amount of pleading worked. We resigned, asked him to have the blue and orange canopy put up again and sat back under its shade.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The Inspection Book was produced and Raheal showed me a past entry. Dated the last day of June 2001, it recorded Raheal’s first visit to Bail Pathar in the capacity of Political Agent. He is a strange person, this Raheal. I know for a fact that as Political Agent he was the first one since 1947 to visit some places in his jurisdiction in the tribal outback of Dera Ghazi Khan. Having travelled with him before I have seen Inspection Books inscribed by officers of the Raj in 1947 and then by Raheal. In the intervening half a century no Pakistani official had deemed it fit to visit those areas!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The point of interest in the notation from June 2001 was that having enjoyed his trip to Bail Pathar, Raheal had ended his note saying he would like to return to the mountain with me. His wish, he said, had come true. The visit back then was work for Raheal had cases to dispose of. This time around it was just something we had to do together. Meanwhile, word had got around that Raheal was visiting the mountain and soon a delegation of liberally turbaned Baloch elders arrived with their entourages. These latter were perambulatory arsenals and could have started a small war on Bail Pathar. Solemnly the elders sat cross-legged and presented their petitions to the sahib.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Having come with supplies Raheal, a trained medical doctor, had turned his earlier visit into a medical camp. Scores of women turned up to be treated for night-blindness He had distributed the necessary vitamins and we now learned that nearly all his patients were cured. As a result women unable to attend that first camp were asking for treatment and Raheal promised to return with medical supplies. Men travel to cities and get their requirement of a varied diet. But women, the lower order of humanity in a tribal setting, eating only the leavings of their men, unacquainted with fruit and vegetables in a harsh land that produces nothing but some cereal, are seriously malnourished. Raheal had only discovered the tip of the iceberg. The sloth-afflicted officials of the Department of Health unwilling to undertake such hard journey find it easier filling in registers in the comfort of their offices while the poor and the unknown of Jinnah’s Pakistan living on the edge of the Middle Ages continue to suffer in silence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Midmorning was lunch time on Bail Pathar and I hoped I was seeing the last roast lamb for several years. Rehmat Khan said it was impolite to turn down a Baloch’s hospitality and that men so spurned are known to have forsworn their wives if the guest did not relent and accept the proffered hospitality. The word is zan talaq and it is used as a sort of a binding not only upon the one who utters it to do or not do something, but also upon the corrival to acquiesce. That was something like the boys’ rhyme of the Lahore of the 1950s that made all those ‘son of a pig’ if they didn’t take up whatever challenge was thrown. For my part, in order to forestall the hazard of more roast lamb I loudly declared, for all to hear, that I would stand divorced from my wife if Rehmat Khan and his people fed us one more time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This took everyone by surprise. Such a thing was unheard of among the Baloch. One never said zan talaq in order to ward off hospitality. But I had said it and I was standing by it. Nevertheless as we walked down the mountain every time Rehmat Khan mentioned the possibility of more roast lamb at his brother’s home, I reminded him of my avowal. That led to the story of the large-hearted Baloch and his stingy wife who were visited by the man and his naseeb.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />We arrive in the village of Ugair where Rehmat Khan’s brother nicknamed Akhrote (Walnut, but I never got around to asking why such an impressive person was thus named) was awaiting us. Thankfully there was only tea with biscuits, but the man kept on insisting that he be permitted to take down a lamb. Someone told him I had sworn zan talaq against more hospitality and that finally put the matter to rest. It was already well into the afternoon and if we tarried any longer we would miss the visit to the shrine of Pir Gahno.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This was another story related by Rehmat Khan as we were coming down the hill. Some years ago while visiting the tomb of ancestor Gahno; he got into an argument with his cousin who minds the shrine. The burden of the argument lay on the poor quality of food that had been served up to our Rehmat Khan. The argument dragged on with the cousin defending himself as vehemently as Rehmat Khan attacked him until our man pronounced zan talaq: never again was he to avail himself of the hospitality of the side of the family that kept the ancestor’s shrine. Time flew and soon Rehmat Khan was invited to a wedding in that family. He said he could not attend because that would necessarily mean partaking of his cousin’s hospitality and he would automatically stand divorced.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This was serious business. Family pressure mounted: as an uncle (and a maternal one at that) of the bride and one of the family’s decision makers Rehmat Khan had to attend the wedding. The ceremony needed his blessing. With the matter of zan talaq niggling at the back of his mind, he attended the party and, naturally, dined with his cousin – an act that automatically affected his divorce. Therefore, to keep matters in legal order a mullah had been imported from Taunsa to officiate over the second solemnising of Rehmat Khan and his wife’s nikah. The needful was done that same evening and by the mullah’s decree the new marriage between the old couple had to be consummated within ten days. With a glint in his blood-shot eyes Rehmat Khan said he had come through colours flying high.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />There was one setback, however. Rehmat Khan’s wife was no dodo. As soon as the divorce became effective, she demanded her alimony. The man was flummoxed. Five thousand rupees was a good deal of money. But his wife would have it no other way. She had been divorced and she wanted her pound of flesh. Rehmat Khan paid up before he could be re-married.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Pir Gahno’s shrine, like Granddad Musa’s, was again an unpretentious cement block cubicle with a single satin-draped burial inside. The obligatory peelu tree with its multitude of coloured cloth bags containing the first shaving of sons born by ancestor Gahno’s agency was right outside shading the cubicle. It suddenly shone on me: two Buzdar ancestors, Musa and Gahno, revered as miracle-working saints. If this wasn’t ancestor worship it was nothing in the world. Why, I wondered, hadn’t any anthropologist ever considered working on ancestor worship among the Baloch?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Baloch lore gives them Arab origin – as if that isn’t the case for all Muslims in the subcontinent. Serious research shows however that a very long time ago, much before the advent of Islam, they came from the shores of the Caspian Sea to spread out into the desert regions of eastern Persia and what is now western Pakistan. They descend therefore from an ancient Parthian bloodline. Long centuries ago and far away under the shadow of the Elburz Mountains Baloch religiosity perhaps centered on ancestor worship. The practice appears to have persisted even after conversion to Islam. Where others were encumbered with the invention of Syeds whose tombs could be worshiped for sons and wealth, the Baloch simply continued to venerate their own ancestors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDF49gPbLiDnaguWcr5yszqbMCyL9YHk6jy05xLqjpaDD9crFg2lp5lzyadqccFl0DPL2o4uBp_XK1G1yYbbGRoKa2Eb_vr2SFRVNAWLDdD9RkgMUBnvdaTwxuOMegePGh-NqHRoky2ps/s1600/03.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDF49gPbLiDnaguWcr5yszqbMCyL9YHk6jy05xLqjpaDD9crFg2lp5lzyadqccFl0DPL2o4uBp_XK1G1yYbbGRoKa2Eb_vr2SFRVNAWLDdD9RkgMUBnvdaTwxuOMegePGh-NqHRoky2ps/s200/03.JPG" width="134" /></a>The last item on the itinerary was Khan Mohammed Buzdar. Three years ago while travelling through here with Raheal we had overnighted at the BMP post of Hingloon. They had shown me the slightly bent bars of the jailhouse and told me how one minute Khan Mohammed was locked up inside and the next was outside beside the free men. I had wanted to meet with the man and Raheal dispatched some of his staff to get him. But Khan Mohammed was away in Taunsa and I had to come away without the interview.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />This time around, Raheal had sent word to Hingloon in advance that Khan Mohammed was to be made available. With ordinary build, gentle face and grey beard he looked like no Samson. He also spoke very softly. It was in 1962 or thereabouts, there had been a gunfight, said Khan Mohammed. He had shot and killed one of the rivals’ number which landed him in the lock up. Outside, his brother Taj Mohammed waited with some men of the other party. Shortly after the last prayer of the evening, he heard a gunshot and the shout that Taj Mohammed had been shot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />‘I was beside myself with emotion,’ said Khan Mohammed. ‘My brother had been shot and perhaps killed. I called upon Pir Gahno and before I knew it, the bars were bent wide enough for me to get out.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The BMP men present in the courtyard restrained Khan Mohammed. Quickly he was hand-cuffed and shackled and returned to his cell. Meanwhile, it was also known that Taj Mohammed had only received a flesh wound and was out of danger. The bar-bending superman was once again human.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />On our first visit one of the witnesses who had seen it all had told me he heard this almighty roar of ‘Ya, Pir Gahno!’ The next thing the man knew Khan Mohammed was standing beside him. Everyone was convinced it was Pir Gahno’s blessing that the man was able to bend half-inch thick iron bars. Khan Mohammed himself believed that as well. When I asked him if he could reenact the long ago feat, he said with great simplicity that he could not have done it then without the saint’s help and he couldn’t do it now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />All those who know of Khan Mohammed’s exploit, believe it was Pir Gahno who did it for him. He had called out the saint’s name and the saint came to his aid. I tried to tell them it was the saint, the superman that lived within Khan Mohammed and indeed within all of us as well. But that made no sense to them. It was useless to tell them how karate experts, having discovered through training the superman within, can use his powers at will. And how a shout focuses these powers to a single point to help them achieve the seemingly impossible feat of smashing a pile of kiln-fired bricks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Khan Mohammed’s Pir Gahno had bent thick iron bars for him – but just one time. The Pir Gahno of karate experts does the impossible for them every time they wish. It is only for humans to discover the superman that lives within. My lecture made no sense. Neither to Khan Mohammed nor to the BMP men. Tolerantly they heard me out.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixS1JO8Q_m5Ook7S-3Ii0y07nNy0OCt4Q1mUoQ_v7EzAAQ8xZl6X1wyVGoNV6o5YSa8ZuvwqZ1BXlJVEENqsNrsWBmM3V9qsurfUfOakx92qrlf_mTErr36eMQfOX0wZ4IArbCRE1ZgfA/s1600/003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixS1JO8Q_m5Ook7S-3Ii0y07nNy0OCt4Q1mUoQ_v7EzAAQ8xZl6X1wyVGoNV6o5YSa8ZuvwqZ1BXlJVEENqsNrsWBmM3V9qsurfUfOakx92qrlf_mTErr36eMQfOX0wZ4IArbCRE1ZgfA/s400/003.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />We left under a lowering sky. Sheets of lightning flashed on the southern horizon and I dreaded being caught up by a swollen stream. It was all right for Rehmat Khan who promised us more roast lamb if we could stay. Promising to return in case of a flood we finally bade him farewell. Thankfully it rained only lightly that evening.</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" /></a><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of several books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>, Riders on the Wind, Between two Burrs on the Map, Prisoner on a Bus and Sea Monsters and the Sun God. His work - explorations, traveling and writings - appears in almost all leading publications.</i></b>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-32487418819669044032011-10-07T22:23:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.884-07:00Kelash experience<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2797/251/320/aaaaa.jpg" width="166" /></div>Centuries old Kelash culture is at a greater risk today than any time in the past. Despite their remote location - landlocked in winters - last of the Kelash race is maintaining tenacious hold in district Chitral but is vulnerable to ravages of time and different pressures with external locus.<br /><br /><div align="justify">The onslaughts are clearly eating at their open and nonchalant culture. Many have been forced to join the drift to the cities. But when asked what they want, their collective answer was simple: we want our old way of life. Which is why, pastoral Kelash have been able to keep some of their cultural traditions and identity so far.Some historians and anthropologists think that the Kelash are descendants of Indo-Aryans who overran the region in the second millennium BC. The Kelash say they are from a place called Tsiam, though nobody is sure where that is. Commonly they are considered as descendants of Alexander from Macedon who came this way. Their warrior like forebears managed for centuries to keep everyone - including Tamerlane - at bay. In 1893, the British and Afghan governments agreed on a common border that cut right through Kafiristan dividing the community into two parts. Abdur Rahman who was then Amir of Afghanistan renamed Afghan Kafiristan as Nuristan - land of Light.<br /><br /><br />The Kelash are called Kafirs (infidels) and their land is known as Kafiristan. Between the 13th and 16th centuries the Chitralis gradually subdued the Kelash. By the 19th century, Kelash had been pushed into the higher valleys of the southern Hindu Kush. Rudyard Kipling set his book “The Man who would Be King” in Kafiristan, portraying the people as fierce and credulous though he never went there. And later, what Geoffrey Moorhouse has described in his book "To the Frontier" is no more there. Even the Chitral town of days when Russian were in Afghanistan (shops used to be full of the US goods like sleeping bags, shoes and field jackets) is no more there.<br /><br />Not properly documented in our history books, I had the opportunity to explore the Kelash valleys in the widespread and on the edge district Chitral in Pakistan and know the people during my two years long in small village Mirkhanni – a gateway to Kalash trilogy. There are no villages called Rumbor, Bumbret or Birir. These are the valleys inhabited by Kelashis. One can take a 4 x 4 jeep (or hire one) from Attaliq Bazaar Chitral, or more adventurous type can get off on foot and walk along river Kunar up to Ayun.<br /><br />From Ayun, the road forks left to Bumbret and right to Rumbor. After the fork, the barely jeep able roads to Rumbor and Bumbret - steady climb - will give you a new appreciation for walking particularly if you have been missing walking. There you will see lush green tree lined terraces, dancing and noisy torrents and lofty snow capped peaks set at a distance in the backdrop of forests of Himalayan. Rumbor is friendliest of all valleys where as Bumbret is most picturesque. The mouth of Birir Valley is at village Gahiret, about seven kilometres south of Ayun. Birir - the traditional of all valleys - peters out beyond village Guru. Near the village, you will find out a breathtakingly beautiful spring beneath a mound of stones. It is possible to trek between the valleys. There are also some good locations for 'rock repelling' and places for camping especially in Birir.<br /><br />Lively by nature, the Kelash are a bit Mediterranean looking, though they gamut from fair and nearly blonde to quite whitish. Men have largely traded traditional goat skin tunics for Shalwar Qamiz and Chirtali caps, often with plumes, feathers, or fresh flowers in the brim. It is the dress of the women that is unique and quite amazing. Even in the fields, women wear immense black or brown dresses reaching to the ground, bound at the waist with a sash. Over locks of hair they wear splendid headpieces decorated with cowries, shells, beads, buttons, coins and plumes. The formal forms of these outfits are spectacular, with embroidery, mounds of bead necklaces and bells. They often decorate their faces with mulberry juice tattoos or pomegranate seeds or blacken them with burnt goat's horn (also for sunburn protection). I once saw a three years old child completely coated with the soot of burnt horns. A local told, "This will keep the baby fair coloured through out life."<br /><br />The Kelash religion is complex and polytheistic with a single creator, called Dezau or Khodai, and many other lesser gods and spirits, each with its own responsibilities. Two important ones are the warrior gods Mahandeo, guardian of crops, animals, other public matters, and the female goddess Jestak who cares for home, family and private matters. All need occasional compensations, usually in the form of goat sacrifices and ceremonies at their shrines scattered through the valleys. The religious traditions are taught by one generation to the next.