Pakistan’s Golden Thrones

Tommy Heinrich, a photographer for the National Geographic Magazine and a mountaineer from Argentina, launched his book of photographs from mountains of Pakistan on Saturday at the Governor’s House.

The book titled Pakistan’s Golden Thrones is a joint effort by the Argentinean Embassy, Bago Laboratories, Argentina and Ferozsons Laboratories Limited, Pakistan.Ferozsons CEO Osman Khalid Waleed also spoke on the occasion while Argentinean Ambassador to Pakistan Rodolfo Martin Saravia and Punjab Governor Latif Khosa also addressed the function.All of them endorsed the collaboration between the two countries for this cultural experience and to show the beauty of Pakistan’s natural landscapes.

They concurred that this cultural exchange was an ‘excuse’ to strengthen bilateral relations. Heinrich, who is the first Argentinean to climb the Mount Everest, told Pakistan Today that this was his sixth visit to Pakistan and he was very impressed and awestruck by the beauty of the mountains, which fringed the northern borders.

“I made my first visit in 1997 and since then I have been under the spell of Pakistani mountains. Other than Pakistan I have also climbed mountains in Nepal,” he said.

“I began to then compile my pictures that I had taken there and to bring them in book form and though it was no easy task to select these pictures, I was supported by my countrymen. I am thankful to Pakistan for letting me see these places and to experience them and make them part of my life,” the photographer said.

Summits of K2 are yet other places that he has been to. “K2 was a lot more difficult than Everest in that it was much steeper and more dangerous to climb,” he revealed. “At times it got really dangerous and I did feel nervous and scared; other times we braved on.

Up there, there is a lot of air pressure, mist and it is extremely cold,” he said. Heinrich has managed to climb around 8,000 metres of K2, and says that he includes it in one of his biggest achievements.

About Tommy Heinrich: Tommy Heinrich was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He began climbing at an early age in northern Patagonia and the high mountains of the Andes. After graduating with a degree in Animal Sciences, Tommy departed for the US, from where he traveled for over 15 years throughout the world combining his passion for photography and climbing the highest and remotest mountains.

He has also been on an assignment for the National Geographic Magazine, where he photographed a Polish team doing a winter ascent of Nanga Parbat, located in Pakistan, which at 8.125 meters is the 9th highest mountain in the world. In 1995, he became the first person from Argentina to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Along with Brad Bull from the US, Apa Sherpa, Nima Rita, Arita and Lobsang Jangbu Sherpa, from Nepal they were the only six people to reach the summit of Everest through the South Col route during the entire 1995.

Member of 10 Himalayan expeditions, he is the only person from Argentina to reach the summit of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world. In 1993, he did a solo ascent of Cholatse in Nepal, a 22,000 feet mountain in the Everest region. He has done several successful ascents of Aconcagua, the first one Solo in 1992. He has also done several first ascents of unnamed peaks in the Andes region. Through the years, he has done many alpine and rock climbing ascents in the US, Thailand and Argentina.

Heinrich has done many big wall ascents in California's Yosemite Valley, El Capitan, Half Dome, Liberty Cap and many other challenging rock routes in the valley. He was hired to photograph and also film expeditions to Mt. Everest, Dhaulagiri and Aconcagua by CBS, Dish Network, and Canal 13 from Argentina. Heinrich’s film footage was shown on CBS, Discovery, CNN, Univision and most TV networks in Argentina. While working with photographer Doug Menuez, he assisted in commercial photo shoots for Versace, ABN Chicago Bank, Ford Motors Ltd, Levis Strauss, Verizon and others.

He has documented both on film and photo, World Polo Championships in Argentina, England and France. He attended Rich Clarkson's photography workshops given by National Geographic and Sports Illustrated staff, specializing in nature, adventure and sports photography. His photographs have been published in catalogs and magazines in the US, Argentina and Europe.

Travels in Siberia

Robert Reid

Most people equate ‘Siberia‘ with a freezing expanse of Gulags, or a joyless place to escape from — or maybe just the worst table in your favourite restaurant back home. But for Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia, this region without defined boundaries (and 150 million mammoths embedded in its sea of permafrost) is something of an ultimate destination.

Captured in the early ‘90s by the ‘independent force’ of ‘Russia-love’, Frazier spent 17 exhaustive years researching and writing of a land he calls ‘both great and horrible’. Ultimately Frazier is left to quote poet Fyodor Tyutchev: ‘Russia cannot be understood by the mind… all you can do is believe in her.’

