Deosai Life
28 June 2016
Image from DEOSAI: THE LAND OF THE GIANT - available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Related: Deosai Truths - Book Review by F. S. Aijazuddin, Podcast on BBC Radio
Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Photo Stream, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The typical Pakistani conversation
27 June 2016
Pakistanis are strange people. They ask you a question with no intention of hearing a response. There is a very tiny, very, very tiny, lot of truly educated persons who when they ask mean to be told. The remainder only banter in the course of which when they have to pose a question, they really have no intention of knowing your view on it.
Shortly after I quit the army in 1978, I started out making fun of army officers. When I with my long hair and unkempt beard introduced myself to someone as an ex of their profession the question following my regimental identity usually was where I had served.
‘Five of my six and a half years of commissioned service, I served in Kharian....’ I would begin. That was cue for my interlocutor to cut in: ‘Once I was in Kharian....’ and there would ensue an endless narration of how great Kharian was in antediluvian times. Notice how every fauji will use ‘once’ instead of ‘when’ and notice too how glorious a place as dreary as Kharian seems after one has left it.
Read more »Labels: About, Life, Pakistan, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Russians and the Saint
23 June 2016
In the latter years of the 19th century, the British Indian government undertook to delineate the border between their Balochistan possessions and the countries of Afghanistan and Iran. This boundary commission was led by Henry McMahon and with him he had a full complement of ancillary staff like surveyors and draughtsmen etc. The angular lines of the western boundary of Pakistan’s Balochistan that abuts on its Iranian counterpart in the west and on Afghanistan to the north are a result of those four years of hard fieldwork.
One among McMahon’s staff was a surveyor by the name of G. P. Tate, my predecessor as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Tate went on to write two books: Siestan that deals with the archaeology and history of the part of Balochistan that is shared by Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan and The Frontiers of Baluchistan (sic) that tells of his years of survey work in that harsh and barren land of sandstorms that blister the skin in summer and chill the bones in winter.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, History
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Trek to the Source of the Khenji River
22 June 2016
Two years ago my article on a journey to the Dog’s Grave, the second highest peak in the Khirthar Mountains, and my use of the words of H. T. Lambrick elicited a response from friend Raheal Siddiqui. He said the words I quoted, were used by Lambrick for another part of the Khirthar: the Khenji River and not the Sita that I had trekked along. Ever since he had wanted me to trek on the Khenji as well, but it was always one thing or the other that kept me until ten days ago.
In Larkana Raheal packed me off to the dusty little village of Warah where my fat, pot-bellied, bhung-drinking friend Wali Mohammed waited at the otaq of Tharo Khan Chandio, the local chief. A tea ceremony was followed by a visit to the local grocery with Tharo Khan’s driver fidgeting endlessly and reminding us how late it was getting and that we would not arrive at the village of Rahu jo Aitho before nightfall if we did not hurry. Yet we did not hurry. The tired Suzuki jeep rattled along raising a thick cloud of cloying dust on the bank of a saline drain. We passed the reedy shores of Daba Lake and then we were clattering over hard, stony ground. On the outskirts of the rare settlement ugly crop-eared brutes came out to bark our wheels out of their jurisdiction. They raced alongside, snarling menacingly and, seeing that our jeep so much the bigger than themselves, did not have the nerve to stand and fight turned back with some satisfaction.
Labels: Prisoner on a Bus: Travels Through Pakistan, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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What do you believe in?
14 June 2016
I used to believe in all sorts of rubbish. Like the Earth being round and it revolving around the sun. I also believed things that I saw – but that too half because I was never sure if my eyes were not playing tricks on me. And I never believed most of what I heard from ordinary folks.
Illustration by Zehra Nawab
Things changed about ten years ago. I had walked up to the crest of the Makra peak in Kaghan and on the way back hitched a ride in a jeep with a bunch of Lahoris returning to Shogran. The leader – a Butt from Kashmiri Mohalla, who by Lahori aesthetics was handsome: tall, fat and fair-skinned – having ascertained that I had spent a few nights camping on the nearby Lake Saiful Muluk, was full of questions.
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Alexander’s Progeny: My Foot
13 June 2016
‘The Lost Children of Alexander the Great: A journey to the Pagan Kalash People of Pakistan.’ Such is the title of a story published in what I suppose is a blog called Huffpost Travel. The author is some shithead idiot named Brian Glyn Williams. Moron Williams claims to be ‘Professor of Islamic History, U Mass Dartmouth.’
The story, and I confess I did not read it, is a travel story of a journey made to Rumbur Valley in Chitral by some semi-literate idiots from somewhere. I did not read it because every time I read anything like the title I begin this blog with, I see red. I want to kick the writer until he is castrated. And if she is a woman, I want to tell her that she is the finest example to cite when we wish to prove women are mentally deficient. (In normal life I do not believe this to be true.)
Read more »Labels: Alexander, Historic Myths, History
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Deosai Plateau
07 June 2016
Moors with luxurious grasses rising to the knee, dotted with the tarns, some over four meters deep, with crystal-clear water where snow carp glide lazily, reflect fleecy grey-white thunderheads in a signature setting of Deosai Plateau [Image from Deosai: Land of the Giant].
Book is available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Photo Stream, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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