<br /><br />Traditionally the dead are not buried. The wooden coffins used to be placed on the ground. Wooden totes or effigies were carved for wealthy or honoured people. At few old style graveyards I saw, the coffins fallen open, wood pieces and bones scattered about. Totems are scarce now; some carted off by anthropologists and treasure hunters. "Swat and Karachi museums have a few in good conditions," informed a German researcher Laila Mason, whom I met in village Bashala. These days the dead are simply placed on cart in the graveyard.<br /><br />Tradition has it that women are less pure than men are and there are precise rules about what each may do, where they may go and how to purify people and places. Women during menstruation or childbirth are confined to a lodge called Bashaleni (which is also a shrine to the goddess Dezalik, who looks after births). Men cannot go in; even other women must be 'purified' after a visit. In old days, even food could be served to the women confined in Bashaleni only by virgin boys, untouched by women. Gradually these traditions are losing their power. But still it is the women that are seen working around in fields or homes and men spend all their quality time sitting on the pathways. The burden of perpetuating the last strains of Kelash culture is also born by women alone.<br /><br />The Kelash take their festivals seriously. In addition to religious ceremonies there is always dancing and local made wine. Typically the older men stand in the centre, taking turns chanting old legends. Accompanied by drums the women dance round them arms around one another's waists and shoulders in spinning twos and threes or trance like encircling lines.<br /><br />There may be day dancing (adua-naat) and night dancing (raadt-naat) or both. Some may even be closed to outsiders. Each valley has its own style and timing. The dates may not be fixed until the last minute, often depending on harvest or other work, so you could end up waiting days or even weeks for the kick off. Locals from down country may find it difficult to attend any such function but foreigners are often welcome. A Swedish tourist Toni has an interesting theory for this. He says, "Kelash people do not like those who go looking for alcohol, hashish, women or pure salageet.<br /><br />This feast dedicated to spring and to future harvests is called Joshi. It includes day dancing and family reunions for four to six days in mid May. The summer festival Uchau, celebrating the wheat and barley harvests, is a big tourist draw. It may include night dancing every few days in successive villages, form mid June to mid August. Pul is held only in Birir, for three or four days in late September or early October. Night dancing is held in various villages and day dancing on the last day. It marks the walnut and grape harvests and the end of wine making, though its origins concern the return of shepherds from the high pastures. This solstice festival called Chaumos is probably the biggest for the Kelash, with visiting, feasting and night dancing for around 10 days starting in mid December.<br /><br />"It is in unique culture that Kelash differ from the rest of the country," confirms Pordum, an elderly resident of village Guru. It is also perhaps the sole claim to fame for the region besides gorgeous natural beauty, poverty and backwardness. Laila Mason says, "unless opportunities are created and due respect is given, this unique culture will disappear fast."</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-26248549037759252122011-10-07T10:35:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.884-07:00Historic Horse Tram Returns to Gangapur<a href="http://pakistaniat.com/category/owais-mughal/">Owais Mughal</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiM2dB2ebPzQQRgGND2cKeenyswvzOPyExsfqGtSm6RXxGJO7z50eCxA09lKSNNY825m4Xlp18ys9lX2dhMFO3o0XcUF59e5vA2zxhE_DoDtb9KMWifaYeDO825wgCj0f2OqQw1D7OerES/s1600-h/horsetram1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiM2dB2ebPzQQRgGND2cKeenyswvzOPyExsfqGtSm6RXxGJO7z50eCxA09lKSNNY825m4Xlp18ys9lX2dhMFO3o0XcUF59e5vA2zxhE_DoDtb9KMWifaYeDO825wgCj0f2OqQw1D7OerES/s400/horsetram1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />This post has turned 180 degrees in its tone in the past 30 minutes of our editing. Read below how.<br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I found the title photo of this post in a web search and was totally mesmerized by it. I strarted writing this post with an admittedly ignorant view of the subject and almost made fun of why a horse driven trolley could be a project to inaugurate in today’s modern world - as shown in the title photo.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But boy was I wrong! As I started a quick web search on this project, I realized the historical value of this seemingly old and rusty trolley. And now I am very grateful that someone has actually taken the initiative to rehabilitate this part of our history.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chak Number 591-GB is a small village in <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/02/faisalabad.html">Faisalabad</a> Division. It is also called Gangapur - named after the famous philanthropist and Indian Civil Engineer Sir Ganga Ram. Some text on the web suggests that Sir Ganga Ram owned the village of Gangapur (confirmation needed). It is said that he was a landlord here and turned it into a model village of the late 19th century. He introduced modern agricultural means and machinery of the time to Gangapur. One such machine was a heavy duty Electrical Motor which was installed in 1898 on Gogira branch canal to pump water for agriculture. This motor was brought to Gangapur from Lahore by railways and this is where the story of our today’s post starts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The nearest Railway Station from Gangapur is another village called Buchiana (101 km from Lahore on Sheikhupura - Shorkot branch line). From Buchiana to Gangapur the distance is approximately 3 kilometers and in 1890s there were no means avialable to transport a heavy electrical motor from Buchiana Railway Station to Gangapur. Therefore Sir Ganga Ram ordered a special railway track to be built for the purpose between the two villages and a horse-driven trolley was used to transport this electric motor to Gangapur. After the motor was installed, the horse driven trolley remained in operation to transport people between the two villages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Therefore the horse driven trolley that we see in the title photo is now 112 years old (built in 1898). It remained in continuous operation for 100 years until 1998 when financial problems and disrepair of track and trolley put an end to the service. That was until yesterday. As our title photo from March 9, 2010 suggests that after 12 years of dis-repair and non-service the horse tram of Gangapur has now been rehabilitated and put back into service. Yes!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I’ve also read on the web that both PTV and BBC had made documentaries on this horse tram which attracted many tourists to the area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">OK. Now that I’ve given the serious history of the project, how about we go back to my original idea of discussing some lighter details of the title photos here.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Note how many pink color haar (garlands) have been put in the neck of the chief guest. As if they were not enough, a guy is holding several more spares in his arms on the same trolley. The single-vehicle entrouge has been provided with its own ample security too. One can see a policeman standing towards the back of the trolley along with several media people.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I want to end the post with this sher (poetic verse) - which I’ve used in another post earlier too - but let me repeat it anyways:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>rau mein hai rakhsh-e-umr, kahaaN dekhiye thamay</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>na haath hai baag par, na paa hai rakaab meiN</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Photo Credits: Tasawar Abbas at APP</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-39074866241540725782011-10-04T20:36:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.884-07:00Hanjarwal - Lost from view<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="mailto:odysseuslahori@gmail.com">Salman Rashid</a><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From very ancient times, this land was traversed by roads, roads and roads. There were arterial highways like the Rajapatha that connected Bengal with the Afghan highlands. We hear of it from the chronicles of the 4th century BCE and know that this was the very road that we eventually came to know as the Grand Trunk Road. There were others that stretched between important cities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcGd88ev0BTxrG44U8HrApbmVkre7tpcecfKg-_I0Y-GOFglza8n4LhpbEDiiatL_V-FmqD2LiejGOfF-luvCblAuFU7wwBPC8Kvfg-ap9i809I_OK61t3Y8-1QhDT5MwJECrPKhul1s/s1600/salman+rashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimcGd88ev0BTxrG44U8HrApbmVkre7tpcecfKg-_I0Y-GOFglza8n4LhpbEDiiatL_V-FmqD2LiejGOfF-luvCblAuFU7wwBPC8Kvfg-ap9i809I_OK61t3Y8-1QhDT5MwJECrPKhul1s/s400/salman+rashid.JPG" width="450" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One such was the highway connecting Lahore and Multan that we today call National Highway 5 (N-5). Though this highroad had existed ever since time began, in the Middle Ages its importance grew when the peaceful years of the Mughal Empire spurred all-round growth. While Lahore in the north became a much favoured city as an alternate Mughal capital, Multan once again thrived as a rich centre of trade and commerce. It was one of the richer subas (provinces) of the empire during the reign of the third Mughal king, Akbar the Great.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To facilitate the passage of trade and travel, the old road connecting Multan and Lahore received a good deal of attention. Among other road furniture, new caravanserais were built where existing ones were falling to pieces. Now, distance between serais was dictated by the day’s travel which in those times was between twenty-five to thirty kilometres. Thus leaving the walled city of Lahore the first serai on Multan Road was at Hanjarwal. A victim of unplanned growth, this serai has long since disappeared.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lost from view, overgrown with the ugly warts of unplanned rural architecture, Serai Chhimba sits amid blocks of agricultural land some thirty kilometres south of Hanjarwal. Lying a kilometre west of N-5, Serai Chhimba marks the alignment of the old road from the Middle Ages.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We know of Begum ki Serai adjacent to Attock Fort; Serai Kharbuza, midway between Taxila and Rawalpindi; Rewat, east of Rawalpindi and Rajo Pind just outside Rohtas Fort that are all believed to be fortresses. In truth, these are serais, fortified so that they could be locked up for the night to hold robbers at bay. Indeed, this was no deviation, but standard serai architecture all across Central Asia, Iran and the Indian subcontinent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN1vlkD-aTkUH1Eu7gGzqGLuctQS3IK2s0eCsr5eExx9nZ186XnGPSYXqNR1z-ns2SMR80PCy9rRZSbVpcHNEysfo3OFDbkMl2zD5SbxDKvOREnH3lNdwWJdZAaDZJfDYAd-pfgXvGbcA/s1600/salmanrashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN1vlkD-aTkUH1Eu7gGzqGLuctQS3IK2s0eCsr5eExx9nZ186XnGPSYXqNR1z-ns2SMR80PCy9rRZSbVpcHNEysfo3OFDbkMl2zD5SbxDKvOREnH3lNdwWJdZAaDZJfDYAd-pfgXvGbcA/s400/salmanrashid.JPG" width="450" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So too was Serai Chhimba built like a fort with massive walls and two gateways, one each in the direction of the rising and setting sun. In the interior, along the perimeter walls, was a series of sunken rooms with domed ceilings and thick walls to keep out the heat and cold. These were the residential rooms for passing travellers while their pack and riding animals were tethered in the broad enceinte.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The gatehouses on both sides are massive and have bulky arched openings which, going by their style, are clearly Akbari. While the western gatehouse is now occupied and turned into a residence, the one in the east serves as the only way in and out. Until a few years ago the timber leaves of the gatehouse were still in situ, but with the rise in street level, they became unserviceable and one day disappeared. Local gossip has it that the expensive teak was appropriated and sold by the keeper of the spurious shrine inside the serai. So much for those who pretend to be descendents of a worldly man turned holy post mortem by the accretion of yarns.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While the gatehouses mark east and west, the other two cardinal points are scored by massive vaulted structures. These and the gatehouses are each topped by two square towers rising to ribbed domes starkly reminiscent of Samarqand and Herat. None of them retains any of the coloured tiles that may have once adorned them. To emphasise its defensive strength, each corner of the serai has an octagonal turret.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The compound where travellers once tethered their animals is now choc-a-bloc with haphazardly placed houses bisected by streets. Houses along the perimeter wall incorporate the sunken rooms of the serai into their design: as bedrooms these are cool in summer and warm in winter. Everywhere there are signs of disturbance to the original structure of the serai in order to add rooms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2LJHKA5fvO_6lG20A10kSSqEmhsWwesApFUmO-nZA8Ytk4Bm_xoJ16HAJ7qiiyP8EOopUH8PHoGn7BonwDAzB5g3TLOuXuhs_tjBLRqsJdTnJeyY0CN5X_RlDDeVXOKIMeictf6CNrw/s1600/salman+rashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic2LJHKA5fvO_6lG20A10kSSqEmhsWwesApFUmO-nZA8Ytk4Bm_xoJ16HAJ7qiiyP8EOopUH8PHoGn7BonwDAzB5g3TLOuXuhs_tjBLRqsJdTnJeyY0CN5X_RlDDeVXOKIMeictf6CNrw/s640/salman+rashid.JPG" width="450" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Only a few days before my visit in mid-February, the owner of the house adjacent to the east gate had pulled down one of the two domed towers in order to add a room on his roof. The debris of ancient Mughal bricks and lime mortar had still not been removed. It was his home and he felt he could do whatever he pleased with it – the historic monument be damned. Indeed, the two similar structures on the south wall had gaping holes: used as rooftop kitchens, the openings in the roofs served as chimneys. In the north wall only one of these towers remains. Inmates do not know what became of its companion but they have broken a large opening in it and use it as storage for cow dung patties. Its exterior serves as the post where the patties are dried.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sometime after the advent of train and motor transport Serai Chhimba fell out of use as a way station. During the Raj when people were more than aware of the presence of the government, this historical inn would not have been appropriated for private residence. With independence two things happened. First, in the hands of incompetent politicians, the new state of Pakistan began to cede authority from the very first day. Secondly, in the absence of any settlement policy, the huge influx of refugees pouring in from across the newly-drawn border took over whatever they found handy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Serai Chhimba, built about 1580 and therefore a protected historical monument, fell victim to this takeover riot. For some years after partition, it may have retained its serai atmosphere, but galloping population growth quickly smothered it with ugly and unplanned housing. For these refugees from Karnal and Rohtak, this is apparently still not home. They have no feeling for the land, its culture and its history. It is something to be appropriated and destroyed. Sadly, this is no aberration; this is the norm in this blighted land.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Looking at the whole lot of Pakistani people, this utter disregard for our own heritage is our only unifying national trait. Surely this must be the only country in the entire world where a citizen can destroy any historical building without fear of persecution. We see it happening in cities like Lahore, Bhera, Shikarpur, you name it. It is happening in Serai Chhimba as it happened at Hanjarwal where no more than part of the serai gateway now stands. Only some miles away to the east of Serai Chhimba, Dera Chaubara, another 16th century monument and exquisitely beautiful too, has been laid waste by treasure hunters (Herald April 2003). This same breed of ignorant philistine is destroying the hilltop monastery of Tilla Jogian in Jhelum district. This list is endless.