One can begin to believe by reading Frazier’s Travels in Siberia, which follows five of his trips to Russia’s wild east (even bumping into Lonely Planet author Simon Richmond at one point). A champion of curiosity (or a slave to it), Frazier takes it on largely through the lens of those who’ve gone before, frequently quoting works by Siberian explorers, jailed poets or Decembrists, curious Ohioans (such as himself) and uppity priests.

It’s frequently breathless and thrilling, though less humorous than some of Frazier’s writings. Readers may breeze over some of the historical passages or obscure quotes after awhile. But several scenes from his present-day Siberia adventures, in particular, defy forgetfulness.

Frazier writes of cross-country drivers being stopped at roadside weddings and detained for days by good-natured revelers, or poachers he met who touchingly gave him their freshly caught salmon after learning of 9/11. He even pegs the unique smell of the Russian continent (a mix of diesel, cucumber, tea bags, sour milk and jam). Most memorable is a full three-page quote from a Severobaikalsk gardener who sweetly recounts a pink flamingo falling from the sky. I’ve never seen a passage that better dismisses the all-too-common misperception that Russians are heartless, grim-faced meanies.

If he leans too often to dusty bookshelves from libraries back home, it’s forgiven by the glimpse of a misunderstood region. And his frequent restraint. While most writers would fill a book out of an ambitious 9000-mile roadtrip in a broken-down Renault van with two Russian guides that finishes on September 11, 2001, Frazier gives it just about a third of the book’s 530 pages.

The book finishes, marvelously, with an unfinished, final passage taken from a Decembrist’s diary, perhaps suggesting that Siberia is a destination that’s never really arrived at.

I know the feeling. I too have endured the pleasures and pains of the ‘Russia-love’ Frazier writes about. My first visit was within a year of Frazier’s, and I’ve since angled my way onto several Lonely Planet titles to satisfy my Russia itch. I’ve seen more of the region than many will, or would want, to see – lost Soviet towns, decaying off of secondary train lines. Each time I come back home feeling bruised, reeling and complaining from a country that’s never easy to visit. And I always want more.

Books by Salman Rashid

Gujranwala: The Glory That Was
Hardcover, Sang-e-Meel Publications, ISBN 9693501918 (969-35-0191-8)

Jhelum: City of the Vitasta
Hardcover, Sang-e-Meel Publications, ISBN 9693517342 (969-35-1734-2)

Prisoner on a Bus: Travels through Pakistan
Hardcover, Sang-e-Meel Publications, ISBN 9693515250 (969-35-1525-0)

Salt Range and Potohar Plateau
Hardcover, Sang-e-Meel Publications, ISBN 969351257X (969-35-1257-X)

Sea Monsters and the Sun God: Travels in Pakistan
Hardcover, Sang-e-Meel Publications

Te Apricot Road to Yarkand
Hardcover, Sang-e-Meel Publications

Ava Gardner in Lahore

Owais Mughal

This photo was taken on April 22, 1955 and it shows American actress Ava Gardner at Lahore Railway Station. She was in Lahore for the filming of Hollywood Movie ‘Bhowani Junction‘. When Ava came to Lahore, there was only one reasonable hotel in Lahore. It is still there – Falletis. The suite in which Ava stayed has been named after her – “The Ava Gardner suite”. In it’s lounge one could see a beautiful large size, black & white portrait of Ava Gardner smiling.

‘Bhowani Junction‘ is the name of a novel by John Masters which came out in 1952. Bhowani Junction In mid 50s Hollywood decided to make a movie out of it. The movie is set amidst the turbulence of the British withdrawal from India. It is notable for its portrayal of the Eurasian (Anglo-Indian) community, who were closely involved with the Indian railway system. The film was directed by George Cukor, and was shot on location in Lahore, Pakistan. It starred Ava Gardner as Victoria Jones, an Anglo-Indian nurse in the British Army, and Stewart Granger as Colonel Rodney Savage, a British army officer.

I found following review of movie plot at The Internet Movie Database

The town of Bhowani is a railroad junction and both the Congress Party and the Communist Party are doing all kinds of sabotage to help the British quickly get out of India. Of course each is doing it for their own reasons. In the movie, two people who may have given the outstanding performances of their careers are Ava Gardner and Bill Travers. Both play bi-racial people who don’t fit in either society. But they react differently. Gardner is going through a whole lot of angst, really seeing both the British and Indian point of view.

Bill Travers is the railroad station manager and his whole life is his job. He focuses narrowly on that and his tunnel vision leaves him oblivious to the momentous changes around him. Except for the fact that when the British leave he might lose that little piece of authority where he is, that which gives him stature in the Raj society.