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmDaofkDb82U5Ol6yKxs7GbyRVfWVrdwVkqPvOiikbigelCtlLuCfNdEARqeDYeZhQDRu3eDq0Se4kMpr4icp3PrQApx9p_CYaiEceBZuG1w29p87giiVm_s9NLjyF-22YsXi9iQwd8YQ/s1600/salmanrashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmDaofkDb82U5Ol6yKxs7GbyRVfWVrdwVkqPvOiikbigelCtlLuCfNdEARqeDYeZhQDRu3eDq0Se4kMpr4icp3PrQApx9p_CYaiEceBZuG1w29p87giiVm_s9NLjyF-22YsXi9iQwd8YQ/s640/salmanrashid.JPG" width="450" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In another country where the writ of the state exists, such wanton destruction of the national heritage would cause uproar. Heads would roll, especially of those entrusted with the upkeep of national monuments. But in Pakistan we let things be. In another few decades, monuments that should have drawn ordinary tourists and students of history and medieval architecture to this land will be no more than heaps of rubble. And not because of age and natural causes, but because of our national indifference for our own heritage.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of eight books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a></i></b>.</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-11180358454652762472011-10-02T22:54:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.884-07:00Cholistan in Lahore<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyfya017kBS8HKZuxIRhzFr7d1R0rL7H7bITF2C4O_Zr-oF546RZQ9qi8jvslhVrWCuEM-XN-YddjhWKbslblvl3t37LRVUfVB48cQx7m7D42pKMAanqDwRK6AK0KEMi3T7uteXatz_iI/s1600/IMG_0012.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyfya017kBS8HKZuxIRhzFr7d1R0rL7H7bITF2C4O_Zr-oF546RZQ9qi8jvslhVrWCuEM-XN-YddjhWKbslblvl3t37LRVUfVB48cQx7m7D42pKMAanqDwRK6AK0KEMi3T7uteXatz_iI/s400/IMG_0012.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />"It is an island of tranquility only an hour away from home. It surprises me that so few people in Lahore or Kasur know of it. Such a place in India would have been swamped with visitors on weekends," says Salman Rashid. </div><br />Do you have any idea where? Read the story by Salman Rashid <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/04/salman-rashid-in-cholistan.html">here</a>.lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-47383628977286864732011-09-30T22:18:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.884-07:00Tomb of Bhuman Shah<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="mailto:odysseuslahori@gmail.com">Salman Rashid</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A quarter century ago, driving from <a href="http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/2006/05/if-only-walls-spoke.html">Dipalpur</a> to Haveli Lakha in Okara district of Punjab, I passed a gateway with a couple of human figures in terracotta. If memory serves, there were some more peering down from niches in the wall. Pausing, I learnt that this was the ‘tomb of Bhuman Shah’ in the village of the same name. Bhuman Shah, so my young informant said, was a great saint from even before his grandfather’s time – which in the vernacular means a very long time ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I looked in and noticed a building with an impressive façade flanked by octagonal turrets with a central gateway on my right. Straight ahead, at the end of the street could be seen another building with an octagonal turret. To the left, a battered dome that I took to date from the early 18th century reared up behind a wall. The young man invited me to look in on what he said was a fort, but it being just about sunset I declined hoping to return another time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It took me twenty-five years to get back. The figures in the wall were gone, and only one remained in the gateway. Inside, the street seemed to be more crowded with houses and the building on the right with the pretty façade was fronted by ugly cubicles all but concealing it. Going up the street and turning left at the foot of the second turreted building, I was surprised to find the domed building all spruced up with a fresh coat of yellow wash. The tomb of Bhuman Shah had been restored, and furnished with booklets in English and Urdu encapsulating the man’s life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Born in 1687 to Rajo Bai and Hassa Ram of village Behlolpur near Dipalpur, Bhumia is said to have been a miraculous child whose birth was not attended by the customary labour pains. Three hundred years is a sufficiently long time to veil his life with a mist of the usual formulaic miracles that are the staple of all saints. But if one were to sift through the murk, even as a teenager Bhumia was smart enough to have developed an impressive discourse on eschewing materialism and mortifying the soul through hardship to attain oneness with god.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the boy saint was about thirteen and visiting an ashram at Pakpattan, he is said to have been recognised as the reincarnation of a great saint of the past. The keeper of the ashram, himself an accomplished monk, initiated the boy into monk-hood. There Bhumia learned the secrets of the Udasi order of monks who believe that true spirituality transcends religious division. When he was ready to set out to put his world to rights, his mentor suggested he take the name of Bhuman Shah.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Legend has it that he arrived near the village of Kutb Kot and camped by a well in the forest where Hindu, Muslim and Sikh alike came to seek his benediction. Among the seekers was the mother of Lakha Wattoo who was then serving time in the jail in Lahore. The woman petitioned the saint to bring her son back and Lakha was home in a few days. The yarn being that Bhuman Shah has appeared in his cell led Lakha through solid walls and within moments brought him back to his mother’s hearth. To show his gratitude, Lakha ordered his entire tribe to vacate the village and donate it lock, stock and barrel to Bhuman Shah. The chief’s word was law and Kutb Kot became Bhuman Shah as it is known to this day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And so the saint who abhorred worldly wealth of a sudden became lord and master of a vast estate. With this newly acquired affluence, Bhuman Shah now had a headquarters where he began a kitchen that daily fed all comers regardless of caste or creed. By 1747, the year of his death, Baba Bhuman Shah had a large following. The body was cremated, the ashes buried at the very spot where saint spent his time in meditation and a domed building raised above it. Though he died unmarried and with no heir to inherit his holdings, Bhuman Shah passed on his mantle to one of his disciples and that remained the more: as he lay dying each man nominated a successor to lead the cult of Bhuman Shah.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The cult grew and the free kitchen that daily fed hundreds of hungry mouths seems to have won admiration all round. The ‘official history’ of the cult records an unnamed British divisional commissioner adding three thousand acres to the Bhuman Shah holding in appreciation of the good work being done. In 1910 with increasing numbers of followers resorting to Bhuman Shah for the four annual festivals, the magnificent edifices with the corner turrets were paid for from earnings from the agricultural holding. The one on the right as one enters the complex called the sarai or Bhajan Mahal and the other the fort. During the festivals, attended by all religious denominations in united India, the fort housed the upper crust of devotees while the sarai was for the middle tier. Commoners, it is told, had to make do as they found best.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The free kitchen continued to function until 1947 when the Hindu population was exchanged with Muslims. Finding the two buildings handy, refugees moved in and portioned them out according to their individual needs. The samadhi complex was spared only because it afforded no reasonable accommodation. As time went by and families grew, makeshift walls were raised to create courtyards until the once-grand edifices became virtual mohallahs. The cult’s agricultural land was similarly annexed by the new-comers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Years passed, visa requirements stiffened and by the 1980s free travel between Pakistan and India became virtually unknown. The trickle of Bhuman Shah devotees that had continued after partition eventually dried out. A generation of Muslims grew up in Bhuman Shah without hearing bhajans and qawalis sung around the domed samadhi of the saint whose name their village carried. It was forgotten that Bhuman Shah had four annual festivals where tens of thousands of visitors congregated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">December 1992 saw one of the most shameful acts of all times: the razing of Babri Mosque in Ayodhia. Muslims all over Pakistan responded with the even more dishonourable deed of destroying everything that had anything to do with either the Hindus or the Sikhs regardless of the buildings’ religious or secular nature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The occupation of Bhajan Mahal and the fort by dozens of families was a blessing in disguise for that held the vandals at bay. But the samadhi of Bhuman Shah was heavily damaged. Thereafter the derelict building became the refuge of drug addicts. Thus matters stood at the turn of the century. Meanwhile, easier visa requirements once again permitted some devotees to visit and locals were surprised to see Europeans among the visitors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2005 Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) responded to appeals from the followers of the Bhuman Shah cult in India and elsewhere. The complex containing Bhuman Shah’s samadhi and yet another one as well as a large building known as Darbar Hall was restored. But when ETPB turned its attention to Bhajan Sarai and the fort, those who had taken over the buildings and destroyed their character resisted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Under the Antiquities Act 1974 the two buildings, as well as the samadhi complex, are protected monuments. Though Pakistan is famous for mindlessly destroying perfectly serviceable built heritage, we do have the example of a priceless building being pulled back from the brink in Chiniot. That happened because of official interest. Now, owing to pressure from cult followers abroad, ETPB has taken the right line of relocating the squatters to take over and restore the two residential houses.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xmfo0QXQakhgZF86gOfF2Z0fvx5cI4poeId6B1nUa4dFaJ9LOuxpx0pKEZSkwV3ctllgBqxt3RNQDyZ1Qw6ofQhpGkjP8FDyWm4msKacOpUh1GxFrwCJBhNOvYR0UdccvTlWgRjFqcxX/s1600/IMG_0032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xmfo0QXQakhgZF86gOfF2Z0fvx5cI4poeId6B1nUa4dFaJ9LOuxpx0pKEZSkwV3ctllgBqxt3RNQDyZ1Qw6ofQhpGkjP8FDyWm4msKacOpUh1GxFrwCJBhNOvYR0UdccvTlWgRjFqcxX/s400/IMG_0032.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is imperative that the sarai and the fort be reclaimed and used only for the purpose they were originally built for. Religious tourism is a big thing and the Udasi cult followers from India alone mostly belong to the moneyed class. Restoring the festivals at Bhuman Shah will not only bring Muslim, Hindu and Sikh together, it will also bolster the local economy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the bargain, ETPB will have preserved two fine examples of the built heritage of Punjab.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" /></a><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of several books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>, Riders on the Wind, Between two Burrs on the Map, Prisoner on a Bus and Sea Monsters and the Sun God. His work - explorations, traveling and writings - appears in almost all leading publications.</i></b> </div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-83359396174516437002011-09-26T20:58:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.885-07:00Which country?<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a href="mailto:odysseuslahori@gmail.com">Salman Rashid</a><br /><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once upon a time when ‘urbanisation’ had not yet caught on, this was another country. Outside the urban centres, this was a land of wide-open vistas of swaying fields of wheat, rice or sugar cane as weather permitted. This was a land of spreading banyan trees that, I was learn much later, figured on one-inch army topographical maps as ‘survey trees.’ And this was a country of fine stands of shisham and acacia trees, roadside ponds ablaze with red and blue lotus flowers and fresh water streams alive with tortoises and fish.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDaG-ea4U3V5XMimmXa8tzBkQjjekWWOhwKYA-zoe8wWgFXp-Sz8ZjI9YxR-NDFznmcR373pbwVV8AcaRTL6cQa1jH0WbN04QcnQpHkFCuks90lbUESjmsIvSQo4uw67iAAj3skA_rJo/s1600/salman+rashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDaG-ea4U3V5XMimmXa8tzBkQjjekWWOhwKYA-zoe8wWgFXp-Sz8ZjI9YxR-NDFznmcR373pbwVV8AcaRTL6cQa1jH0WbN04QcnQpHkFCuks90lbUESjmsIvSQo4uw67iAAj3skA_rJo/s400/salman+rashid.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In those days of the late 1950s and through the following decade, when the family drove up the Grand Trunk Road to Rawalpindi or took the N-5 down to Multan, the ride was through a marvellous landscape. The Degh River just a few kilometres north of Lahore was a clear water stream whose banks were lined with anglers – especially if it was a Sunday. Gujranwala was a tiny little town where we swept past only a handful of stores and several lovely old town houses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Similarly for Gujrat, while Jhelum was remarkable for the church that came into view as the car entered the old Jhelum River bridge. In those days the church stood in a wide-open meadow where buffaloes grazed. One thing that did not escape even us children was the very frequent spreading banyan tree shading a pond that could either be brick-lined or just plain. The sole surviving tree is the one near Sohawa (on the left side of the road as one motors towards Rawalpindi) whose accompanying pond is now sadly dry. All the others have been sacrificed to the ever-widening roads.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other side, along the N-5, my memory of passing Okara is not, I repeat, not seeing any habitation. An older cousin who was then an engineer told me that British road builders had ensured that all intercity roads pass one mile from habitation and were connected to it by a link road. Today passing through Pattoki, Okara or any other place that does not have a by-pass is nightmare.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1979 I moved to Karachi and for the next ten years travelled extensively in the interior of Sindh and Balochistan. Super Highway actually began at Sohrab Goth and ended in the wilderness outside Hyderabad. In its entire length of 160-odd kilometres, the only sign of human intervention was the Nooriabad Industrial Estate with its chimneys. Similarly, the old N-5 connecting these two cities via Thatta passed through the loveliest countryside imaginable. The Gharo River meandering through acacia and mesquite bushes was a sight and Thatta was a right lovely little town with its badgirs (wind-catchers) looking in open-mouthed wonder to the southwest</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the interior country roads such as what is now known as the Indus Highway (connecting Hyderabad and Shikarpur via Sehwan and Larkana) was truly magical. On the one side were occasional glimpses of the Sindhu River beyond patches of cultivation and on the other of the tortured, barren hills of the eastern-most offshoot of the Khirthar Mountains.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But the most magical of all places was Balochistan. It was the only land within this country where one could actually be with one’s self for mile after mile after mile. Even as recently as the mid-1980s, the drive from Karachi to say Lasbela or Kalat along the RCD Highway was remarkable for its loneliness. In the early 1980s I drove several times between Karachi and Lasbela and once all the way to Quetta and on all occasions I halted frequently simply to savour the peace and solitude of the land. For long minutes, perhaps even as much as half an hour, no traffic passed as I sat by the road to watch dozens of dust devils waltzing in the distance against misty blue hills.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Makran there were no roads at all. The journey along the seaboard from Karachi to Gwadar took two days and one arrived with a goodly portion of the desert deposited on one’s self. It took a long, long bath to wash the dust away. The dirt road between Gwadar, Turbat and on to Panjgur passed through the most remarkable landscape of dry, broken hills and riverbeds that saw water only rarely when rain fell.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A handful of kilometres from Gwadar on the west bay the hills of Pishukan, completely unpopulated and waterless were the most fascinating place ever. Seen against a low sun they looked (and still do) like the skyscraper-filled skyline of some modern city. Now with Gwadar being turned into the next Dubai (or whatever else they plan), urbanisation has hit this region in a big way. Sooner than we know, west bay will be choc-a-bloc with concrete monstrosities that will block out the beauty of the Pishukan hills.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In recent years I have seen Karachi expand all the way to the Hub River both along RCD Highway and on the tree-shaded and peaceful Hub Dam Road. Along the former we have an industrial estate and its auxiliary residential areas as well as the shanties that were bound to happen. On the latter the sprawling Hamdard University has taken away the magic. Within years of the establishment of the university, Karachi began to encroach in that direction. Today as one drives up to the dam, one is never alone. And if I am not wrong, a lot of trees, mainly acacia and tamarisk, have been destroyed in the bargain.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even the lonely RCD Highway has not escaped urban pressure as places as quaint and remote as Khuzdar and Wadh have encroached upon the road. This invasion is mostly in the form of glitzy restaurants and unseemly truck stops. Though I have not been on this road for nearly twenty years, friends tell me that no longer can one stop and savour the solitude of Balochistan for more than a few minutes at a time without being disturbed by passing buses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the case of Punjab and NWFP, the least said the better. Today one can drive from, say, Peshawar to Lahore or Multan or even all the way to Karachi and never be out in the country. Today the entire 1000 plus kilometre length of the N-5 is an endless bazaar. The views of swaying sugar cane or golden wheat along the road are a thing of the past. Now all one sees is an endless procession of grimy workshops and filthy restaurants. If it is not that, then it is a succession of equally unsightly factories.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gone are the days of the wide-open vistas. Unchecked urbanisation has destroyed the magic of intercity travel. So few people today realise that as we once went tooling along the highways, we got to know this country; its rivers and trees, its birds and animals and all that grew on it that made up our food. Unchecked urban spread has not only deprived us of a landscape that my generation knew. It has defiled this land in more ways than one.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For one, vast tracts of farmland on the periphery of urban centres have been made over for housing estates. Indigenous trees were without fail the first casualty in this deal. All the wonderful, spreading banyan, pipal, mulberry, acacia and shisham were laid low to demarcate plots and lay out the grid of roads. In their stead, ignorant developers planted the water-guzzling eucalyptus and the only tree we now see is this accursed alien species. Secondly, unplanned urban expansion has destroyed dozens of fresh water streams. The Degh, the Aik and the Palkhu are just a few examples.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KtnUAoT2am7CqgRb3VfVex4Xsjjn0JndYJripESok3a0v9DgdOgv9q53NE7pjzMxqzttu2ZvH0_aPIxZv3UCPJM-1bH0QG_HyZZE2pjljBtPXHoY8pha5H1LLfHoCjxOGS2R4vIW8r4/s1600/salman+rashid2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KtnUAoT2am7CqgRb3VfVex4Xsjjn0JndYJripESok3a0v9DgdOgv9q53NE7pjzMxqzttu2ZvH0_aPIxZv3UCPJM-1bH0QG_HyZZE2pjljBtPXHoY8pha5H1LLfHoCjxOGS2R4vIW8r4/s400/salman+rashid2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We now stand on the threshold of a new age where we will not know this country. In a few years most urban people will only know ugly concrete jungles, not spreading fields of wheat and paddy. Small wonder then that we are going crazier and crazier and ever more violence-prone.<br /><a name='more'></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" /></a><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of several books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>, Riders on the Wind, Between two Burrs on the Map, Prisoner on a Bus and Sea Monsters and the Sun God. His work - explorations, traveling and writings - appears in almost all leading publications.</i></b> </div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-83117349262809734032011-09-19T20:49:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.885-07:00Who is burried thee?<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="mailto:odysseuslahori@gmail.com">Salman Rashid</a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the bleak, tortured landscape of the north-eastern Potohar Plateau Dhamiak had remained uncelebrated since the beginning of time. Lying amid a wearisome tangle of narrow and meandering gullies, tinged red by sub-soil salt and thinly covered with scrub, it never had reason for fame or glory. Its only claim to fame was for being a staging post just off one branch of the old Rajapatha, or King’s Road, that has been in use from ancient times. While the main royal road leading west through Punjab went by the Salt Range, this branch followed the same alignment as the modern Grand Trunk Road by way of Jhelum, Sohawa and Gujar Khan – though none of these towns would have then existed.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIkpIn9cTq1FGSakxPz9NkUPPkj38d9C5f8i6i0_TTA2yaAQ8E_PCIG_2wrdMZZSSkw6nW2mfkQyODmhigqqercqM0icNzD2WKT1MEgX0jnKviNpJt-qaD-M8bOQoCqIOW1A2N3njVVg/s1600/salman+rashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJIkpIn9cTq1FGSakxPz9NkUPPkj38d9C5f8i6i0_TTA2yaAQ8E_PCIG_2wrdMZZSSkw6nW2mfkQyODmhigqqercqM0icNzD2WKT1MEgX0jnKviNpJt-qaD-M8bOQoCqIOW1A2N3njVVg/s400/salman+rashid.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This latter was the road less travelled; the majority of traffic passing through the heart of the Salt Range. The celebrated Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang writes of his prolonged sojourn at Taxila (631 AD) and a visit to the monasteries of the Salt Range. Thereafter, he tells us of his journey to Kashmir. Though he does not describe his route, it is evident that he would have used this road. Nine hundred years later Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, tells us of having travelled by the ‘sub-montane road’ through the country of the warlike Gakkhars of the Potohar Plateau en route to Lahore in November 1523.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In between a remarkable event took place by this lesser branch of the King’s Road. This event would have remained no more than a footnote in our history had we not become masters of a missile that needed to be named after a hero. And since from the moment of our conversion to Islam, we were divorced from our earlier history, all heroes had to be, necessarily, Muslims. So it is that Muiz ud Din, better known as Shahab ud Din Ghory, a Turkish chieftain from the narrow and impoverished valley of Ghor, southeast of Herat in Afghanistan, is celebrated by sub-continental Muslims for his invasion and mastery of the northern part of India.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1203 rumour reached the Khokhar Rajputs of the Salt Range that Shahab ud Din had been killed by the Mongols on the wind-scoured grasslands of far away Central Asia. Having been nominal feudatories of the Ghorid sultan, these doughty warriors began to assert their independence by closing the roads that passed through their territory. Thereafter they set about raiding Ghorid dependencies in Punjab. But it was only rumour: Shahab ud Din was alive and by 1205 brought retribution upon these people in full force. The battle fought near Gujrat was all but carried by the Khokhars until Turkish reinforcements under Qutub ud Din Aibak arrived from Delhi to turn the tide. The Rajputs were routed after a great slaughter and the country returned to Turkish control.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Smarting under the shame of defeat, the Rajputs set their hearts on revenge. Barely a year later, when the Ghorid sultan was returning from Delhi to the Afghan highlands, he was done in. The sources say that it was either a single individual or a small band of Khokhars (no more than three) that stole into the king’s camp, dispatched his bodyguards and repeatedly stabbed the king as he slept in his tent. And even before an alarm could be raised, these intrepid guerrillas had vanished into the dark of night while the sultan lay dying in a pool of blood.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The sources are also divided on another issue: the location of this historical event. At least two early sources tell of the king’s tent having been pitched by a ford on the Sindhu River and that the Khokhars entered his camp by swimming in. But the Tabakat-e-Nasiri of Minhaj ud Din Siraj, generally considered fairly reliable as an historical source, very categorically states that the murder took place at ‘the halting place of Dhamiak ….. at the hand of a disciple of the Mulahida.’ The Mulahida or heretics here being the Ismailis, a persuasion that many of the Khokhars followed at that time. Several contemporary and later writers agree with Siraj that Dhamiak was indeed the site of the murder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And so it was that when it came time for us to name our missile we called it Ghory: therein lay a symbolism. The Indians call their missile Prithvi (after Prithviraj Chauhan) we are one up because Shahab ud Din Ghory had eventually won victory after an initial defeat at the hands of the Chauhan king. Having done that we also needed to re-invent history. This was easily do-able because we knew from folklore that Shahab ud Din Ghory had died at Dhamiak. Being well-known for our national aversion to reading, the creators of this new history did not bother to consult the books and simply went ahead to raise the white marble tomb of the Ghorid sultan at Dhamiak. The Turkish king was thus duly indigenised, but Dhamiak became the burial place of deception for real history has another tale to tell.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Tabakat-e-Nasiri tells us of the dispatch of the king’s bier from Dhamiak towards Ghazni. Now, it needs be told that at the time of this murder (1206 AD), Afghanistan was held by the Turks as different principalities all owing allegiance to the sultan. While Ghor was held by the sultan’s cousins, Ghazni was under the control of Taj ud Din Yalduz, one of Shahab ud Din Ghori’s most trusted slaves and generals. As the funerary procession accompanied by amirs from both Ghor and Ghazni crossed the Sindhu River and arrived in the vicinity of modern day Kohat, a dispute for the possession of the coffin as well as the considerable treasure being borne with it broke out between the two parties.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">From all accounts it appears that a minor battle was fought. The Ghoris were defeated and routed. The funeral then proceeded to Ghazni by way of Sankuran that we today know as Shalozan. This is a right beautiful, well-watered valley of orchards and farmland lying a few kilometres to the northwest of Parachinar. It was at Sankuran that Yalduz kept headquarters and as the bier reached in this vicinity, we hear of him riding out to meet the body of his lord and master. The histories tell us of how having seen the grim procession from a distance, Yalduz dismounted and came up to the bier with ‘utmost veneration.’ It is also recorded that he wept so inconsolably that his grief moved others to tears as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arriving at Ghazni, the sultan’s body was buried in the madrasah he had founded during his lifetime and named after his daughter – his only child who survived beyond infancy. To recount the subsequent battles between the houses of Ghor and Ghazni over the late sultan’s treasures is beyond the scope of this story. Nevertheless all available histories tell of the corpse of Sultan Shahab ud Din Ghory safely reaching and being buried at Ghazni.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Yet we have a marble monstrosity plonked amid the furrowed badlands of the Potohar Plateau. The building can be reached by a blacktop motorable road that takes off to the east of the Grand Trunk Road at Sohawa exactly opposite the fork that goes in the other direction to Chakwal. Less than twenty kilometres from the main highway, the white tomb can be spotted from some way off. The façade bears a plaque that briefly tells of the sultan’s exploits against the Rajputs. It would be foolish to imagine that the plaque would also recall the chivalry of the victorious Rajputs in the first encounter. For the Rajputs a battle was no different from a sport: when they routed an enemy, they did not stoop so low as to pursue and annihilate a withdrawing army. They broke away and jubilantly went their own way. They permitted the vanquished foe to live to fight another day.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Be that as it may, the question is: if the king’s corpse was borne to Ghazni as history testifies, who is buried in this tomb? No one. At least not a person. It must not be forgotten that summer had begun and the body would have started to rot very quickly in the Punjabi heat. As was the practice, the sultan’s courtiers would in all probability have eviscerated the corpse. All that would have been buried at Dhamiak was the liver and the excrement-filled royal intestines. As time passed and memory faded, it was only remembered as the burial of Shahab ud Din Ghory ignominiously murdered at the hands of an Ismaili Khokhar sworn to revenge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When it came time to reincarnate the Ghorid king as a missile, the tomb was raised as a sort of proprietorial claim over that exalted personage. History was not consulted and if official historians were required, of them there were aplenty falling over each other to attest to the veracity of the murder at Dhamiak. As has been the way of this breed of experts, the rest of the truth was not revealed. And so the marble Tomb of the Viscera was raised.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3YHmt1S-eFPoUR1RsoLdPTDIuXJhFnYTLzDI1JsUYiy7kNJS1BTQSmrE-8Yh-gxwsXPHRXYQEbU89LgaT38t3vIy8OwWit96j8FP6CgsAGFBKBZB2GwBsJmeBbQFAfqojaVrf4Xi2YyM/s1600/salmanrashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3YHmt1S-eFPoUR1RsoLdPTDIuXJhFnYTLzDI1JsUYiy7kNJS1BTQSmrE-8Yh-gxwsXPHRXYQEbU89LgaT38t3vIy8OwWit96j8FP6CgsAGFBKBZB2GwBsJmeBbQFAfqojaVrf4Xi2YyM/s400/salmanrashid.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If, however, the mausoleum only commemorates the location of the sultan’s last moments on earth, then the raising of this edifice is doubly criminal. In a country where ordinary folks, superstitious as they are, worship every available tomb, this will only create yet another giver of sons and wealth. This will give them another demi-god to worship and pray to.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Postscript: When Jehangir, the fourth Mughal emperor of India, died in Kashmir in the summer of 1627, his body was brought to Lahore by way of Bhimber and Gujrat. As it neared this latter city, it was already beginning to putrefy. Evisceration was the only way to impede further damage. The material was buried just outside town. Today there stands a tomb over that site and the plaque commemorates the mausoleum as that of ‘Shah Jehangiri.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over time the humble intestines of a rather worldly monarch were deified. Today Shah Jehangiri boasts of a large weekly gathering; the annual urs being an even greater affair. Men and women come from distant corners of the country; it is said, to seek the intervention of the intestines in the acquisition of health, wealth and children. Some of them surely are granted their desires. The Auqaf Department that was raised to curb such mindless superstition actually abets in its spread for every new shrine in the country means more income for the department. Even if the shrines contain only excrement-filled intestines.<br /><a name='more'></a></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" /></a><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of several books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>, Riders on the Wind, Between two Burrs on the Map, Prisoner on a Bus and Sea Monsters and the Sun God. His work - explorations, traveling and writings - appears in almost all leading publications.</i></b> </div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-70246000583760063722011-09-15T07:14:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.885-07:00Virtual Travel Communities<div style="text-align: justify;">The virtual world is beginning to blend seamlessly with the real world. The social side of technology is making the World Wide Web much more localized by bringing like-minded people together and in the process creating closely knit online communities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A combination of features like worldwide accessibility and instantaneous communication has made it possible for backpackers, globetrotters, and other adventurers from all over the world to join together at different online platforms to exchange information, experiences, and plans in their favorite pursuit — travel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Subscribers range from the professional travel writers to hardcore travelers and adventurers and regular folks who are simply interested in reading online. Travel communities are accessible by millions of interested people all over the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Out of some major and lesser travel forums on the Web, I have had the good fortune to belong to a few and have been visiting some others for my travel information needs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Exceptions apart, all virtual travel communities have some common features. Communities mostly provide a warm, trusting, and supportive atmosphere. When members share information, they do it with great care and responsibility. They rely on each other more than they do on outdated travel guidebooks or on second-hand and static information from conventional travel literature.