In the movie, the issues are complex, but in the hands of a great director like George Cukor the characters and their struggles become real and even more important, the audience becomes interested. Stewart Granger who was the British Colonel in charge of the whole mess in Bhowani, said that Bhowani Junction was one of the few films he was really proud to be associated with. He has a struggle to, he really does see the Indians as human beings and not just “wogs.” He’s quite knowledgeable about their customs and at one point utilizes that knowledge to unjam that railroad terminal.

Pakistan’s famous writer Mustansar Hussain Tarar‘s has mentioned at least at two places and dedicated a whole chapter in his book ‘raakh’ on the making of Bhowani Junction. While I cannot tell if all of account is real or fictional, there is certainly some degree of truth to it.

Read Urdu and English excerpt from ‘raakh’ on Bhowani Junction at ATP.

Follow Doodh Patti on Facebook and follow sAJs on Twitter for much more.

jhelum: City of the Vitasta

Salman Rashid’s “Jhelum: City of the Vitasta” is a worthy, lively, and very well-researched book that entertains as well as informs. It richly succeeds in uncovering the truth about the name of the ancient town and smashing unfounded legends while bringing an evolution vividly to life in the process.

Where has the name Jhelum come from? Salman Rashid writes, “Local ‘historians’ were assiduously applied to the task of inventing history. Sometime since the first European historian did his research in the area and the present, ‘Jhelum’ had become the name of Alexander’s horse. I was surprised to discover locally printed histories carrying on and on about famous horse that dies at Jhelum and gave the town its name.

All of these so called histories have been printed in the last thirty or so years which implies that this industry of pseudo-history became fashionable in the recent past.”

From ‘an ordinary village’ Jhelum city came of age during the British Raj. “Two things are evident, One, that Jhelum never matured as a trading town, that whatever scant marchandize could be seen in its bazaars was the leavings of the limited trade transiting through here. Secondly, in the presence of the busier ferries of Jalalpur, Haranpur and, even despite its bitter ground water, Pind Dadan Khan, Jhelum was the less preferred crossing point. Indeed, at the point of annexation in 1849 by the British, the town contained only five hundred houses. That is, its population was not much above three thousand souls. A far cry from a rich and prosperous town,” narrates Salman Rashid.

Jhelum district lies on the route that was taken by all conquerors and invaders coming from the north. Journeying back and forth through history, Salman Rashid narrates the interesting tales the District has to tell from Alexander era, to Mughal period and British Raj.

The book is based upon the study of history of the district and its people, which is then backed upon by field notes and incisive observations. The writer also documents the history woven around Fort Rohtas and Till Balanath (Tilla Jogi) and how important was Jehlum on the Railway Map or for the timber trade.

Salman Rashid is a famous travel-writer of Pakistan. Remember TV Serial Nagri Nagri Ghum Musafar. He is writing in the major English language newspapers and magazines of the country. As a travel writer he has the talent George Orwell spotted in Dickens as a novelist, for details, florid little squiggles. Since 1983 when he discovered his ability to tell a tale, he has written countless articles, and has six books including Prisoner on the Bus, The Salt Range and the Potohar Plateau, Gujranwala, the glory that was, Riders on the wind. Sarwat Ali once wrote, “He draws his inspiration from the writers of history who treated their subject as a grand denouement of a dramatic plot with historical personages as characters. He is thus far away from those academic historians who establish a thesis and then laboriously fill in data to prove their assumptions.”

"Salman Rashid is not a historian, neither is he a social scientist; he basically loves to write about places and people with the zest and passion that is more the forte of creative writing. This strength can easily turn into a flaw, but he knows when to stop and puts an end to the surge of passion before it freewheels from the umbilical cord of history into fantasy."

Accompanied by dozens of images, hundred of interviews with those who carry the lore (also myths and legends) and sifting heresy from what are the substantiated facts, and as a result of many visits to the dusty old record rooms, Salman Rashid’s book is much more than a history; it is a heartfelt chronicle that evokes the atmosphere of a Jhelum district that is distinctly ancient.

Jhelum: City of the Vitasta is a mosaic of history, archeology, geography, folklore and travelogue. The book is a must read for those searching for the answers to riddles in history. Jhelum: City of the Vitasta is a smooth and enjoyable trip to the boardwalk, and is densely packed with facts and details for historians everywhere. Well-written and wonderfully presented, the book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in subcontinent history starting from Alexander’s days. I highly recommend it.

Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, Salman Rashid is author of eight books including The Apricot Road to Yarkand