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Visit any online community and one finds anything related to travel, along with flames and off topic comments, which are sometimes informative, sometimes funny, and occasionally annoying. The mutual exchange of information is not restricted only to destinations, affordable places to stay and dine in, security issues, maps, weather conditions there. and where to find the best bargains and how to find public restrooms or which Websites better describe any particular place (or which dress a female anthropologist going to study Kalash clan up in northern district Chitral should wear during her extended stay there). It goes much further to helping in finding work, selling and promoting each other in local markets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Travel forums have become hunting grounds for meeting fellow travelers and making new friends. You really do not require any other reason to join a community or two,” says Atoorva Sinha, who intends building up the travelers’ community at Mindzwine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carla King is a founding member of one virtual travel community called Wild Writing Women for female travelers. She emailed, “When we published 'Wild Writing Women — Stories of World Travel' (an anthology of women’s travel stories) — we got a lot of publicity. People wanted to know how we traveled solo and weren’t afraid, and just how we went about it. We started giving workshops. We also started giving writing workshops and hosted a free monthly literary salon. People just gravitated, and we accepted them. We made a business of it and formed the online community. So it’s a profitable business for us to expand the community, and also, happily, it’s close to our hearts.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Members are slow to respond sometime. Chris Heidrich, the director of BootsnAll says, “One has to be patient in waiting for a response from members and insiders. It should be understood that it is a voluntary favor and some people do not come on board or check email as often.” Court, who is always found on board in the same community adds, “Some time they may be away traveling to yet another location.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The recipients of information have to keep in mind that whatever comes is based upon individuals’ personal experiences or empirical observations. One member may have had different experiences than others. When I posted a query about virtual travel communities (for this article) at the BootsnAll community, the first reply referred me to Nick, the mediator at another community at Bali Blog who in turn advised me to email direct to all on his mailing list. The replies I am still receiving are varied, showing so many perspectives. “There is nothing like variety,” says Nick.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The virtual world is composed of information rather than physical identities. Information spreads and diffuses. Those who belong to these impalpable spaces are also diffuse, free to take it or leave it.</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-67123037177641258962011-09-15T07:01:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.885-07:00Flying by Air Airk<div style="text-align: justify;">The growth in human activities has given birth to increase travel service that facilitate you and help you get tickets, save money on airfares, hotel accommodations, hire cars and airport transfers at different destination around the world. I have been travelling whenever I could. Given my own interest, I try to keep a watch better services, newer services and cheaper services to get tickets. I use the info for my writings and also try them when I need to. Travelling to Africa by <a href="http://www.arikairlines.co.uk/">Arik Air</a> is one of my new finds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pure competition is one of the best factors that have created great choices for frequent travellers. Every airline is trying to do its best in offering lowest fare, luxury and comfort to attract passengers. <a href="http://www.arikairlines.co.uk/">Air Arik</a> is a case in point here.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While searching for cheap flights to Lagos from London and quality services to destinations in Africa, I came upon flights to Lagos from London – a travel company that can take care of all your travel needs. BTW, if you can’t find your required route, call <a href="http://www.arikairlines.co.uk/">Airk</a> and leave the rest to them.</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-5570589321763742352011-09-14T01:06:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.886-07:00My Village<div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mvbG085TMTAgH-qs61B45i2IZRtwErf9J2i7rR8G1jza6QyLg6Rsr8nKWp8WfehDmauSOp2DCKteRH5ycDeOtE5rlk_RnQWaApWcnQnSUjQ_dqH8SeSJ3-QJclZ25AZMEu2yKLlr79JP/s1600/images+%25284%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5mvbG085TMTAgH-qs61B45i2IZRtwErf9J2i7rR8G1jza6QyLg6Rsr8nKWp8WfehDmauSOp2DCKteRH5ycDeOtE5rlk_RnQWaApWcnQnSUjQ_dqH8SeSJ3-QJclZ25AZMEu2yKLlr79JP/s200/images+%25284%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>There are lessons in the first landscapes of every one's life. Mine was a vista of green paddy fields, smoking with <a href="http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/2006/09/salt-range.html" style="background-color: inherit; color: #467aa7; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Salt Range</a> mist, against a setting of ribbon of River Jhelum which from distance looked like a shore of another land altogether. The rough, rugged hill range appeared uninviting against a sky withering with the morning, interrupted by the dawn's red and blue brush strokes. My first learning in life was also in the village.</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span><br /><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">In villages, people still live without assessable roads or other civic amenities of this modern age. No telephone or the Internet, even the electricity is the recent phenomenon; some are still without it. You see one village and you have seen all. This was the setting where I spent first twenty year of my life savoring the freedom of adulthood. It is where I decided what (and how) I wanted to do with life. It is where my mother, brothers and friends live. It is where I return whenever my active life allows me to. It is where I want to settle and spend my future.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;">My village is awe inspiring -- pollution free and quiet. Different shades and colors of waving crops and trees - solitary, in groves or avenues - beautify the landscape. The scene changes after the harvest. The air is always fresh and fragrant with the smell of earth. The only sound is singing of birds, ringing of cowbells and sighing of wind or some youth loudly singing</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2010/04/long-trail-of-heritage.html" style="background-color: inherit; color: #467aa7; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Heer Waris Shah</a>, Sassi Punun</b></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;">or</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Mirza Saheban</i></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;">at night. One sees butterflies fluttering, ladybirds creeping and squirrels jumping around. To me the place feels like a paradise.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span><br /><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguog3TaLGPlvg19niWtFei2d1lwu1yp0ov3J6LWU0WSx-iK-TPQOucWAPbWDQMbt8GE5ERN4fx7kFCZMUfUP3vjwCDGoZ_VQrj5hoYWneo5iS9AdES_ho2XkNE84AwVxvyVTNqg1SLOMk/s1600/Shirazi+S+A+J.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: inherit; color: #467aa7; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguog3TaLGPlvg19niWtFei2d1lwu1yp0ov3J6LWU0WSx-iK-TPQOucWAPbWDQMbt8GE5ERN4fx7kFCZMUfUP3vjwCDGoZ_VQrj5hoYWneo5iS9AdES_ho2XkNE84AwVxvyVTNqg1SLOMk/s400/Shirazi+S+A+J.jpg" style="border-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">My roots are in the village where no body seems to be in a hurry. Every time I go there, from the different cities where I happen to be living, I take small things like candies and toys for the kids of neighbors and my family in the village and they are so happy that the words cannot explain their delight. From the village I bring everything, and more than every thing I bring lot of love.</span><br /><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span><br /><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">"I help my neighbors and my neighbors help me", is the philosophy of life in our village. Faith, sharing, contentment, grit, hard work and humor are few others. There are no marriage halls or other renting places. <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Daras</i></b> (community centers where cultural diffusion takes place) are very useful 'institutions' for functions or for elders to sit and teach irreplaceable heritage of ideas to the younger generation. The learning that passed on to me in Dara turned out to be very precious: it was the legacy of the fable. <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tandoor</i></b> (Oven for backing bread) is still a meeting and talking place for women.</span></div><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Guests of one family are shared by ever one at the time of marriage (or death). Hospitality is like one of the cultural benchmark, as villagers strongly believe that a guest comes with the blessings of Allah Almighty. Pull a hay cart into the shad, to rest, to dream. You shall be served with <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">hookka</i></b> (Hubbell-bubble), water and food. Cooing crows are still considered as a symbol for the arrival of guests in my village.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"></span><br /><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">From our village, a group of seven students used to go to nearby town for attending school (and then college). Ghulam Muhammad was my buddy in the group. After completing the education, my dreams become out of control and took me on the darker roads of the life whereas Ghulam Muhammad, equipped with degree from Faisalabd Agricultural University, started progressive farming in the same village. He was a hardworking, gentleman, economically very sound and ambitious. Ghulam Mohammed's father soon started getting proposals for the marriage of his son from many wealthy landlord families of the area. But, my friend married his cousin: uneducated daughter of one of his poorest uncles and is living happily ever since. Village society is still simple, cohesive and based on similarities.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"></span><br /><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br /><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">This time when I was coming back from the village, lot of people - family members, peers and neighbors - came to see me off as always. My mother had packed my vehicle with vegetables (fresh from the farm), palsies, atta (floor), and husked rice and even live chickens. Every body was advising me to consume every thing back in the city, as "they are fresh, pure, nutritious and desi". On my way back, a question kept coming in my mind: how much time this simple society will take to become complex and when will 'development' change the outlook of the villagers to life?</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span><br /><div style="color: #303030; font-family: Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgi2u27ebDxe5fdkVQqwpuOjyZmfaf9twzpDuxihJiwSlNVSQDJTmU4uvpy3PEOEaKfYYjuax4cKzCtnw58AEMFD5hoCgu4zKFInmNFZd0NKf3MqzcVc5-zAsGLyHO4B8qbCs15JSFy8/s1600/sajshirazi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: inherit; color: #2a5a8a; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 1em; padding: 0px; text-decoration: underline;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgi2u27ebDxe5fdkVQqwpuOjyZmfaf9twzpDuxihJiwSlNVSQDJTmU4uvpy3PEOEaKfYYjuax4cKzCtnw58AEMFD5hoCgu4zKFInmNFZd0NKf3MqzcVc5-zAsGLyHO4B8qbCs15JSFy8/s400/sajshirazi.JPG" style="border-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span id="fullpost" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A cluster of memories - some overlapping, some isolated - of '<b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">the village boy</b>' I once always stay with me. <a href="http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/2005/01/about.html">I am a result of my childhood experiences</a>. After having knocked on all the doors of opportunity that come in my way in life, I want to settle and spend my future in the village?</span></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-51040276695853745542011-09-14T00:10:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.886-07:00Rims and Tires<div style="text-align: justify;">All those who love cars like to own the best and want to keep them in a perfect condition. They always look for powerful accessories like <a href="http://www.rimdiscounters.com/">Chrome Rims</a> they can add and make their automobiles more powerful, comfortable and safe. One of the best places most auto lovers are already familiar with is Rim Discounter – aptly named <a href="http://www.rimdiscounters.com/">Rims and Tires</a> stores. Have a look and find how they offer low down-payments and a great selection of styles. Rimdiscounters.com is just such a place where you can choose from over 2000 Chrome Custom Rims and nearly 500 Painted and Machined Finish Custom Rim Styles. Better still go for Rim & Tire Package and save greatly on your tires. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My passion for knowing more about cars and what can be added to them took me to Rim Discounter that offers best selection of rims and tires including <a href="http://www.rimdiscounters.com/">22 in Rims</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I suggest your explore information rich, neatly laid out and resourceful Rim Discounter and see what all they are offering and how. The imagery at the site is good and gives you the feeler of any item you may be looking at. There are enough details with each product to help you make informed buying decision. Try them, enjoy their best customers' service and make your car more powerful with what they offer.</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-19589925779794287602011-09-12T22:39:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.886-07:00Silk Road<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrKDzuGXopbHm3G5ARkfMNENMdP_ME2NDrWAy9DCIfO9pGrr1ingDWXhLTspV_7dQU1w2UdwxBI_cfxl5h5yCDFCoBfml12MJ5pQF-qDfMzo_7f_ez0cybfe5iBQivh1iJpB_3naBSH6k/s1600/index.php.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrKDzuGXopbHm3G5ARkfMNENMdP_ME2NDrWAy9DCIfO9pGrr1ingDWXhLTspV_7dQU1w2UdwxBI_cfxl5h5yCDFCoBfml12MJ5pQF-qDfMzo_7f_ez0cybfe5iBQivh1iJpB_3naBSH6k/s200/index.php.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The souls that pave the way for the <a href="http://www.silkroadtreasuretours.com/">Silk Road</a> still seem to flicker amongst the sharp moving shadows of the unstable rocks and the almost countless but crumbly semi-transparent glaciers that constantly threaten its existence. There has always been a 3,000 years of history and tradition, breathtaking landscapes of desert, mountain, and steppe, and glorious ancient cities and above all the warmest people in the world. Discover a new place, and discover yourself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those who want to best discover the old rout (and in the process want to discover themselves) must first have a look at Silk Road Treasure Tours – with them the world is more interesting. Silk Road Treasure Tours will help you get to any destination. Travel to places like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and <a href="http://www.silkroadtreasuretours.com/central-asia-tours">Central Asia</a>. You can also explore Caucasus Travel - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. I personally want to learn about Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Turkmans and Tajiks and learn more about their culture. Which is why a trip on the silk road is already on my wish list. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let them arrange the tour for you and you may have one of the most enriching experience of your life. Maybe you'd like to combine tours? Their experience working with the many major and regional airlines makes it easy for us to arrange tours to multiple destinations. Approach them and they will take care of every detail. You simply enjoy your. When you are on their neatly laid out site, go through event calendar (Discover Uzbekistan, Central Asia Treasures: Art, Culture and Music, Silk Road Treasures of Central Asia, Uzbekistan Treasures) and see how you can plan your tour with the event that interests you more. Also go through tour testimonials and see what those who have travelled with them are saying about them. This will help you make an informed decision.</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-67373906261865150742011-09-07T21:23:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.886-07:00This is where I get my supply of Salageet (Shilajit)<div align="justify"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqxx58ai-_49Sv7ARezoQW6LidD9vWcqLvWgeoRI7Vt7YyoMZhP-Gx-gZjfn421-SAApijuwMbh7x2UNlO48fv0z39klh10nr28EWE7mrDY3hr8CRHjDlh-Fs1DOs7M2V2H2lMXGaVxpy0/s1600/chitral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqxx58ai-_49Sv7ARezoQW6LidD9vWcqLvWgeoRI7Vt7YyoMZhP-Gx-gZjfn421-SAApijuwMbh7x2UNlO48fv0z39klh10nr28EWE7mrDY3hr8CRHjDlh-Fs1DOs7M2V2H2lMXGaVxpy0/s400/chitral.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Some places are so peaceful and unspoiled that it is almost unbelievable. One such locality is the picturesque, tranquil and pollution free (and undeveloped) boarder village Arrandu in district <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2009/05/greeks-in-chitral.html">Chitral</a>. The very sound of the name is musical. This village is located 'on' the Pakistan Afghanistan boarder. Dir-Chitral Road bifurcates near village Mir Khanni and a jeep able track along Kunar River leads to Arrandu through Domail Nisar and onwards into Afghanistan.<br /><br />Gateway to the South Asia, the <a href="http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/2009/02/changing-chitral.html">Chitral valley</a> has been center of activity since ancient times. Macedonians advanced through this region in fourth century. In 1338, Timur subdued the area on his way to the plains of Punjab. Mughal King Akbar garrisoned here in 1587 and the British in 1897 in Chakdara on Dir side of Lowari Pass. Among soldiers who served here in Chakdara then was young Winston Churchill who later became Prime Minister of Britain. So far about the past importance of the valley but the little hamlet got the international fame during Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. It remained in the news and was commonly called as 'BBC Baby'.</div><div align="justify">Arrandu is set up on the bank of Kunar River flowing into Afghanistan. Terraced fields of wheat, barley, maize and fragrant orchards of walnuts, apricots, grapes, apples and mulberries are strung up the valley like flags, at the feet of bare or thinly forested mountain walls.<br /><br />The 3118-meter Lowari Pass is normally open to vehicles from June to October. One can sometime cross the pass on foot in May or November, despite the snow. One can also reach this small hamlet from Peshawar to Chitral by air and then by road to Arrandu or from Afghanistan. Though taking flight to Chitral is not everyone's cup of tea because the Fokker Friendship can cross the Lowari Pass only if weather permits. It rarely does particularly once the valley is landlocked in winters. First time, I landed in Chitral after three attempts by Fokker. Flying above the clouds, I had a window seat on the West Side of the small and noisy aircraft and could see the sighs of Hindu Kush where clouds allowed. Chitral to Arrandu via Drosh along Kunar River is easily one of the prettiest drives in the valley.<br /><br />Chitral Scouts have kept this post in a very good shape. And, when ever I happened to pass the post conducting 'travelers' from down country or alone, I was always given a warm welcome and send off by Essa Khan, a local who has the biggest store cum tea house in the village. He also has arrangements for Trout fishing in Kunar River near his store. After zig zagging on a difficult road, one can spend a good day at the riverbank fishing and relaxing, with supply of tea from the Pinion Shah's teashop. And, to me Pinion Shah used to present, every time I visited him, a gift of pure salageet (Shilajit) - an oozing black paste from rocks famous among men in this part of the world as an anti aging and sexual health. After Afghan refugees and occasional travelers, now this road is used by herd of goats lead by a lonely Gujars to and from greener pastures. That is the place, which I use as a retreat from the hustle and bustle of urban life and that is where "I go to reminisce about fairies."<br /><br />While the entire Chitral Valley is breathtaking in its splendor and beauty, one of my most enduring memories of Arrandu is watching the sunrise over the hills. And, when you devote enough time to look at the mountains, it becomes a bit chameleon - clouding over, changing colors, cliffs turning into convex and concave according to the slant light.<br /><br />Arrandu has red roofed grand mosque and some makeshift provision stores that are stocked in summers when Lowari Pass is open to road traffic. There is also a water mill for grinding grain. Lot of tracks interlaces the area that is frequented by Mazdas or pedestrians.<br /><br />At night, lights glow in this isolated village. One finds men spending their quality time sitting on the retaining walls along the razor edged roads and tracks while women (mostly with enlarged thyroid glands due to lack of iodine) working in the fields, homes or collecting woods from hills in conical wicker baskets. Even in their fifties men carry guns along with a belt of ammunition. The fact is that I found them friendly and at peace with themselves.<br /><br />There are side valleys that yawn on both sides of Kunar River for hiking in its upper reaches. Friendly people of Tajik origin who had came from Badakhshan in Afghanistan only a few generations ago, to manufacture matchlock rifles for the Mehtar of Chitral populate the area. Arrandu Road is an ideal place to study the effects of land erosion: how it ruins the land and clogs waterways. And, there are some beautiful geological formations along the road. Besides scenery, there are many well-used camping grounds on both sides of the road and river, which run side by side.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJAwYLsWarc8Yidceb3PuqABhhUmjeas6UGOmGQ4qMuCg9dOELRv3Xhq3vLdMwnxX1foxvzKn6fPpZKLwYifaKJL4WlVLROocAZ8_Z_c2VJsXqE2OFbf7Q2AEyfW9OZkhQISMjT-Yq6IxQ/s1600/P7131461-01+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJAwYLsWarc8Yidceb3PuqABhhUmjeas6UGOmGQ4qMuCg9dOELRv3Xhq3vLdMwnxX1foxvzKn6fPpZKLwYifaKJL4WlVLROocAZ8_Z_c2VJsXqE2OFbf7Q2AEyfW9OZkhQISMjT-Yq6IxQ/s400/P7131461-01+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Isolated from the rest of the country because of the remote location, Chitralis live a primitive rural existence without any civic amenities. Even the TV transmissions, telephone and electricity only in some parts of distract are a recent phenomenon. "Why would anyone want to live in a country like that?" Pinion Shah smiled and said, "I guess we like it here because we like to be left alone. Oh, it is nice to have people visiting. And we like people all right. But we like them on our own terms." And, he was right. I could hear him, murmuring sitting on his old stool: a freedom that meets other people only on its own terms - and yet forces you to care about every one of your neighbors scattered across the hillocks. Most of the Chitralis whom I asked confessed, "We like and want our own way of life." That is what is keeping them there.<br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Travel" rel="tag">Travel</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Chitral" rel="tag">Chitral</a></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-7431386427576258262011-09-07T21:06:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.887-07:00My Thatta Kedona Projects<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHpIACwuiBloxtEeXdsVn5vrLKX6Uhze5ooHxpl1XJx_QUH1sgA1B9Y8WRLstlKujW8rkbBjZmhG0BPn5Jes9aDtBEXKnd2nIUZ2FkrFoIiYMDzVnkbsWpu3t9pLuxJPKkBhcTxL_3tMJm/s1600/Kalashi-Boy-50cm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHpIACwuiBloxtEeXdsVn5vrLKX6Uhze5ooHxpl1XJx_QUH1sgA1B9Y8WRLstlKujW8rkbBjZmhG0BPn5Jes9aDtBEXKnd2nIUZ2FkrFoIiYMDzVnkbsWpu3t9pLuxJPKkBhcTxL_3tMJm/s400/Kalashi-Boy-50cm.jpg" width="249" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thattakedona.blogspot.com/2006/08/about-thatta-kedona.html">Thatta Kedona Dolls</a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKirZr4Mj9DNMR0iuGxdF74T3L4k55dOxTimTK8k1focFKysupZI9sF30x6fLy2TK5-GHNkV6yhEDnng5VorT6K19DAGvOAAj9WtpWIgv4rTHNyveB0EYgHpbaAIFBUo0js4CPbARG37OJ/s1600/Thatta+Radio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="73" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKirZr4Mj9DNMR0iuGxdF74T3L4k55dOxTimTK8k1focFKysupZI9sF30x6fLy2TK5-GHNkV6yhEDnng5VorT6K19DAGvOAAj9WtpWIgv4rTHNyveB0EYgHpbaAIFBUo0js4CPbARG37OJ/s400/Thatta+Radio.jpg" width="275" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://radiotv-thattavillage.blogspot.com/">Thatta Kedona Radio</a></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-73173041036660056202011-08-28T23:37:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.887-07:00Pilgrimage to Dalbandin<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid </a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although I had travelled the "Lonely Line" between Quetta and Zahedan (Iran) seven years ago when I was doing what I called "The Little Railway Bazaar" after Paul Theroux, this journey had a special meaning for me. I was on my way to Dalbandin to see the house where my father had lived when he was posted there as Assistant Engineer (AEN) on the North Western Railways from April 1943 to December the following year. For me it was like a pilgrimage. But that was not all, I had also wanted to see if this train continued to be the festival on wheels that it once was.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In my six berth "First Class Sleeper" Agha sahib sat serenely and allowed the big, crinkly haired man and his friend to fawn over him. He wore the round black turban and the matching robe of the Ayatollahs of Iran. His chinky eyes, very Mongol face and sparse beard screamed that he was either a Hazara or a Chengezi, like his attendants, and claimed descent from Chengez Khan. He was a quiet man who did not speak much and when he did it was difficult to catch his soft whisper. Mostly he just sat there looking regal with his pout, occasionally flicking some unseen particle of dust from his robe with ring laden fingers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The crinkly haired man said Agha sahib was returning to Qum in Iran where he was a teacher, after visiting with relatives in his native village not very far north of Quetta. The master spoke only Persian and I, despite my illiteracy in the language, was asked to see that he was not inconvenienced in any way during the journey because he suffered from a sick heart, high blood pressure and diabetes. I hadn't the faintest idea how I was to accomplish what was expected of me but the nod and the smile from the man of God assured me all was well. Then suddenly, as we sat their exchanging nods and smiles, all hell broke lose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lad burst into the compartment surrounded by the characteristic smell of lower class trains. His hair was wild and dirty and his face unshaven with parched lips flaked with dried spittle. His clothes were dusty and on filthy feet he wore the slippers that every worker from the Middle East wears. His eyes swept over the four of us and in a state of agitated frenzy he asked if we were all travelling in the same compartment. Since it was just Agha and me he relaxed, but only a fraction, turned about and swept out of the room.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A moment later a red shirted porter dumped a large case sewn in khaki cloth and measuring about one metre by half a metre by half a metre. Then another, and another. And they kept coming until they were all over the four free berths. Crinkly Hair got up and asked how many more were coming. "No more, no more." said the boy breathlessly and leaned out of the window to shout to the coolies to bring in the rest. And they did; until there were nineteen khaki cases each weighing over fifty kilograms and there was no room for Agha sahib and me to do anything but sit on our berths with our knees tucked under our noses.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"How do you expect Agha sahib to get to the toilet?" demanded Crinkly Hair.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"No problem," said the man, and to demonstrate he climbed over the cases, opened the door and jumped into the toilet. "It's easy." he said looking desperately at Agha sahib.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Get this bloody stuff out of here!" Crinkly Hair exploded, "We are not paying good money to see our religious mentor hassled by the likes of you."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What Ali Raza, whose name I was to learn much later, said next blew my brains out. "Please bear with me." But Crinkly Hair was not impressed and insisted that he book his stuff in the luggage van. Raza begged to be allowed to keep his cargo under his watchful eye; Hair remained implacable. The argument dragged on, Hair got extremely worked up and Raza was virtually grovelling when in came two other boys who were clearly his brothers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The trio begged, wheedled and made promises they were never going to keep but Hair was adamant: the stuff had to go. In the course of this carrying on one of them disappeared to return a moment later with a young woman carrying a child and dressed like the women of the Ayatollahs' Iran - black chador and all. She turned out to be the eldest brother's wife who joined the chorus of entreaties giving Hair a new angle to his argument. "Baji, there isn't room in here for a decent woman. Also this is a very long journey and I am not allowing my sister to be inconvenienced."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The farce kept on for almost three quarters of an hour when at lenght Hair gave up and called for the conductor. After several more minutes of the three brothers and the wife individually and collectively imploring Hair and the conductor to relent, the nineteen crates were removed to the brake-van. And so the Taftan Express bound for Zahedan finally steamed out of Quetta over two hours behind schedule.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Clearly Raza was the architect of whatever was happening. The eldest and the youngest looked utterly miserable and it was certain that they were not having anything to do with future madcap schemes; but the wife, remarkably unperturbed, was buried in a cheap Urdu magazine. Raza lived and worked illegally in Meshed and since it meant much more money than living and working illegally in Karachi he had come home to fetch his two brothers and the wife. Now they were travelling on pilgrimage visas valid for only two weeks which were going to be "easily converted into residence visas". None of them could tell me how a family on pilgrimage was going to explain nineteen crates of assorted onyx handicrafts to custom officials on either side of the frontier, especially when there were no export papers. But then good sense and logic were not this family's forte.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Raza began by telling me that Karachi was soon going to be independent like Hong Kong, but he was utterly incapable of telling me was how they proposed to attain "independence" and, more importantly, sustain Karachi as a viable economic entity. He seemed to believe that when they really wanted to be like Hong Kong they would simply have to wish and they'd be. I asked how the Sindhis were going to put up with this independent Karachi. He thought a moment and very airily informed me that they would join Karachi because they had had enough of living with the Punjabis. "You Punjabis will starve to death when Karachi isn't there to feed you," he said smugly. Five minutes later he was telling me that the Punjabis did not realise other people's problems because they had too much to eat: "Aap ko to rotian lagi hoee hain." At this point I told him to shut up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Outside, the wind sculpted crescent shaped sand hills looked like chocolate icing in the gloaming. We had crossed the last ridge of low hills into the desert that stretches clear across to the Iranian frontier, over six hundred kilometres away. Beyond Nushki the desert took over completely; in the dark landscape of a moonless night there was no reassuring flicker of a man made fire.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Until August 1916 the "Nushki Extension Railway", as it was called, terminated at Nushki beyond which travel was by camel. Then in 1915-16 disease destroyed thirty thousand animals and they said that a traveller could pick his way to the Iranian frontier by the carcasses littering the desert. When work began on the extension the English called it the "Lonely Line" for in the one hundred and sixty eight kilometres between Dalbandin and Nok-Kundi there is just one station: Yakmach -- One Date Palm. It is a great unpopulated wilderness with little vegetation to break the monotony of the wide open plain covered with dark rocks and occasionally punctuated by sand hills.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ahmedwal, seven years after my first visit still is an important watering stop on the line. As before there were hordes of children and adults selling tea and eatables and several men with live chickens tucked under their arms to be sold to travellers presumably for slaughtering and cooking on board. Earlier I had seen no stoves on the train; now none of these men attracted any customers. Evidently the chickens never changed hands; and the Baloch entrepreneurs never gave up.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In World War I when fear of a German invasion of India rode high the line was laid to enable British troops to join the Russians in patrolling the area between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Subsequently in 1932, with this threat subsiding and with little passenger traffic on it, the line between Nok-Kundi and Zahedan was pulled up. Then came World War II and the line was revitalised in April 1942. Exactly a year later my father, fresh out of Thompson College of Civil Engineers (Roorkee, India), arrived at Dalbandin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We arrived in the middle of the night, with a good part of the desert deposited on my person and crunching between my teeth. Half asleep I staggered after Ramzan, the man I had been handed over to in Quetta. The rest house, a majestic high roofed, mud plastered building painted the perscription pale yellow of all rest houses, had no electricity and, unable to read, I lay awake until just before dawn when I was roused by the chowkidar come to show me the Assistant Engineer's residence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It lay behind a high brick wall in the midst of a sprawling not very well kept garden with a few patches of vegetables and looked as dusty as the desert that surrounds Dalbandin. The facade was taken up by the glass windows of what probably meant to be a sun room. In the backyard was the mandatory masonry pedestal with its structure of pipes for the fan (with the fan missing), a swing and a fish pond. Except for the addition of a powder room the interior was exactly as my parents remembered it. But there was very little furniture. The spacious drawing and dining rooms were empty, only the bedroom was equipped with a bed and a dresser. What struck me as unusual was the complete absence of any form of reading material. Fifty years ago an avid reader like my father had piles and piles of books in the house ("A Penguin was only ten annas at Quetta!"). Now there was not even an Urdu pulp digest, and since the AEN was away I could not find out how he kept his sanity in a place like Dalbandin. Doubtlessly, like most of us, he too whiled away the tedium in aimless gup shup.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The high point of this pilgrimage came when upon my asking for the oldest railway man they brought Mohammed Sharif who had joined the railways in 1942 and retired twelve years ago. "Baba, do you remember the AEN posted here in April 1943?" I asked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I remember him well," said the old man, "It was Rashid sahib."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This was remarkable. Forty nine years after he had left Dalbandin never to return, my father was remembered by a man who had worked with him. "Baba, I am his son," I said, and all that escaped his lips was "Oyy!" as he grabbed me in an embrace; then he kissed me on either side of the face in proper Baloch fashion and held me away to regard me through misty eyes. And then the stories came pouring out. What touched me deeply was the untainted sincerity of Sharif's words and actions; it was all spontaneous and straight from the man's heart.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were also insistences to stay. "I am a poor Baloch, but Baloch nonetheless, and you are not allowed to leave without proper hospitality." He expected me to stay with him for a few days at least. But this was one of the two days in the week that I could get the flight back to Quetta and after much pleading I was let off with a lavish tea of several different kinds of biscuits and the promise that I would one day return to Dalbandin to be hosted by Sharif. He then showed me the AEN's office where my father had worked many years ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I asked if he remembered my mother. Of course he did. My father had received his transfer orders when he was going on leave to be married. When he returned with my mother they stayed just long enough to put their stuff together, in the meantime the twice a week service returned from Zahedan. "Rashid sahib was transferred to Mach and I went with them to see that they were comfortably settled there." His memory was uncanny; my father had indeed gone to Mach. And that was where I was headed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, Salman Rashid is author of eight books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2011/01/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>.lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-44348244923480871232011-08-28T17:01:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.887-07:00Everything one need to stay connected<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #555555; font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"></span><br /><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.93em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em id="disclosure_paragraph" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of <a href="http://app.socialspark.com/disclosure_clicks?oid=5268942" rel="nofollow" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #37779a; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Straight Talk</a> for <a href="http://izea.in/rTV" rel="nofollow" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #37779a; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">SocialSpark</a>. 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Blogs are different to different people. <a href="http://quasifictionalviews.blogspot.com/">Fine Art of Blogging</a> asks you to share your views on <b>what is a blog to you</b>?<br /><br />You are <a href="http://quasifictionalviews.blogspot.com/2008/10/invitation.html">invited</a> to contribute your thoughts in general. In particular, write how you blog? Why? How blogging matters in your life and work? Success stories, motivations and inspirations. Answer these questions and more (add what you feel is important dimension) in a post and <a href="mailto:sajshirazi@gmail.com">send</a> in word document.</div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-47017284636028201222011-08-18T11:51:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.887-07:00Kalma Chowk flyover opened for Lahori’ites<br /><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3683368332468873775" style="position: relative; width: 520px;"><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify;">Amir Waqas Chaudhry</div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify;">Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has said the Kalma Chowk flyover project has been completed in a record period of 135 days by working round the clock and this project is a shining example with regard to speed, quality and transparency. </div><div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify;"><a name='more'></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_eMwm5REmPA/Tkl2OgqnajI/AAAAAAAAAYM/p0BmyTobnUU/s1600/Kalma%2BChowk%2Bflyover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #2288bb; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="120" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_eMwm5REmPA/Tkl2OgqnajI/AAAAAAAAAYM/p0BmyTobnUU/s200/Kalma%2BChowk%2Bflyover.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0976563) 1px 1px 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px; position: relative;" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">“The flyover will be a model for the projects throughout the country and this culture will be promoted in the country, including Punjab. I have announced the gift of a splendid project to the citizens of the provincial metropolis on the occasion of Independence Day and, thanks God, flyover has been opened for traffic on the Day. The Kalma Chowk Flyover is a master piece of construction and by completing it in a record period, we have proved that if work is carried out with sincerity and dedication, there will be no hurdle. We will make the future of the country bright with same spirit and hard work,” he maintained, while addressing the ceremony held in connection with the inauguration of the Kalma Chowk flyover on Ferozepur Road on Sunday. Senior Advisor Sirdar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, Provincial Ministers, MPAs, Quarter Master General, Director General NLC, officers of NESPAK and concerned departments as well as a large number of people attended the function.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">The CM said we had set a new tradition in the world of construction as besides saving in the estimated cost, and timely completion of the project, night culture had been introduced in the world of construction. “This project is unique as for the first time in the history of the country, it has been completed in a record period by working day and night. Six months ago, the cost of this project had been estimated at Rs 2.30 billion, but despite increase in the prices of construction material during this period, an amount of Rs 300 million has been saved by completing the project at a cost of Rs 2 billion, for which officers and officials of the Communication and Works Department and the concerned contractor deserve appreciation,” he said, adding that best traveling facilities would be available to the people with the completion of the project while trade and economic activities would also be promoted. He mentioned that four lakh vehicles pass through the Chowk daily and sometimes people had to face difficulties and mental torture due to traffic jam and their precious time was also wasted. He said ambulances taking patients to the hospitals were also stuck up in the rush of traffic but after completion of this project people would get rid of these problems. “Misappropriation of funds, nepotism and corruption are rampant in the name of development projects in the past and Faisalabad-Sumundri Road, Hafizabad Pindi Bhattian Road, Lahore Kasur Gunda Singh Road, Thokar Niazbeg Defence Road, Thokher Niazbeg flyover and Lahore Ring Road are proof of this fact. These projects bespeak of poor planning, dishonesty and plunder of the former rulers. We have changed these graveyards of plunder into monuments of development. The Barkat Market underpass will be completed at a cost of Rs 100 million by September this year and the speed and quality of construction of the Kalma Chowk flyover will also be maintained in this project,” he asserted.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">While paying rich tributes to the officers and workers who took part in the construction of Kalma Chowk Flyover and completing it in a record period, he said today was a historic day when a big project of public welfare had been completed in only 135 days. He announced cash prize of Rs 1.5 million for labourers, who took part in the construction work and directed to constitute a committee which would distribute this amount among the labourers in a transparent manner.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">The CM said the performance of the officers working on this project was also excellent and he would give them his new shirts and ties as gift. In a lighter vein, he said, “giving shirts and ties does not mean that I have started wearing shalwar qameez.”</span></div></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-9724686474362520312011-08-17T22:20:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.888-07:00Rebuilding lives<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="mailto:odysseuslahori@gmail.com">Salman Rashid</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc48Zl6ZTlMAuxxiiElFwHbjc6y3tuqsYce5RIP8WVMJ6sHFmJBVYKfIjvCLOHIln4maxfQf4MdQi0h0w9C0vKDJCxaxRLqSw1KFeTl4QJdi96B3d_EgIlvJBOyUIbVd3CW3sPPmac6dM/s1600/salman+rashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc48Zl6ZTlMAuxxiiElFwHbjc6y3tuqsYce5RIP8WVMJ6sHFmJBVYKfIjvCLOHIln4maxfQf4MdQi0h0w9C0vKDJCxaxRLqSw1KFeTl4QJdi96B3d_EgIlvJBOyUIbVd3CW3sPPmac6dM/s200/salman+rashid.JPG" width="133" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the Indus River rose in August 2010, Wahid Buksh and his family fled their village Malhar Sheikh near Gambat (Sindh) for their lives. From the high ground of the raised bed of the road leading to the new Khairpur-Larkana bridge across the river, Wahid watched the fertile farmland around his village go under the swirling, brown eddies. But the water would not stop rising and by and by his poor mud brick home too was lost.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">When, two months later, he returned from the displaced persons’ camp to what was his village, he found few homes standing and all of his four acres of sugar cane and two of cotton wiped off the face of the earth as if they had never existed. In his twenties, Wahid was no land owner, merely a sharecropper. Even so, his loss was great. As the summer drew to an end, he had little hope of raising enough funds to purchase wheat seed and fertiliser for the December sowing. But a man needs to win bread for the family and so Wahid Buksh resorted to daily wage labour in nearby Gambat.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In February he heard that Participatory Village Development Program (PVDP), an NGO based in Mirpur Khas, supported by Church World Service (CWS) of Islamabad was offering three-month skill training programmes at the newly-established Construction Trade Training Centre (CTTC) in Gambat. The training on offer was for the trades of plumber, electrician, welder, carpenter or mason. There was no educational requirement other than the ability to read and write Urdu which suited the man. Wahid applied and was selected to train as a mason.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Earlier, CWS had run similar training courses in Mansehra and nearby districts after the earthquake havoc of October 2005. Consequently, a large work force of young construction workers has since been at hand rebuilding the damaged villages. The centre in Gambat was on the lines of those that had been so successful in the north.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Classes were from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon leaving no time for a daily wage earning labourer like Wahid to work after hours. The upside was that there was the two hundred rupees-per day stipend for all trainees. Even though he was required to pay fifty rupees for the lunch provided by the centre, Wahid was still able to take home some money for the family to get along by. At the end of the three months, the government’s Trade Testing Board examined the trainees and issued certificates. Each successful candidate was to receive from CWS-PVDP a complete toolkit appropriate for his trade on the day the testing board issued the certificate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Early in June, Wahid Buksh, the unskilled labourer of only a few weeks earlier, went to work with a building contractor as a brick layer. I found him in a Gambat back street in the shade of a building preparing iron bars for the construction of columns at a nearby site. He pointed to the under-construction building with visible pride and said it was all his own handiwork. And it has to be admitted that the work was neat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In late July, seven weeks after he had graduated from the training centre, though he had passed the test, Wahid Buksh had not received his certification from the Trade Testing Board. Delays being normal in governmental working, he is not bothered. However, because of that he was still deficient of his mason’s kit and was obligated to work with a contractor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">‘I get six hundred rupees per day because I use my contractor’s tools. When I get my own equipment, I’ll be making eight hundred per day,’ says Wahid.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That is a darn sight better than being either a farm labourer or even a sharecropper. If things were good, he had to cope only with market fluctuations and his landlord’s cavalier attitude. Otherwise there was always the danger of floods or drought or crop failure. For the number of man hours he put in as a sharecropper, his net earnings were less than meagre. He also remembers times when he went into debt because of poor harvests – debts that took years to pay back. Now Wahid takes home a steady income and has a weekly day off to boot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Almost bashfully he notes that having been born in poverty and with only five grades of schooling, the end-all of his life once seemed to be farm labour or hauling bricks at constructions sites. He could not imagine himself a skilled brick layer so early on in life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Neither could the other seventy-four young men, all of them locals whose lives were destroyed by last year’s floods. With fifteen in each class, the Gambat centre turned out seventy-five trained technicians in the first batch. All of them immediately went either into self-employment or were hired by construction firms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dominic Stephen of PVDP says that given the educational level of these young men, there was no way they could have been gainfully employed. They would never have been anything but unskilled labourers, shop keepers or sharecroppers But now with just three months of training, they are useful members of the society sought after for their technical expertise.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When I was there, the second batch of seventy-five was half way through their session. Raza Hussain of village Khemtia was a shopkeeper until last year. Then the flood took his village shop and set him back by about three hundred thousand rupees. There was no question of being able to restart the business and so with a family to support, he resorted to unskilled labour until he enrolled in the training programme in June.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With a high school certificate to show for himself, he joined the electricians’ class and was doing rather well. ‘The way I see it,’ says he, ‘the stipend is equal to what I earned as an unskilled labourer. Then I had no future to look forward to. But now, after I graduate from the centre, I’ll be a trained and properly equipped electrician ready to go to work.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Initial funds provided by CWS for the CTTC were for only two sessions of seventy-five students each. However, even half way through the second session, the value and utility of the programme became more than evident and it was extended for a third session due to begin in September. But then funds will dry up and the centre will fold. Already dozens of young men come calling every day to ask why only flood-affected men are being trained and if there will be sessions for others as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dominic who supervised the establishment of the CTTC at Gambat is worried. At the end of the third session there will be two hundred and twenty-five technically trained men in the field. Going by the beneficiaries’’ own reports, the training and the complimentary toolkit has set them up as entrepreneurs as they could not have done on their own. Now the sky is the limit for these skilled technicians.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlg6nfraDyayFJWs9rK_4pwZVrzkREVAuHs8BREzooQGNxFE_K6Tk5H5koMUNKYriJAqpiTjwkfFRNter-ENmbcxEDaFEMg-oq4aZMZhDxhOExKx7Xvk9MoQaI3bNUGin2DnHNwBYIuWE/s1600/salmanrashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlg6nfraDyayFJWs9rK_4pwZVrzkREVAuHs8BREzooQGNxFE_K6Tk5H5koMUNKYriJAqpiTjwkfFRNter-ENmbcxEDaFEMg-oq4aZMZhDxhOExKx7Xvk9MoQaI3bNUGin2DnHNwBYIuWE/s400/salmanrashid.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">But the flood did not only disrupt the lives of these two hundred and twenty-five. There are countless more. There are also all those young men who have the will to learn but lack the required education to join the government’s poly-technic institutions. It is them that Dominic is looking out for: why should this facility not be extended to them?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even as you read this, PVDP is hard at work to raise funds to sustain this unique and very useful programme. The funds will arrive, that much is certain, but from where, it is hard to say. Meanwhile, the number of youngsters waiting in the wings to join grows by the day.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" /></a><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of several books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>, Riders on the Wind, Between two Burrs on the Map, Prisoner on a Bus and Sea Monsters and the Sun God. His work - explorations, traveling and writings - appears in almost all leading publications.</i></b> </div></div></div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-86231446039301762512011-08-17T22:11:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.888-07:00Handcrafted travel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVpgbeGk9G69JpH8aRrAMEdxrFfd59Wf86N_wqEOBoKGeDnYrfySTscgiiqCEnDEGt4k9v3JSMHYM1SLTz63J7NXikn8WT4V8XGMgkzQK1QHgJsWwp6JSs1LiZ-awazrM0g7lhQEhDc_zd/s1600/zicasso.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVpgbeGk9G69JpH8aRrAMEdxrFfd59Wf86N_wqEOBoKGeDnYrfySTscgiiqCEnDEGt4k9v3JSMHYM1SLTz63J7NXikn8WT4V8XGMgkzQK1QHgJsWwp6JSs1LiZ-awazrM0g7lhQEhDc_zd/s1600/zicasso.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Travel attractions – historic, heritage, natural, adventurous, ecological — are richly distributed all over the world inviting travelers, site seers, explorers, trekkers, and mountaineers to come and see. 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Change your plan with specialists who provide excellent service and value and choose the best trip plan have an enriching experience. </div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-11803390372719186942011-08-16T00:55:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.888-07:00Charles Masson in Rajasthan<a href="mailto:odysseuslahori@gmail.com">Salman Rashid</a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the autumn of 1826, Charles Masson, one of the more enigmatic travellers of his time, having passed through the Rajasthan desert arrived in the erstwhile State of Bahawalpur. Enigmatic he certainly was because under his pseudonym he traipsed around India pretending to be an American when, in reality, he was a deserted of the army of the East India Company. But he was a very gifted person: in fourteen years of travelling, from 1826 to 1840, in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan and Afganistan, Masson emerged as a man of great erudition. To this day he is acknowledged as one of the earliest, and ablest, numismatists and historians of this area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3pDnjZBtDNWy3wT0Zy9mHK479DXwhKh5tWNXVqF5fc2ozXlu7cJn5oWAfXEPAMecQfb1XtfVcP-fvU8axkKS7XQek6aLlbHhGcSUuHGTVJbdvHe10TVwDsx25ZRxQGKqpOoWV8yqsXk/s1600/salman+rashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd3pDnjZBtDNWy3wT0Zy9mHK479DXwhKh5tWNXVqF5fc2ozXlu7cJn5oWAfXEPAMecQfb1XtfVcP-fvU8axkKS7XQek6aLlbHhGcSUuHGTVJbdvHe10TVwDsx25ZRxQGKqpOoWV8yqsXk/s400/salman+rashid.JPG" width="400px" /></a></div><br />Time was when people read different meanings in his work. Many assumed he was a spy; perhaps for the Company itself, but ordinary readers have all along only enjoyed and benefited from his four-volume Narrative of Various Journeys. A quarter century ago when I first read Narrative, I undertook several short journeys in Masson’s footsteps to discover for myself the country he had known. One journey remained; and that was to Allahabad, in Masson’s time part of the State of Bahawalpur, now in Rahim Yar Khan district.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Masson had arrived in Ahmedpur, today better known as Dera Nawab Sahib, where he was ‘entirely prostrated’ by an ‘intermittent fever.’ To compound that, the Nawab of Bahawalpur not being available for an audience, he could not get along with a minor court functionary. And so, despite his fever, leaving his meagre baggage behind, he set out for Allahabad ‘taking nothing but my sword.’ His narrative gives not even the shadow of an idea of what the purpose of this visit was. Such secrecy perhaps gave rise to the notion that Masson was spying for someone though it beats me what he possibly could have sought in Allahabad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He tells us the distance between the two places was ‘twenty cosses’ (about seventy-five kilometres) which is a trifle exaggerated because Allahabad lies just fifty kilometres southeast of Dera Nawab Sahib. But his fever prevented Masson from travelling rapidly and he took over a week for the journey, in between pausing for three days at a roadhouse in the village of Varni. Like most inns of those times, this one was also run by a woman.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He was apparently well looked after by the inn-keeper because he was soon fit to resume the short march to Allahabad. Masson wrote, ‘The approach to this town was more pleasing than I had anticipated, for the jangal ceasing, I came upon a rivulet of running water, beyond which stretched a large expanse of meadow, and in the distance I beheld the cupola of the principal mosque of the place, embosomed in groves of date-trees.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the years I had learned that it is impossible to expect the scenery to be even remotely as described by Victorian travellers, but somehow Allahabad remained fixed in my mind as a village that might still be picturesque. Just outside the village, again overcome by fever-induced fatigue, Masson rested under a spreading pipal tree near which he noted a pavilion. Later he saw several other such buildings and commented on their simple yet elegant style of construction. Allahabad evidently lay in the middle of a shikargah for Masson writes that the Nawab of Bahawalpur used these as hunting pavilions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As evening fell, Masson left the shady pipal and approached the town. At the entrance he was greeted by a ‘well-dressed person’ who immediately invited him to his home. There this kindly person called the local physicians to minister to his guest’s health. But Masson was not convinced that the ‘conserve of roses and sugar-candy’ could cure his fever and so he got the local barber to bleed him in both arms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thereafter Masson recovered quickly. Surely the generous spread that his host Salam Khan Daudpotra daily laid out for him had much to do with his recovery. If his treatment at Dera Nawab was niggardly, this good man left Masson quite breathless with his kindness and largesse. And when it came time for Masson to return to Dera Nawab, he rode on horseback with Salam Khan acting as escort.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unlike Masson, I approached Allahabad from the south and not on foot but in a car. The ‘jangal’ of his time was gone and the countryside lay fallow after the cotton harvest. From the distance the town, sitting on a high mound, even today looked rather picturesque with its central part dominated by tall brick buildings but the mosque Masson had seen was nowhere visible. Imran, my guide, was waiting for me at the union council office and without wasting any time took me walkabout.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We stopped at a haveli undergoing some repair work. The family had come to Allahabad from Patiala in 1947 and the patriarch, about seventy, mouthed the big untruth that we all like to so believe: ‘This is a tiny house. In India Muslims had the biggest palaces ever.’ Few rich Muslims left their homes in India; it was only the poor and some of the middle class and only after we arrived here and took over evacuee properties did we invent stories of the riches we had left behind. These yarns became gospel for succeeding generations until the unpleasant truth of past poverty was lost in it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The beautifully carved timber door into the main family room was so thickly plastered with off-white paint that I cringed: it would take serious sand-blasting to restore this one. But I know, even before this building can be rescued for preservations, this door will be wrenched out and sold for a few rupees. In its place they’ll content themselves with a lousy chipboard thing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though the ground floor façade had been painted a similar shade, the delightful brickwork of the first floor was still intact. The arrangement of cut-brick florets in zigzagging lines to create a pleasing array of squares together with pyramids, inverted as well as right side up, caught the eye. Above this panel were five arches, two of them open, two with windows and one blind. Square wrought iron fanlights, eight in all, surmounted the arches and above ran another repetition of cut-brick trimming. We were led to the upstairs rooms to check out the gaily painted ceilings that echo across this country from Sindh to northern Punjab.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This house could not have been built earlier than the 1930s and whoever it was that spent a pretty penny on it from his hard-earned money, sadly could not live very long in it. I wondered if the real owners had ever returned for a visit. Would they have wept? Or did a strange equanimity come over them? Do they still keep their ownership documents and hope they can one day return in better times to reclaim what is theirs? To reciprocate, will these people return to Patiala to the untruth of the palaces they very likely do not wish their children to know?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We checked out a number of other havelis, but all of them in advanced stages of dilapidation were locked and abandoned. Imran, my young guide, said it was too expensive to restore these buildings inside the narrow alleys because the only way to get building material in was either to man haul or by donkey. A two-rupee brick, he said, could cost as much as eight in the central part of town. Consequently people were simply moving on, letting these priceless buildings, raised by others, to fall to pieces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Imran walked me around the entire central part of Allahabad. The narrow streets of the bazaar were roofed with tattered jute matting to keep out the intense summer heat, just as Masson had seen it. Otherwise, the shop fronts now had steel shuttering instead of the old-fashioned timber doors. Everywhere we saw abandoned buildings in various stages of decay and heaps of debris. The new children of Allahabad who mostly seem to have come from Patiala have not looked after their town well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since the Daupotras are now also surnamed either Abbasi or Kalhora and because I wanted to meet with a descendent of the good Salam Khan who tended to Masson, I asked if any of the two clans lived in Allahabad. There was one Kalhora who was ‘more than a hundred years old’, said Imran. This man lived some ways outside the town, but he could reportedly not remember anything. My guide did not know of any other old Daudpotra family native to the town nor had he ever heard anyone flaunting the name of Salam Khan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This thing about a plethora of centenarians in Pakistan is hogwash and when I said so, Imran told me there was one who was a hundred and twenty-five years old. A local journalist was called who had interviewed the man only six months before my visit and his Urdu newspaper piece, which he brought along for my edification, said so. I said it could mathematically be proved that this was nothing but rubbish and so with the journalist in tow we drove a few kilometres from town to meet with this marvel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The man was clearly about eighty or so. He said his age was forty-five and I thought we had another gaga on our hands. But then he corrected himself: ‘One hundred and forty-five.’ On my prompting, the journalist said the last time he had seen him, the old man had said he was a hundred and twenty something and now, within the space of six months, he had aged twenty years. The man did not remember if he had been interviewed, but he insisted he remembered the onset of the First World War when he was in his ‘thirties and married with grown children.’</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A little bit more quizzing and I realised that it was the Second World War the man was talking about. I tried to tell him that if he was in his thirties in the First and nearly a century and a half now, we must be living in the year 2029. Simple arithmetic not being their forte, no one seemed to understand what I was carrying on about. Also everyone being so proud of having such a Methuselah amongst them, they did not wish to believe otherwise. I tried another angle and his son, about my age, shut me up saying he was already seventy therefore his father could not be any younger than he said he was.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The usual tripe about pure and good food was trotted out. I angrily turned on the man about what good food a poor man could afford. A hundred years ago, a handful of millets was all anyone as poor as they said they were could get for a meal a day. Good food, I cruelly rubbed it in, meant fresh fruit, vegetables, beans, dairy and some meat. But reason shall not prevail. We left the octogenarian and his son convinced that the man was a century and a half old. Indeed, even the journalist was not impressed by the sums I did to show that the man did not know what he was talking about.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPaGQJddluj52kXPnol3HNYeB9-Gqryu_qsStqN6in7y4DjHUFilRlSJrSn6yv-GEw4kGKJIs0998X2sT7xNli6Abs0REC6wgVS5dJA3ZYZLKqkWse5ydrFHfrSHokYuOpp9OSIme_JkE/s1600/salmanrashid.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPaGQJddluj52kXPnol3HNYeB9-Gqryu_qsStqN6in7y4DjHUFilRlSJrSn6yv-GEw4kGKJIs0998X2sT7xNli6Abs0REC6wgVS5dJA3ZYZLKqkWse5ydrFHfrSHokYuOpp9OSIme_JkE/s400/salmanrashid.JPG" width="400px" /></a></div><br />Allahabad keeps some of its old flavour, but Masson would scarcely recognise it today. What little remains will be lost in a few years. If it were within my province, I would declare Allahabad a national heritage site, acquire some of the better homes and set them up as show pieces. But then dreams are not horses.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcRtlg5UFJLE-I3ldmAHGdOoSVuMdqdrxSqoQBr7hy5F4KuHHkfAjhGndyoXcGEjFcksU59XJS7QLU99_uUT-nK01jNfi3MGPC9J212X5hxq6X1p9ruybHXI7xcs-27vTb6q6QpFgjpeg/s1600/salman+rashid.bmp" /></a><b><i>Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/search/label/Salman%20Rashid">Salman Rashid</a> is author of several books including <a href="http://doodhpatti.blogspot.com/2010/08/jhelum-city-of-vitasta.html">jhelum: City of the Vitasta</a> and <a href="http://logicisvariable.blogspot.com/2011/02/apricot-road-to-yarkand.html">The Apricot Road to Yarkand</a>, Riders on the Wind, Between two Burrs on the Map, Prisoner on a Bus and Sea Monsters and the Sun God. His work - explorations, traveling and writings - appears in almost all leading publications.</i></b> </div>lori-cachia3358http://www.blogger.com/profile/09303196398024952931noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6866407053185557626.post-8798930270268171782011-08-16T00:44:00.000-07:002011-10-20T19:16:09.888-07:00Aprons<div style="text-align: justify;">Take the monotony out of your household chore and routine of life by adding the exciting apron by <a href="http://productimpex.com/">Product Impex</a>? We offer any type or style of apron for multiple usages. Approach us and we will custom aprons for your unique settings. For home use, we offer 2-ply construction, sturdy yet soft fabric, strong stitching and darling cuts. We will uniquely design any fabric they way you need. Product Impex aprons commit to having the highest quality aprons out there, with that perfect soft-cotton feel. 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